Launching Into the Unknown

Nairobi was full of skyscrapers and wide four-lane avenues. Flame trees, related to our mimosa, lined many of the streets. The flowers are brilliant red and they bloom just before the rains come. I saw plants I thought of as houseplants that were the size of a house! Poinsettias were eight feet high. There were bottlebrush trees, so called because the flowers look like colorful red bottlebrushes tipped with gold. The colors were startling. Plants grew everywhere, and I took great interest in photographing them because I felt color-deprived. Butterflies and birds provided more awesome color, and I wished to spend my entire day sitting in the garden.

Gorgeous homes boasted inlaid wood floors, clean white walls, large windows, and interesting African paintings and carvings. But finding thick bars on every window, along with huge padlocked gates on every outside door, gave me cause for concern. Wealthier residents had large guard dogs and hired guard services to protect their property. High walls surrounded the compounds, sometimes with broken glass or barbed wire on the top.

Nairobi in the 1980s was much like the American West. There were good and law abiding people, but there was also a criminal element that took advantage of an opportunity. Not infrequently, gangs of robbers entered a house, not only to steal but also to attack the inhabitants with pangas (machetes). Security continues to be a big issue. The guesthouse manager advised us to be out of the city center before 6:00 in the evening. Even in a car, it was unsafe for women to drive alone at night. I’d never lived in such a dangerous place.