Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009
Today I attempted to track down a UV filter and rain hood for my camera lens. It's been a small saga, but I'll spare you the details. Arriving downtown this afternoon at the requisite shop, I found it closed. I had just sent away my cab driver, and my hand lept to my cell phone to call him back. Further calculations stayed my fingers, and I headed off to buy a couple other odds and ends, get my weekly American junkfood fix, and amble about in a semi-purposeful manner to get a better sense of Nairobi's commercial scene whilst not appearing toooo touristy.
I was approached by a few people, all relatively well-meaning, but only one worth reporting. I will preface this by saying that I had recently re-read Lonely Planet's account of Kenya's extremely adept conmen, and I went to the Embassy's security briefing two weeks before that, where I was also apprised of the country's myriad talented swindlers. As in, "I'd like to thank the Academy...."-good. I've been approached by dozens of people by now, just randomly on the street in a way that would be extremely suspicious in America, but isn't by itself a bad thing in Kenya, and I've always been able to either have a nice conversation and/or turn them down politey, with more or less effort, without a negative situation developing (voracious begging children being the only, exasperating, exception).
He was a tall, gaunt black man, looking a rather weathered 45 years old. He wore a navy blazer and trousers (not your standard street garb), both of which were too big for him, and he walked with halting steps because his shoes were too small for him and he said he had corns on his feet (which I sincerely pity him for). He didn't say "Jambo", which is how Kenyans say hello to tourists. He got my attention by first asking where I was from - very standard fare here.
I kept an eye about, did a quick mental inventory of my pockets, status-check on my backpack and body language, and watched him closely but politely. It's usually not hard for me to decide whether a stranger has a legit business pitch (though the price is initially double) or is trying to pull my leg. Usually their wrong calculation is obvious - they think I'm fresh off the plane and here to go on safari. (To be fair, my weekend clothes and backpack probably support that inference).
I told him I was from the US, and he then asked if I thought that Obama being president would help race relations between white and black people in America. I said I doubted it would change the views of older people who have already made up their minds, but that I thought it would make a big difference for children.
He thanked me for being candid and straight - basically for not giving a throw-away or blithely saccharine answer. His English was very good, and he spoke quietly, patiently, and seriously, without a Swahili accent and with no trace of a conspiratorial tone (also distinguishing himself from many I've talked to), and he had a direct but polite gaze. He explained that he was a history and geography teacher from Zimbabwe, who had fled his country with seven family members in mid-December. He produced papers saying they lived in Mathere (one of the two huge slums in Nairobi), a letter from a colleage, an annotated photo of the two of them, and whatnot, which I partially read. I gathered that Italian priests (of a sort which I didn't recognize) had been helping them out, and he and his family members were looking for work.
I conversed with him with reserved interest, and with polite concern for his probable situation, sharing that I was a PhD student, that I studied antelope, and planned on being a professor of anatomy, for which he expressed polite (but not obsequeious) interest and respect, and he wished me the best luck for that. I waited to see what his pitch was, and it did eventually come - politely, gently, almost indirectly. In short, he asked if I would buy rice for him and his family. I had been contemplating how I would deal with various possible situations, and I immediately agreed to do it. Given the grain shortage here, his gauntness, his effort to present and conduct himself respectfully and with pride, and no sign of drug use to explain away his gauntness, his request that I buy food for him, rather than give him cash, spoke instantly in his favor. For the record, I almost never give to street beggers, and certainly not in Kenya, where your odds of being either conned or mobbed by others for handouts (especially by children) are pretty high.
He waved away Nakumat*, the big 24-hour grocery store, saying they were needlessly expensive. I followed him to the smaller but still-respectable Tusky's grocery store this side of Tom Mboya Street (one of my do-not-cross lines demarkating the safer areas of Nairobi). I bought him 10kgs of rice, 2kgs of cooking fat, and 2kgs of sugar (for the baby's porridge, he said), totalling US$21.32. He offered to take my contact info, so that he can let me know how they are doing. I gave him my business card, the only useful information on it being my name and email address, although I don't expect to hear from him. He thanked me profusely (but, I'm glad to say, still not obsequiously) for the food, and also for being straight and honest with him.
It's hard to be 100% sure whether I was conned or not. Clearly I'm strongly inclined to think that I wasn't. If it was a trick, I expect that I'd have been pushed for more or approached by other people with similar requests or angles afterwards. He was always deferential to my wishes, and he never pressed hard. As we left the grocery store, I told him that all the travel books say that conmen with sob-stories are rampant in Kenya, and that his asking me to buy food, rather than give him money, helped me believe him. He wasn't pleased to hear that, but I had decided I wanted to give him that information, and I'm still glad I did it. At the worst, I gave a tip to a conman on how to get food from well-meaning wazungu (white people) during a national famine. At the best, I helped an honest, struggling man avoid likely pitfalls caused by others' deceit.
I'm happy to say that I don't pity him - I respect and support his decision to leave Zimbabwe and start again somewhere that has a better future. But, unfortunately, he came just in time for a famine, and he's starting near the bottom rung in a country with 40% unemployment, rampant corruption and an entrenched "old-boys" network. I wish him the best, though I don't wish to be in his shoes.
As a disclaimer, I should probably mention that I watched The Lost City last night, about 1958-59 Havanna, Cuba. It would be an interesting exercise to try to decide who destroyed their respective country faster, more completely, or more brutally: Fidel Castro or Robert Mugabe. But, for the sake of my spirits, I am content to merely pose the question for now.
* On Wednesday, 1/28/09, starting at about 3:30pm, a probable electrical fire engulfed Nakumat Downtown and completely destroyed it. I hear it took the fire department 30 minutes to arrive on the scene, and huge crowds had to be beaten back by the police to let rescue workers through and to stop the looting. More than 25 people perished inside, largely because the emergency exits were blocked or didn't work.
I have to say, my research talk was probably the best research talk I've ever given. There are many ways I want to improve it, if I get the chance to give the talk again, but overall it was the most comfortable, most well-spoken talk I've ever given on my research. I'm proud of my slides, the content and logical flow, and my ability to articulate on my feet the big and small ideas alike.
