T-5 Countdown to Inaugural: Nairobi
It has been four months since I was in Kenya the last time, and the season’s changed. I walk out of the airport in Nairobi and think I’m in Florida. That balmy breeze fringed with rain. Suddenly I feel nostalgic; I am part of me six years old and arriving in Fort Lauderdale the airport doors opening to the sunshine and my grandma, smiling, squatting down to press her wrinkled skin into my neck. The memory lingers, inappropriately, and I feel suddenly mournful, floaty and wistful and slightly lost. Maybe I’m just jet-lagged. I readjust my shoulder strap and scan the crowd of taxi drivers holding paper signs. I find my name near the back, on a piece of paper with just my first name in all caps. It stands out from the others. In a sea of signs for “Mr Khalihi” and “Mr Chan” and “Mr O'Donnell”, I am simply, GREGORY. I feel like a five year old. Or a rock star. Like Bono.
“You must be Gerald,” I say to the man holding my nametag, and he gives me the African handshake. Gerald is in his mid-30s with a blue-grey collared shirt. His face is scarred with pockmarks, clustered like little islands off the mainland of his mouth. Gerald kindly grabs one of my bags and then actually groans to himself at the weight. This is surprising because it’s my lightest bag, not really heavy at all, nevertheless I watch him valiantly struggle, switching the bag from right arm to left arm and back to right again, then left, almost knocking out one of his kneecaps in the process. Two minutes later we reach his parked Toyota and he heaves the bag into the trunk and we’re off.
The weather is perfect for driving. The sunshine is warm but not so hot that the car gets stuffy or the doors scald your arm. We cruise out on to the main road past wide savannahs dotted with concrete buildings, construction zones, billboards. A billboard for a brand of bleach features a 40-foot white baby with a baby mohawk and an ornery baby mouth and the phrase, “Topex: The Toughest Answer to Stubborn Stains.” We cruise on. The road seems improved since I was here in August. Gerald tells me he was born north of here, near Mount Kenya, a popular safari spot. He is used to tourists. He points out some giraffes grazing off on the grasses in the far distance. “That is Nairobi National Park,” he says. Around where the giraffes are, there is nothing else; no trees or buildings or other animals. Just 4 or 5 giraffes, silhouetted against the blue sky, their long necks raising and lowering like oil pumps.
The giraffes remind me of a conversation I was having a few days ago in New York with my friend Jonathan. He asked me what sound giraffes made and I said I didn't know. I ask Gerard. "I mean do they make any sound at all?" I say. "Do they speak?”
“Oh, no no no.” Gerald says, with a kind and patient smile. “They are just giraffes. They do not speak. They only talk to each other.”
I thought about his answer for a while afterwards. I think he actually thought I was asking if giraffes here could speak some universal animal esperanto. But after all, he’s probably used to stupid questions from white men, who arrive off the plane with their sun hats and their heavy luggage and their dumb assumptions. At least I didn’t insist on whistling The Lion King.
But of course, now everything is different, I think. I may still be an ignorant Westerner with white skin, but now we share something, Gerald and I. We have "Someone In Common." That Someone being, of course, the most famous man on the earth. The reason I am here, in Kenya, this week.
"I am headed to Kisumu for the inauguration," I tell Gerald, enunciating my words. Kisumu is the region of Kenya where Barack Obama’s father is from. Gerald smiles again.
“That is a not bad place to go right now,” he says. “They say if you can’t go to America, go to Kisumu.”
There is something rather unsatisfactory about Gerald’s answer and I ask if he’s an Obama supporter. He slips away from the question by arguing tautologically that because Obama “won the game” – the presidential race – he is the best. “Just like sports,” Gerald says. “The team that wins is best. It means he want it more. It means he is meant to be.”
I suppose in a way this is true, and in the end it’s all I can get out of him. We spend the rest of the car ride nodding to reggae on the car radio. Maybe tomorrow I should interview the giraffe.
“You must be Gerald,” I say to the man holding my nametag, and he gives me the African handshake. Gerald is in his mid-30s with a blue-grey collared shirt. His face is scarred with pockmarks, clustered like little islands off the mainland of his mouth. Gerald kindly grabs one of my bags and then actually groans to himself at the weight. This is surprising because it’s my lightest bag, not really heavy at all, nevertheless I watch him valiantly struggle, switching the bag from right arm to left arm and back to right again, then left, almost knocking out one of his kneecaps in the process. Two minutes later we reach his parked Toyota and he heaves the bag into the trunk and we’re off.
The weather is perfect for driving. The sunshine is warm but not so hot that the car gets stuffy or the doors scald your arm. We cruise out on to the main road past wide savannahs dotted with concrete buildings, construction zones, billboards. A billboard for a brand of bleach features a 40-foot white baby with a baby mohawk and an ornery baby mouth and the phrase, “Topex: The Toughest Answer to Stubborn Stains.” We cruise on. The road seems improved since I was here in August. Gerald tells me he was born north of here, near Mount Kenya, a popular safari spot. He is used to tourists. He points out some giraffes grazing off on the grasses in the far distance. “That is Nairobi National Park,” he says. Around where the giraffes are, there is nothing else; no trees or buildings or other animals. Just 4 or 5 giraffes, silhouetted against the blue sky, their long necks raising and lowering like oil pumps.
The giraffes remind me of a conversation I was having a few days ago in New York with my friend Jonathan. He asked me what sound giraffes made and I said I didn't know. I ask Gerard. "I mean do they make any sound at all?" I say. "Do they speak?”
“Oh, no no no.” Gerald says, with a kind and patient smile. “They are just giraffes. They do not speak. They only talk to each other.”
I thought about his answer for a while afterwards. I think he actually thought I was asking if giraffes here could speak some universal animal esperanto. But after all, he’s probably used to stupid questions from white men, who arrive off the plane with their sun hats and their heavy luggage and their dumb assumptions. At least I didn’t insist on whistling The Lion King.
But of course, now everything is different, I think. I may still be an ignorant Westerner with white skin, but now we share something, Gerald and I. We have "Someone In Common." That Someone being, of course, the most famous man on the earth. The reason I am here, in Kenya, this week.
"I am headed to Kisumu for the inauguration," I tell Gerald, enunciating my words. Kisumu is the region of Kenya where Barack Obama’s father is from. Gerald smiles again.
“That is a not bad place to go right now,” he says. “They say if you can’t go to America, go to Kisumu.”
There is something rather unsatisfactory about Gerald’s answer and I ask if he’s an Obama supporter. He slips away from the question by arguing tautologically that because Obama “won the game” – the presidential race – he is the best. “Just like sports,” Gerald says. “The team that wins is best. It means he want it more. It means he is meant to be.”
I suppose in a way this is true, and in the end it’s all I can get out of him. We spend the rest of the car ride nodding to reggae on the car radio. Maybe tomorrow I should interview the giraffe.
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