Monday, October 3, 2011

Where Is The Love?

Surely the person who coined the term "Mean Streets" must have lived in downtown Nairobi at some point.

Though I cannot say that I experienced anything specifically untoward, the vibe in the downtown area is such that I'm fairly certain that I could have been knifed in the back and relegated to a garbage pile to die a lingering death and not one passerby would stop, lest they suffer the same fate.

The unease that permeates the core is palpable. There are plenty of white people living in Nairobi, but I did not see one of them as I nervously scurried about, and I got the distinct impression that the people I did see would much rather be somewhere else.

Certainly I've been intimidated many times throughout my travels, but that was due to a lack of familiarity as much as anything else.

One of the reasons I like to travel  is to prove to myself and others that fear of the wider world is mostly irrational.

However, Nairobi is a place where one should carry a healthy sense of fear, and if you're in downtown "Nairobbery" and you're not at least a little bit frightened then there is something deeply wrong with you.

Either that or you're Spiderman.

And if you wonder why there are no pictures with this post it is because I decided that I wanted to keep my camera with me for the rest of the journey.

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