A dogs dinner

You would have thought by now that I would have learned that the English sense of humour does not transfer all that well to Kenya, particularly with the indigenous population, and it’s best not to try and be funny.

For some strange reason, it was probably because I had been sat in one of Nairobi’s wonderful two hour traffic jams, I decided to engage in some friendly banter with one of the many retailers who ply their trade along the centre of the roads here. I have mentioned these intrepid folk before but to refresh your memories they will try and sell you anything from jump leads, air fresheners and all manner of car accessories including the wing mirrors ripped off some other poor bugger’s vehicle.

You can get pretty much any item of clothing, some of it is relatively clean, all the latest DVD’s, some of them are relatively clean too, all kinds of local crafts and artwork including those adorable pictures of dogs playing pool and having a fag (I didn’t know the artist was Kenyan). At Christmas they were doing a nice line of Christmas trees made from coat hangers, they obviously didn’t shift them all because now you can buy helicopters and motorbikes made from coat hangers that have baubles and bits of tinsel on them.

And then you get to the livestock. These blokes walk around carrying armfuls of kittens, rabbits, puppies, caged birds and tortoises all day long. I am sure these animals can’t be house trained, or arm trained to be precise, yet and if you get a whiff of one of these local entrepreneurs you get the distinct impression they are probably not but they don’t seem too fussed.

Anyway as I sat in the endless stream of cars and matatus that were going nowhere in the sweltering heat I had my window down to try and avoid the inside of the trusty Wingroad reaching any higher than gas mark 6.

This isn’t advisable in Nairobi but to be honest I think getting mugged while sitting in my car was a lesser risk than melting completely. One of the hazards other than having anything valuable like your Abba CD nicked through your open window is that it seems to be an open invitation to this intrepid band of mobile shopkeepers.

I was approached by one particularly skanky individual who offered a toothless smile and the pick of his armful of manky mutts.

I thought I would lighten the afternoon for both of us with a bit of levity and said 'No thanks, I'm not very hungry'.

He looked at me blankly and replied completely deadpan 'No, these are not for eating but I have some others over there that would be better.'

That will teach me to try and be funny and definitely put me off my tea!

The long arm and deep pockets of the law

Ask anyone what the single biggest ‘Don’t’ is when you are in Africa and 99 times out of 100 they will answer ‘don’t get arrested’ (if I was the 100th I’d tell you don’t let someone order you the liver special but you know about that already). Well never a great one for listening to anyone’s advice I have now ticked this one off the list of things to do.

Given what goes on on the roads (and pavements, central reservations etc.) here to get arrested for a traffic offence I reckon you have got to be extremely unfortunate. If I had mown down someone’s prize goat, ploughed into the Kenyan marathon squad on a training run or God forbid done something like indicated before turning or given way correctly I could understand it but all I did was answer my phone. I know its illegal most places now but given that apparently in Kenya there is not a single breathalyser machine I thought that by taking a call while stuck in traffic that was going nowhere for at least half an hour I was hardly public enemy number one.

Much to my surprise the scruffiest dirtiest looking policeman you have ever laid eyes on tapped on my window grinning manically. ‘You are under arrest,’ he said. Not the opening gambit I was expecting to be honest! Given my cinema experience you would have thought I would have learned my lesson but oh no, I started laughing. Not the sharpest move.

‘What for?’ I asked, ‘You are not allowed to use a telephone while driving,’ he said still grinning toothlessly, think Mel Gibson/Keanu Reeves as good looking police heroes, this was Kenya’s version.

As I looked around at the still static traffic I reckon I probably spotted at least a dozen more traffic offences including six other people on the phone and a mad minibus driving along the pavement nearly clipping Mel/Keanu as he was leaning in my window.

‘I wasn’t really driving, I haven’t moved for ten minutes.’ The grin started to fade, mixed feelings about this, nice that he put away his pretty average dentistry but overall probably not a good sign.

Realising this was probably not going all that well I decided to sing like a canary and confess my heinous crime. ‘Look I’m really sorry but I didn’t know it was a problem, I’ll put it away now. I’ve only been here a few weeks and didn’t realise it was illegal.’

‘I have to arrest you.’

