MY BIGGEST PET HATE LIVING IN NAIROBI

I’m coming up to nearly three years living in this crazy country of Kenya.

When you move from what one would call a ‘first world country’ to a ‘third world country’, you would expect things to not be the same as what you are used to.  I accept this, and to be honest of you didn’t, there is no point living in a country like Kenya.

There is just ONE thing that annoys the HELL out of me EVERY day and it is Kenyan drivers and driving on Kenyan roads.  There is no such thing as a Sunday drive here in this country.  You are pretty much a rally driver every time you get behind the wheel of your car and you are driving defensively just to get around.  It may sound like an exaggeration, but really, it isn’t and the funny thing is that the Kenyan drivers are just oblivious, as it is the only way they know how to drive.  In saying that, I am married to a Kenyan, so there is no prize to guess how some of our drives go when Eric is behind the wheel.  I am the worst front seat driver, because of course I would drive very differently to the way he drives.  We are into a steady rhythm now when he drives and I try and hold my tongue as much as I can, and sometimes this involves closing my eyes when we are in bad traffic at certain times.  We both have a ‘no accident’ track record, so there is no right or wrong way to drive here, we just do it differently.  In the Kenyans defense, it is not only the driving abilities of the locals, but of course the expats as well.  Just because you are not from Kenya does not discount anyone from bad driving and if anything, sometimes the diplomatic plate drivers (ascertained by their red number plates) are the worst offenders.

I am a confident driver.  I always have been, and you need that here, otherwise you will be pushed around all over the roads.  If they see there is a mzungu (foreigner) behind the wheel, they will try and bully you a little, not in a bad way, but if they can get one more car in front of you they will.  Kenyan drivers drive like there is an emergency –ALL–THE–TIME.  I have friends that don’t enjoy driving here, they have drivers, and some even refuse to drive at night.  I enjoy getting behind the wheel, even if it is in a city that has a name as one of the worst cities to drive in the world.  It is funny the things you take for granted in a country like Australia, on roads that you can travel safely on 24 hours a day.  Here you have to be on your guard every time you are on the road making sure your doors are always locked and your windows up if you are sitting in traffic. 

But it is the impatience of the drivers that really irks me.  The main culprits when on the roads are the matatu drivers.  There are around 25,000 matatus in Kenya, which constitutes the bulk of the country's public transport system.  They are privately owned minibuses that are mainly Toyota or Nissan minivans often decorated featuring portraits famous people and slogans and sayings.  They play music loudly that is aimed at quickly attracting riders and at night they are lit up like neon Christmas trees.  I understand that they are in a hurry, as they make their money on the amount of passengers that they pick-up and carry each day.  There is a flat fee that the driver and the tout have to pay the owner of the matatu; anything above that amount is when the duo team make money.  So just think, you could work a 10 hour day, and after fuel, police tea money, and lack of clients, you could make NOTHING the whole day.  There are also other matatu’s that run on the same route, so it is a dog eat dog world and they all try and push past each other to gain the business of the people waiting on the side of the roads.  There are no designated spots for matatus to stop, they will drop off and pick up people anywhere, and some do not even bother to pull off the road, holding up the traffic as they deposit their clients along the way.  They do CRAZY driving maneuvers, especially in heavy traffic.  They will drive on footpaths, drive on the wrong side of the road, to push in as far as they can until an oncoming car is seen and even make their own lanes to keep their vehicle moving wherever possible.  With this driving mentality, it is also these matatu’s that can make a bad traffic day into a worse day, clogging the already hectic congestion.  The impatience then feeds onto the ‘normal’ drivers and then you get crazy people doing some crazy things.  Like some people will over- take on bends or hills they can’t see over  to just jump one car space, INSANE, and they really don’t get anywhere faster and all at a risk of an accident!  Drivers cut corners all the time and as there are no painted lines on most of the feeder roads (not that it would change anything), people are quite blasé on sticking to their side of the road and when driving behind people it can be quite an ‘Uh-oh’ moment when they pass oncoming traffic (especially trucks and larger cars), as there doesn’t seem to be a lot of room between the vehicles sometimes and they just seem to miss each other by a hair-literally there are some close shaves!!!!! 

