NAIROBI – The Ol’ Sudanese Refugee Trick

Nairobi has a fearsome reputation among the world’s cities. One of the most dangerous, one of the most crime ridden, every tourist is guaranteed to be robbed / stolen / mutilated etc. etc…. As with most such reputations it is, of course, mostly undeserved. The dangers of Nairobi are well away from the CBD; which is constantly being patrolled by police and private security firms. The trick with any city like Nairobi is to memorize where you’re heading to on a map and then simply to follow the Doctor Who advice for new places: just wander around like you own the place.

Nairobi’s problems, I find, have less to do with crime and more to do with the fact it’s a really very annoying city. Wandering around the streets and markets of Nairobi is the single most irritating experience you can have in a major city. On practically every single block you’ll meet someone who wants to open a conversation. And, in every single case, these conversations are leading to you hopefully handing over some money. I would like to say that these are exceptions but, no, sadly I didn’t have a single conversation on the streets of Nairobi which didn’t end up this way (and I was happy to speak to everyone who I could; at least until the twelfth or so time when pure exhaustion kicked in) Let’s run through some of the characters you might meet on the streets of central Nairobi:

1) Safari Salesmen
Stand outside travel agencies with cards and brochures and, of course, attempt to sell safaris.

2) Taxi Drivers
Same as above, but with taxis rather than safaris.

3) Market Boys
Met at the entrance to street markets. Or, indeed, several blocks away. They’ll wander in with you and follow you around. Any attempt to ask them to leave is met with an insistence that they must stay with you because “markets work differently here” and you need them to help you make purchases. And, of course, you don’.

4) Refugees / Refugee police
These folks are involved in a highly elaborate scam which involves them being a Sudanese refugee with a scholarship to come study in your country, and if they can only get 40 / 50 dollars to get out of Kenya they can escape. After dealing with them, you head around the corner and meet a couple of ‘police’ who are looking for illegal refugees. Apparently this has been going on for decades but, sadly for them, in the era of 419 e-mail scams, the formulaic scamming is all rather sad.

(N.B. Obviously this is not reflective of the entire breadth of such a cosmopolitan city as Nairobi; these are merely a few particular brands of local who happen to stand out on a visit to the city as they’re encountered so frequently)


Some of the many birds in the national museum. Ah, swallows. African and European as well. If only they listed the speeds when they're flying unladen...

On their own, these are annoyances. But after half a dozen city blocks the ‘wandering around a city’ part of wandering around the city becomes exhausting. Which is a shame as that’s my favourite part of being in a new city. So, instead, it’s time to go see a bit of Nairboi’s cultural quarter and go hit the National Museum. Like Nairobi itself, the museum is a slightly confusing place to navigate. First of all, you have to get into the place. The museum was apparently designed to be as difficult as possible to reach on foot; and is strangely located in a piece of park directly opposite a casino. Inside, there’s a whole range of conflicting design styles and dispirit exhibits. The first chambers are large and lofty, with just a few minimalist displays of art and pottery. Wander through a couple of doors, though, and you quickly find yourself in cramped corridors weaving through hundreds of stuffed birds. There’s a rough distinction made between natural history exhibits on the ground floor and human history above; but some of the temporary exhibits don’t seem to belong anywhere. A particularly incongruous contribution on display whilst I was in town was a photography exhibit which featuring the entire Manchester United squad holding doves. Oh, and Sir. Alex Ferguson as well. Really.


The mammal room in Nairobi National Museum. The skeleton in the middle is a real elephant. The others? Not quite so real.

In amongst the madness, there are some gems buried away. There’s a very impressive elephant skeleton in the mammal room featuring some almighty tusks. Most excitingly, though, is a room which is somewhat hidden away in back of the human exhibits (check out the *hilarious* DVD slideshow if you make it that far.) This chamber, which looks like every futuristic bank vault you’ve ever seen in the movies, houses a number of glass cases containing skull fragments. These skulls, found in East Africa, are some of the oldest found anywhere in the world, dating back millions of years. It’s a small, understated display of breathtaking finds. The only detraction from the wonder comes from the the bizarrely cheap waxworks depicting neanderthal life which have been erected in one corner.


A screenshot from the 'history of humanity' video at the museum. There's other great moments, but this caption is my favourite.

After scouring the depths of the museum, it was time to go shopping. Despite the annoying presence of over enthusiastic hawkers, Nairobi really does boast a fine selection of every type of tourist craft you can imagine. In fact, it’s rather too fine a selection. The problem in Nairobi’s Central Market is that every store features the same collection of beautifully made but absolutely identical wares. From ebony statues of elephants to Massai beads; there’s often no questioning the quality but there is a problem finding anything distinctive. And that’s a problem with me because, if I do find myself souvenir shopping, then I’m going to be looking for genuine tourist tack. I don’t want a beautiful soapstone carving of something which is identical to all the other millions of soapstone carvings in every other city store. I want something so utterly horrendous; so devoid of any charm, that it surely must be a one in a million or the universe is doomed to failure. Thankfully, on my careful scouring of Nairobi’s many tiny emporiums, I finally found a piece of tack worthy of my purchase.


My favourite piece of Nairobi tack. How long and hard I had to work to find such a beautiful piece of ugliness!

A successful shopping trip behind me, and a fine meal of sizzling Kenya stew in front of me, I was able to reflect on the fact that Nairobi certainly isn’t the worst city on Earth. It’s a fairly boring piece of urban design, but it there are streets of tiny stores and curios for the wanderer (touts aside) It also has another, interesting, virtue: it makes you want to get out as soon as possible. Whether it be at the beginning of a trip and you’re heading for a game reserve or a smaller town. Or you’re at the end and perhaps feeling wistful that you want to stay in Kenya just a while longer. Nairobi chews you up and spits you out; and spurs you on for the next phase of your trip wherever that may be. And in a country where supreme natural beauty and the general friendliness of rural life is a much bigger draw than the cities, anyway; that’s actually not a bad thing.