Starting to feel more than a little perturbed and remembering that apparently a few shillings can buy your way out of anything I decided to change tack. ‘Can’t I pay a fine?’ Subtle I thought.

‘I arrest you, you go to court and then you pay a fine.’

‘Can’t I just pay a fine direct to you?’ Less subtle.

‘No, we go to the police station now and then you go to court on Monday.’

‘Can’t I just give you the money for the fine?’ All pretensions of subtlety gone and replaced by open offers of bribery.

At this point he just walked to the passenger door, waited for me to open it and got in. ‘We will drive to the police station now.’

Thinking I was now in a bit of strife and cursing my luck for finding the only straight policeman in Nairobi I was now getting a bit concerned! We arrived at the grandly titled Parklands Police Headquarters which consisted of a small concrete block building, a few corrugated iron sheds and some mud huts - honestly. You can probably imagine that the clientele of your average Kenyan police station are a fairly choice bunch and I wasn’t disappointed.

I was led around the back of the main building to one of the tin sheds, images of Alec Guiness in Bridge Over The River Kwai sprang to mind. Inside were three sweaty policemen with big grins, Mel/Keanu disappeared, things were not getting any better!

It took me by surprise when one of them said in a cut glass public school accent, ‘And how may we help you today Sir?’

I explained my situation and he said cheerily, ‘ Oh that’s not a major problem we’ll have you out of here in a minute, I’m surprised you made it this far.’

I asked him what he meant and he openly said, ‘Oh most people just pay the constable.’ I explained that I had offered to pay an on the spot fine and he started laughing. ‘No you don’t offer to pay a fine, you just give the constable a thousand shillings straight away and he usually walks away.’ Lessons in how to give a bribe properly from the police!? Bizarre.

He explained now that I was here he had to fill in the paperwork and I would have to go to court. I had to pay 3000 shillings bail which I would get back when I turned up at court, if I pleaded guilty I would get a fine of 3000 shillings! I said, ‘Can’t I just pay the 3000 now, surely that would be easier and save everyone’s time.’

‘You would think so wouldn’t you but this is Kenya!’ he laughed. Armed with my bail form I was let loose, a free man again.

Later in the day I spoke to one of our Board members about my brush with the law and once he had stopped laughing at my inability to offer a proper bribe told me there was no way I should go to court and I should send Kyalo instead. Now Stevie Wonder would be hard pushed to say there is much of a resemblance between me and Kyalo so I failed to see how he was going to pass himself off as me!

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I was told, 'Lots of people will send their errand boy to appear for them, just send him with the bail form and 1000 shillings to bribe the clerk.’

I got back to the office and asked Kyalo if he was alright about this and he said it was fine and he would gladly do it as long as he could take 1000 shillings because last time he did this for someone he didn’t have the money and was locked up for three days!

They don't call it the Dark Continent for nothing

Power cuts are a pretty regular occurrence in Nairobi. Everyone tells you it’s not a problem because the vast majority of apartment blocks and offices have back up generators. You get used to your computer dying on you midway through doing something important (Facebook/Skype etc.), being plunged into darkness while you’re cooking and working by the light of the gas ring or if you are really unlucky getting stuck in a 6 feet by 6 feet lift with 37 other people (people here are not great respecters of personal space!).

The first time it happened to me I was in the office and the ever reliable Kyalo was on hand to fire up the office generator. This thing looks like it has been thrown together from parts rescued from car crashes bound together with bits of string and wire. Little did I know that the back up generator is housed right next to my office. Even if I had been completely deaf I would have known Kyalo had kicked this beast into life – the vibrations started my phone travelling across my desk, plaster fell from the roof and I swear a filling came loose! It is like trying to work in a Formula One pit lane while the Rolling Stones are simultaneously playing another farewell concert. I have never experienced anything as loud in my life but that was only half the fun. Within about 30 seconds the thick, acrid, black smoke started seeping through the office. Eyes streaming and ears ringing I asked Kyalo how long the power was usually off for, ‘Only two or three hours usually,’ he smiled. Needless to say not much work gets done when we have a power cut and I usually clear off somewhere to do something more productive than contract tinnitus and lung disease!