To give you an idea on the driving mentality here, Nikki and I were driving just up from my house one Sunday morning and a batted old Toyota pulled out of a driveway in front of us and luckily with Nikki’s speedy reaction, the car only clipped her back wheel hub.  We pulled over to chat to the drive and access the damage and when we got out of her car, the offending car had driven off in a puff of smoke 100km per hour up the road.  He was out of there!!!!  I couldn’t believe that he didn’t stop and my first reaction was to chase him, being in a massive 4WD, we would have no issues catching this guy.  But when we did catch up to him, then what?  He could be armed, he could have car full of people or he may have no insurance.  THEN if we got the police involved-then we would be at the police station ALL day processing the paperwork, so we decided to just let it go and continue on our way.  In what other country would you let a hit and run accident, no matter how big or small, would you just ‘let it go’?  We were lucky the damage was minimal, but that is beside the point.  Crazy right!?  I still look for that car every day I am in my area, still not knowing what I would do if I saw it again.  

PARKING!  Don’t get me started on that.  The car parks of the shopping centers have painted lines, you the lines that you are supposed to park within.  Oh no, not here.  I have seen some shocking parked cars in my time, and there was instance, that a large 4WD was parked next to me at my local shopping centre.  It was parked at such an angle it took me a few attempts to back out without hitting it!!  I was thinking at one point to have some pre printed pieces of paper that I could put on peoples windscreens telling them how bad they are at parking their cars.  It would be cool to leave, but alas I haven’t done it as yet.  Even finding a car park is a challenge for Kenyan drivers as they want a park as close to the doors they can get.  There may be 15 parks that you can see further down the line, but they will insist on driving slow on the chance of another car pulling out, or they see people loading their car and will wait IN THE CENTRE OF THE ROAD so you can’t pass, as they wait for the people to get in, when I can SEE PARKS further down.  FRUSTRATING.  Add to that Kenyan drivers do not give way, especially at round-a-bouts and turning into oncoming traffic, they just assume IF there is a car coming it will just make way for them.  Seriously, some do not even check their mirrors or look, they just come out…….. Then when you do let some-one turn in front of you, firstly, they take an eternity to make the cross-and when you are just trying to help the flow of traffic to let one person cross, 25 other cars cross, and then you get impatient drivers behind you giving a few choice beeps, and a gap for a matatu to move into blocking the space that was helping the oncoming traffic in the first place!  I’m telling you it is CRAZINESS on Kenyan roads ALL-THE-TIME.  Let’s not even mention when it rains, everything stated above is multiplied by ten, so much so that the last big rains a few months ago, I had a friend who was stuck in traffic for SIX hours in a massive traffic jam one afternoon after work.  There were so many comments on NES (Nairobi Expat Social) of people also stuck and some not getting home till 2am!!!!!! Oh yes, this is not a lie!

So it seems I make a big deal about driving in this crazy city but you find yourself  doing things on the roads here that you wouldn’t do driving on the roads back in Australia, but if you didn’t do it, you would not get anywhere and you would cop a lot of harassment from other drivers in the process.  I actually got in trouble from a matatu, of all people, the other day for not using my indicator!  I couldn’t believe that he was having a go at my driving!  But he was right, I didn’t have my indicator on…. But it was hilarious all the same.  At the end of the day you just have to have patience.  Nairobi traffic is rated as one of the worst in the world and having had several experiences myself, it is something that just comes with the territory of living and driving in Kenya.  I would go so far as to say that the most dangerous thing you can do in Nairobi is to drive cautiously!  It is part of the game of learning the tricks of driving in the big smoke as I am driving with other drivers on the road, whose driving experience is very different to my own.  It is a sense of accomplishment and anybody who drives in this city and survives deserves a pat on the back!