Hosting a Prostitute

During my days as a taxi driver, we used to say that the Nairobi nights belonged to three groups of people. These were security guards, taxi drivers, and prostitutes. They were the people who remained in town when everybody else went home. They were privy to a lot of activities which the rest of you only here about in the media. Earlier on in my career, I learnt to respect these fellow “people of the night”. Those who failed to know this found work and life in general, rather difficult in the city.

There is a famous place in Nairobi known as Koinange street. It is rather “innocent” in the daytime. However, at night it becomes the Kenyan red light district. The ladies of the night start streaming in from 8 p.m. when most “ordinary” people have gone home. While Koinange street is the most famous, it is by no means the only street patronised by the twilight sisters. There is Muindi Bingu street which runs parallel to Koinange, and City Hall Way which cuts across the two. I came to learn that these ladies are highly territorial and nobody dares to venture into another’s turf. I also heard that night-time Nairobi has its owners in the form of parking boys (or parking men since many are all grown up now). The ladies have to buy their spots from the parking men using the same services that they offer their clients…Eeeeel!

As I continued learning about the city, I also came to discover other roads outside of the CBD with the ladies of the night. A particularly notorious one was a road known as Westlands road within the affluent suburb of Westlands. The amazing thing was that the number of these women was constantly increasing with each passing day. This by extension increased the length of road covered by the skimpily dressed girls.

While I found all of the above places occupied by the time I came to Nairobi, there is one territory that I personally witnessed being established. When I moved to Babylon base, the area was quite “decent” even at night. One day as I was driving back to base in the dead of the night, I noticed the shiny legs in the shadows at a bus stop. At first it appeared as if it was somebody waiting for the bus, but at that hour, it was improbable. I didn’t think much of it until several days later I saw the same girl at the same spot. By now, my colleagues had noticed her too. After some weeks there was a second girl a few meters away, then a third, then a fourth. Several months later, the cooing girls lined the whole stretch between Hurlingham and Yaya center.

Since there were no restaurants open at night outside the city center, there used to be some women who served tea and bread by the roadside at night. They would bring in their kerosene stoves to keep the supply constant throughout the night. This ensured that us “creatures” of the night did not sleep cold and hungry. Initially these creatures had only been taxi drivers and security guards, but now we also had our sisters. The tea women really detested the prostitutes and they used to treat them differently from the men. For instance, they did not serve them tea in cups. Instead, they used to fashion out disposable cups from the empty milk packets. They did this because, as they put it, “You can’t tell where that mouth has been or what it has just done”.

With time, the regular girls became part of the community and on “slow” nights we would chat as we willed the hours away. These women had interesting stories on how they ended up doing what they did. Some did it out of poverty while others were in it for fun, like one who had once been married by a Japanese expatriate. Whenever he was out of the country, she always went to the street. One day he came back unexpectedly and he could not believe his eyes when he saw his wife trying to hook up with him as he was driven past in a taxi. As expected, he divorced her allowing her to get back on the street on a full time basis.

Some of the women were permanently high on drugs and would do crazy things. Like there was this one who, when business was low would charge 20 shillings for a “peek.” I remember one time when some of the crazier drivers were idle on base and wanted to be shown. None of them had the required twenty bob and so they had to do an impromptu fundraising. When the money was enough, the beautiful but heavily stoned girl stepped on the nearest car’s bumper and did her thing. It is a sad picture when I look back now.

There used to be many crack downs when the police would come and arrest the girls. They would then be put in a police cell and arraigned in court the following day. Those with rich friends would be bailed out during the night. The police would take advantage of the younger and more attractive ones making them to buy their freedom in kind. The rest would have to appear in court. During one such breakdown, one of them came running to me and tearfully begged me to let her hide in my car. I was touched and let her in. During the time that the crackdown lasted, she narrated to me how she had been forced into prostitution. She had been raped by her teacher back in the village and got pregnant. Her father kicked her out of the home and she did not know what to do until a friend induced her into the old profession. It was a very sad story.

As she left my car early in the morning, one of my colleagues remarked that I was not wise to let a “dirty person” into my car. I was offended because I was thinking; any of those women is somebody’s sister, daughter, or even mother!