Back at the apartment if the power goes the modern technology is far more advance and a huge green generator kicks in almost instantaneously. I know this because the first time it happened was in the dead of night and it fired up like jumbo jet outside my bedroom window. Thankfully once in full flow it settles down to a deafening hum similar to a cross channel ferry. Amazing what you get used to but now I hardly notice it when it comes on, apart from the fact the initial blast usually wakes me up. I can usually nod off just in time for the bloody bloke from the mosque wailing his head off that it is time I went to pray – needless to say I have yet to take up his very kind offer but he keeps trying, morning, noon and night!

The last time the power went off for some reason the generator didn’t come on so after about 20 minutes I headed for the shopping centre and decided to go to the cinema. I was about five minutes late for the film, five minutes that nearly cost me my life.

I found the screen I was looking for and went through the doors and was plunged into pitch blackness. Usually in cinemas there is some sort of low level light on the floor or the dim glow from the fire exit sign so you can see where you are going, here there was nothing. Fortunately the film started just as I tripped over the first step but the screen was pretty dark and I still could see only about six inches in front of my face. I felt my way up a few stairs and decided to grab the nearest seat. Now in my defence it was very dark, the screen was dark and all the people were very dark but the poor woman who I sat on wasn’t really in the mood for my excuses, the bloke she was with even less so! It didn’t help that I thought it was very funny and couldn’t help but laugh as I apologised profusely. I genuinely didn’t have a clue there was anybody there and was in stitches as I extricated my backside from her lap. I couldn’t make out the bloke’s facial expression but as my vision adjusted could see that his eyes had narrowed menacingly and they were also about six inches above the level of mine so rather than ask to join them in a more formal manner decided to bugger off to another row a long way away pretty quickly.

The next time the generator packs up I will now go for the far safer option of reading a book by the light of my new torch!

Where the wild things are

Ask anyone what they know about Kenya and it will either be skinny blokes winning the long distance gold medals at the Olympics or the wildlife.

You can probably guess which option I chose to familiarise myself with on my first weekend off.

So after a rapid 10km in the foothills of Nairobi with the local elite marathon squad (yeah right) I thought I could squeeze in some safari time too. I headed in the general direction of Nairobi National Park which is about 15km outside the city (or an hour and a half away in the traffic to be accurate).

I saw a sign for the David Sheldrick Trust which is an elephant orphanage and turned in. The National Park is totally fenced off and patrolled by armed guards to prevent poachers, the primary reason most of the elephants become orphans. Once you are through the gate you really are in what you imagine Africa to be like. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, no noise except exotic bird calls and grunting warthogs which seem to be everywhere.

As I was driving along the track to the orphanage I turned a corner and came across a herd of antelope so I stopped and wound down my window, fumbling with my phone to try and work out how to take a picture. After failing miserably I just sat there leaning out of my window watching the antelope when there was a rustling in the bushes about six feet away. Suddenly two blokes in full camouflage carrying machine guns creep out of the bushes with grim looks on their faces.

‘You might want to put up your window and drive on sir.’

‘Sorry, am I not supposed to stop here?’

‘No you are fine to stop sir, but there are some hungry lions following these antelope and we don’t want any accidents.’

The elephant orphanage was great, they all troop into the yard in the early evening, just like Jungle Book, and then wander into their own corals where they bed down for the night with their keeper who sleeps with them and wakes up every three hours during the night to feed them. They keep the elephants there until they are three years old and then release them back into the wild.

I asked one of the keepers what it was like to sleep with an elephant every night and his mate chirped up that it didn't matter if he was at work or at home with his wife, he would sleep with an elephant at night either way - nice to know that a bloke's sense of humour is pretty much the same wherever you are in the world!

The men from the Ministry

I got a phone call in the office one morning. The voice on the other end of line made Barry White sound like he had been castrated.

‘A car from the ministry will collect you at 10 o’clock Mr Tom.’ Click. No explanation, no good morning, just a dead line.

Now I haven’t been here that long so I didn’t think I could have upset anyone enough to warrant the government coming to take me away but you do start to think about scenes from the Last King of Scotland and the Dogs of War.

Anyway I was bundled into the government car, I wasn’t really, I just got in but it sounds more dramatic, and we headed out of town and into the forest, the driver telling me I was to meet the men from the Ministry. We arrived at a scrubby field populated by some corrugated iron shacks on the outskirts of a nearby township.
I was greeted like a long lost brother by Maina and Charles, representatives of the Ministry of Sport, looking more excited than kids at Christmas. I looked around and to my relief the firing squad were missing so managed to relax a bit.

‘We would like you to build us a cricket ground Mr Tom. They used to play cricket here in the colonial days and we would like to re-establish the sport in this area and build a new ground here.’

‘That’s great, we’d be happy to help, what sort of ground do you want to build?’ I asked looking at the grazing livestock and random people asleep in the grass. ‘Something for the local kids, or do you want a club ground here?’

‘No you misunderstand us Mr Tom, we want to build our Lord’s here.’

A township on the outskirts of Nairobi isn’t exactly St John’s Wood but still you have got to admire the ambition and apparently the government cash is there to build an international ground so we will see!

After a good look around, taking some rough measurements and advising on what initial work would need to be done to start the ball rolling Maina insisted we go for lunch at his favourite local restaurant. Restaurant would have to be applied in the loosest possible terms, grubby, fly infested hovel would have been closer to the mark. How do you tell the Deputy Minster that his favourite eating place is somewhere you wouldn’t let your dog sit on the floor?!

Before a menu could be produced (like this place would have a menu!) Maina had ordered the local special – oh joy! Now I am not a great fan of offal, in fact I’d hate it even if I knew what sort of animal it had originated from and it had been cooked by a Michelin starred chef. I was confronted by a plate of liver from this week’s road kill warmed by the mid day sun and not much else. While Maina and Charles tuck in I’m desperately trying to think of a way I can avoid putting this decaying warthog’s vital organs into my mouth.

There was no way out so I decided to take the plunge. Now I have never admired Jordan or Katie Price or that ugly inflated plastic slapper (choose your own description) ever before but after watching her eat her way through plated animals bits on I’m a Celebrity and keeping it together, I have a new found grudging respect for her after this episode. Without going into the gory details it tasted like luke warm raw flesh that had been marinated in ear wax (you’ve all tried it, don’t deny it). How I managed to avoid hurling all over the Kenyan Government’s finest is still a mystery but it is an experience I never want to repeat, all meetings are now scheduled immediately after meal times so I can say I have already eaten!

Not all my culinary exploits have been so grim and there are some really good restaurants in Nairobi but regardless of how careful you are where and what you eat eventually you will take a compulsory course in what I have decided to call the African Atkins Diet.

I think this could be the way I make my millions when I publish the book, release the DVD and advise serial celebrity skinnies like Posh and Cheryl. There are quite a few ways to get kick started on the African Atkins, you can eat something a bit dodgy, drink some tap water or just get bitten by the wrong fly but the results are the same. The African Atkins differs from the original in that instead of not eating just carbs I guarantee you will not have the urge to eat anything for about a week! There are financial benefits too because you won’t spend any money on food, you will need to stock up on extra loo roll though. In fact you won’t spend money on anything unless you shop online while wedded to your toilet.

It may be an extreme way of shifting those unwanted pounds but as they say no pain, no gain and the results are pretty impressive, I shifted nearly a stone in five days no problem!

It's a family affair

The first time I met the national squad was interesting. Kenya is the only country outside the top cricketing nations that employs its players full time, this is partly because of a desire to put in place a professional structure so they can compete at the highest level but mostly because we can afford to because it is so cheap to employ people as wages are very low. The change down the back of Kevin Pietersen’s sofa would cover our annual wage bill.

I turned up at our training ground, the Aga Khan Club (I thought he was more into horses?!), and had a look around the ‘facilities’. Tired would be being extremely kind, knackered more appropriate and to be entirely accurate a bit crap is a fair description. As one of the top 12 ranked teams in the world you would expect a decent standard of pitch but as I walked across the outfield I started wondering if there were any snakes lurking in the ankle high grass, or maybe a lost tribe of pygmies had taken root by the far boundary where the grass was even longer. The groundstaff came out and started hacking a path towards the square with scythes and machetes so they could put up the nets.