The Cat that Wanted to Fly

Babylon base used to be rather peaceful especially at night. The last vehicle was usually in by 11 p.m. and there was rarely any assignment through the night. Early morning jobs were normally assigned at night and so we would sleep knowing where we would go in the morning. These advance bookings by clients were good for us because we rested easy at night.

With this assurance of a quiet night, I used to prepare to sleep in much the same way as I would do at home. The only difference was that I would be sleeping in the car. I used to remove my shoes and socks so that my sticky stinky feet could “breath”. I also used to remove my blazer and cover myself with it like a blanket. The rest of the preparation was “electronic”. It involved running the heater with the engine on idling until the car interior was warm enough to allow sleep in the chilly Nairobi nights. The last thing I would do was to reduce the radio call volume and increase that of the normal radio. My favourite programs were those of overnight preaching by people such as Joyce Meyer. One of my colleagues once complained that my volume was too high on the “Mercy Myra” preaching.

Apparently he could not tell the difference between Mercy Myra and Joyce Meyer.

One day, I woke up at 5 a.m. in the morning and went to the mall wash room to freshen up since I had an airport pickup which I had been assigned the previous evening. On coming back to the car, I saw a scraggly kitten walking shakily on the pavement. When it saw me approaching it quickly ducked under my car and crouched there. I didn’t want it to get crushed when I drove out so I tried to chase it out. It climbed onto the front wheel and now I could see its furry form under the mud guard.
By now the other drivers had started to wake up and they came to my assistance. We tried to disgorge the kitten from its perch and when we succeeded, the cat now went under the car and got on the rear wheel. I was starting to get frustrated and I now got a broom stick to pry the kitten away. I didn’t succeed; instead, all I managed was to push the cat further under the car into a squeezed space between the fuel tank and the boot floor.

Since I was running late, I decided to leave with the cat. My colleagues, in their wisdom, assured me that the kitten would fall off if I ensured that I hit all bumps and pot holes on the route at high speed. That is exactly what I did the whole way between Babylon and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. However, the cat did not fall off. It only got really scared and with every increase in the car speed, it increased the number of “meows”. By the time I got to the airport, I was so distressed I could hardly think straight. As I was parking, the flight on which my clients were arriving also landed. I temporarily forgot about the cat and rushed in with my paging board.

The group I was picking comprised of a woman and her three daughters who appeared to range in age between their teens and twenties. The mother waved at me when she saw their name on my paging board but I had to wait a bit since they had a lot of luggage. I put the bags on a trolley and wheeled it towards the car as my passengers followed me. We got to where I had parked, I opened the boot and proceeded to pack the luggage, and then we all heard it!

My long forgotten cat started meowing in earnest now that it had heard the commotion of its would-be rescuers. I had omitted to inform my clients that I had brought a cat along but there was no hiding it now. It was so loud you could hear it from 10 metres away. The mother leaned and looked under the car but could not see anything but the sound was unmistakable. She concluded that this was the work of witchcraft and there was no way she was going to jeopardize the safety of her family by boarding a “bewitched” car driven by an agent of the devil. She was a born-again Christian and she started invoking the name of the lord. In the mean-time I was also trying to convince her that am not a devil worshipper and that in-fact, I was also saved myself. She stopped praying briefly and asked me, “If you are speaking the truth, where is the cat?” She had a point because the cat was not visible. She further said, “Show me the cat or I rightly conclude it’s a jinn”

The commotion caused by the meowing cat, the praying woman, the pleading taxi driver, and the inciting daughters attracted other taxi drivers in the vicinity. They came to the aid of the distressed client – ostensibly to convince her to take their “un-bewitched taxis”. Some however, were kind and – in the interest of taxi driver solidarity – wanted to help me. They helped cool down the now distraught lady while they sought to assist me remove the cat. We jacked up the car and removed one wheel and we were able to see the cat which we poked using a long pole until it came down.

The now famous cat wobbled away towards some thickets which are at the airport. When it was about half-way between us and the bushes, a group of about ten cats of varying sizes and colours emerged from the bushes and walked as if in a form of welcome towards our cat. Once it was safely surrounded, they turned back and got into the thicket. It was a strange sight and I asked one of the airport taxi drivers where those cats had come from. He answered that they had been brought by other drivers such as my-self. If they were there to catch a flight, then my kitten would have to join the queue but it was in good company. My clients now agreed to board my car but with a lot of apprehension.