While they set about erecting a ‘structure’ that consisted of what looked like an old trawler’s fishing net wrapped around some driftwood I was introduced to the squad. Like any group of cricketers (or young blokes in general) there was a mixture of the cocky, the surly, the painfully shy, the friendly and the can’t be bothered, and then there was Nehemiah. Nehemiah makes the Cheshire cat look like he has been sucking a lemon, the lad has the biggest smile in the world. He is also the most sartorially challenged individual on the planet, and I say that in all confidence. The sad thing is he thinks he looks great and some of the other lads do too. I really wish I had had the courage to take a picture of one outfit he showcased but I just didn’t have the heart, starting from the bottom up he was adorned with silver and electric blue ankle high boots, black shiny skin tight trousers (at least I think he was wearing something below the waist), an electric blue t-shirt, black (I’ll be generous and call it leather) jacket, electric blue checked scarf and white sunglasses, capping it all off was and electric blue cap perched on top of his mop of dreadlocks. He looked like the lovechild of Michael Jackson and Rupert the Bear (if the rumours about those two are true, he could well be!).

After being introduced and shaking hands I was invited to join the group hug and morning prayer – a daily ritual before practice starts. Now I reckon that if anyone had taken a picture of our special moment I would be fairly easy to spot. As I stood there arms over the shoulders of my new best pals Alfred and Elijah, I thought it would be a few quick words and a few uncomfortable moments of awkwardness and that would be that. Well I am all for people having faith if that makes them happy but I have sat through shorter weddings than this bloody prayer!

Eventually once everyone and everything had been thanked, blessed, praised, forgiven and generally shown ‘the way’ they got started. I stood with the coach and started to try to put names to faces.

‘That’s Collins isn’t it?’ I asked. Collins is the one player I recognised because he had a season in English county cricket.

‘Yes boss, and that’s his brother David.’

I should have realised that them both being called Obuya but then things started getting really complicated.

‘Then we have got the other brothers,’ said the coach, there are four of them.

Looking at my squad list I ventured that presumably Nelson and Nehemiah must be brothers, both being called Odhiambo, they look pretty similar too, same build, similar features, same dreadlocks.

‘No, they are not related but they are from the same tribe.’

‘Is that a common name then, Odhiambo, a bit like Smith or Jones back home?!’

‘No boss, it’s not very common at all,’ came the deadpan reply.

‘The brothers are Shem, Lameck, Nehemiah and James.’

‘So Shem Obado, Nehemiah Odhiambo, James Ngoche and Lameck Onyango are all brothers? How does that work with the names?’

‘In Kenya some people go by their mother’s name, some will use the father’s name and some will use their tribal name.’

‘That’s pretty complicated isn’t it?’

‘It can be, especially when they change between them pretty regularly, day by day sometimes.’

Needless to say I am on first name terms with the players now, mainly because I haven’t got a bloody clue what they will be called from one day to the next and even if I did I couldn’t pronounce it anyway!

Lost in translation

Kyalo is the ideal bloke to have around. He will do anything for you and is good company. With traffic being chaotic if I have to go into the city he drives and I can do some work on the way. Its only about 5km to the centre of Nairobi but it can take an hour easily.

He drives the trusty Wingroad and as we get on our way I have left the CD player on. I ask him what music he likes and he tells me he loves gospel. Funnily enough in the few CD’s I did bring gospel doesn’t feature too heavily so we listen to a compilation featuring the likes of Snow Patrol, Scouting for Girls, The Hoosiers, The Verve etc (trendy me aren’t I?!). He drops me off for the meeting and an hour later when I come out he is parked up with the CD blaring out and his head bobbing like a good ‘un, funny as hell!

On the way back he tells me we have to go to Mr Shamji’s office, I ask him where it is and he says: ‘Mr Shamji’s office is in Australia.’

I said: ‘I didn’t know Mr Shamji had an office in Australia, that’s not far from where I have recently come from, which office are we going to?’

‘The one in Australia.’

‘We can’t be going to the one in Australia, he must have one somewhere here.’

‘No we are going to the one in Australia.’

‘Kyalo, Australia is on the other side of the world and it would take at least a day to get there in an aeroplane, where are we going now?’

Kyalo looks at me like my lights have gone out and tells me not to worry, he knows the way.

Ten minutes later we arrive at Mr Shamji’s office – situated in the industrial area!