One Day I Will Write About This Place

by Binyavanga Wainaina

  We stop under a dry riverbed, in the shade of enormous acacias, to eat watermelon and icebox mango. The wind outside is so fierce and dry that my lips are on fire when the watermelon touches them. There is a group of children playing nearby, and they congregate to get a share of the fruit. We chat with them in Kiswahili. I ask them whether they are afraid of snakes. They laugh. Do they play outside like this at night? “Oh yes,” they say. “We go out at all hours. Nighttime is better because it is not so hot. If we find a snake, we kill it.”

  We climb out of this dried oasis, and we are back on a plain of dust and rock. George shows me an enormous circle of stones, around a hundred feet in diameter. He tells me that this was the last gathering place of the Maasai in this area. They had faced years of drought, and after they had been defeated by the Pokot, they had a great meeting in this circle. Then they gathered up their cattle and moved on to Laikipia. This was the beginning of the end of their influence over the interior of Kenya.

  In Pokot, the machine that produces warriors is as efficient as it was a hundred years ago. Thank God it has not been called to action against us on the other side. I am not sure how we could stop it.

  In this dry place, where land has not been reshaped by development, it is still easy to imagine what that day was like. Vast herds of wealth, cattle stamping and sniffing in the dark. I can see the stones piled like a wall, woven with branches of thorn. Another surround of thorns where the young cattle were kept. The large tree to the left, the only tree around a lookout point. The recently circumcised warriors, bellies swollen from stuffing themselves with meat, eyes ready for war. Sullen that the elders have said they must give in and move. Eager to spill an enemy’s blood, to prove themselves. Young boys and girls restless and excited, sensing that something without precedent for them was about to take place. That this is the beginning of a new history; that they will tell the last stories of this place. Night was cold, and they sang the whole night.

  Chapter Twenty-­Eight

  When we reached there, she picked a stick and began to scratch the ashes with it, and there I saw that the middle of the ashes rose up suddenly and at the same time there appeared a half-­bodied baby, he was talking with a lower voice like a telephone.

  —from The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Amos Tutuola

  I am going to Lagos. The Lagos airport is famous. I had a good picture of it in my head: sun-­bleached and moisture-­drenched plastic and concrete; a “modern” 1970s building thrusting up like an oil-­gushing new nation; now a kind of mental hospital, with mazes littered with crumpled paper dreams and sleeping refugees; long empty corridors; screams in the head; numberless identical doors, broken lights; musty bureaucrats with red eyes flashing at me hungrily; multilingual lightnings and thunderings: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM…

  I was promised beasts full of eyes, be-­fore and be-­hind, with horns charging and goring passport-­wielding lambs that gamboled down its rusting tongue. I knew that some would glide through, in lace garments and diamond-studded head wraps, bodyguards, some Shell Oil types maybe.

  I was promised thousands of flailing desperate arms lifted for the attention of the sleepy-­eyed three-­biro-­in-­pocket man chewing a roast plantain as large groups of people in sackcloth wait for the small silent room with bottomless plastic seats that smell of fear, where you sit for hours and look at a scowling hole in the wall, muzzled with gauze, behind which aliens in dirty khaki uniforms glide and chew with dead sleepy eyes, stamping and stamping, as you finally stand behind the snarl and say, “A beg. A beg. A beg. Oga. Master? Sir? Madam?”

  This is what I was promised, and I was prepared.

  I am going to be a postmodern African here; able to sweet-talk, able to see coherence: all that chaos is surely an artichoke? Inside there is the small tender and functional heart of Nigeria? Gentle. Fractals and mazes. Yes. Old civilizations. I will find coherence here.

  The Virgin Nigeria flight from Dakar is okay. Not good. Not bad. Business class is full. The woman sitting next to me has the largest piece of hand luggage I have seen since Air Malawi used to do a cheap four hundred fifty–dollar flight from Johannesburg to Nairobi. She is in her sixties and reads a book by T. D. Jakes all the way. She prays before we take off, and prays softly again, in tongues, as we land.

  I find I cannot be a jaded and flexible traveler. I break a rule by carrying her bag into the airport for her.

  Not a sign of Armageddon. I go up the escalator smoothly, happy MTN adverts everywhere, green Naija colors, rolling CNN on tele­vision screens. I am stamped, smiled at, welcome bordered. I can see the odd sign of bendy machineries and machinations—­but that morning Lagos airport is friendly and working.

  I am picked up by my host. It is early morning, and we cut through the traffic without any problems. I try to fit into his groove and harrumph in a Time magazine way about the economy, stock markets and democracy and mortgages. We stick to this airbag talk, the air-­conditioned car moving smoothly into the freeways. We smell of good dry cleaners and car polish, and we fly on wide soaring asphalt from land to island, land to island, looking at skyscraper skylines.

  “How was Senegal?” he asks.

  I cannot find anything Time magaziney to say about Senegal, so I talk about the Mourides, and his eyes open wide and he tells me his favorite book in the world is by Chiekh Anta Diop. Soon we are Pan-Africaning and literati-ing all over the place. He works in a strange bank, this man; it turns out the boss likes literature. That is why they are funding these writers’ workshops I am here to help run: in job interviews at Fidelity Bank, one of the new financial powerhouses in this country; interviewees are asked what they last read. And they don’t mean Time.

  “I used to be a journalist,” he says. “I am a Pan-­Africanist. Afrocentric.”

  Traffic lights stop us, and a swarm descends on the window bearing all manner of machinery, trays and coils and wires and spikes holding produce. Grins plaster the windows. James Eze continues chatting about the African revolution. People are knocking on the window, and magazine covers are plastered next to me: pink and red lips pout at the window.

  The headgear on the celebrity magazine covers! One woman is wrapped in gold and purple lamé cloth; her head looks like a Dubai hotel. There is the Leaning Tower of Pisa wrapped around another head. There is more bling on that head than in a Las Vegas casino.

  I have to buy one… how many naira? James thrusts the car forward, and the guy chases us at full speed. He is laughing and sweating, his body wound and ready, a striding cable. He catches up with us, banging a poor overdressed celebrity woman’s head on the window. James loans me some cash, frowning disapprovingly.

  It is called Ovation magazine: Didn’t she look graceful and debo­nair?… The world exclusive on business tycoon Alhaji Asoma Banda.…

  He is suave, he is articulate, he is a businessman par excellence, he is an exemplary family man and above all, he is a billionaire.… Welcome to the world of… president/CEO of Zenon Petroleum & Gas.

  We drive into Lagos Island. And the city changes: thirty-­story warrens, and caves, and leaning, cramped buildings clawing for space, and everywhere people: crisp and ironed in tailored clothes in all colors all speeding toward the stationary bicycle future… you can see them, like weaver birds, goods laid up below the bridge, climbing up. I am waiting to see somebody claw up the side of the expressway, shouting a sales pitch jubilantly, arm raised high and laughing as blood drips down his nails.

  …

  A few weeks ago, I was in Frankfurt. I happened to be staying at the same hotel as the bodyguards of the Nigerian president, who was in Germany for a visit.

  One evening we stood together smoking outside the main entrance, and they chatted.

  “The cigarettes here are bad.”

  “Very bad,” the rest agreed.

  “Not like Nigerian cigarettes.”

  “No, no…”

  “But the gym here is very good!”

  The rest nod.

  �
�Why?” I ask.

  “It is very hard to go to the gym in Abuja, you know…”

  “Very hard. Very hard.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “You don’t have that problem in Kenya?”

  “What problem?”

  “Women.”

  “Hmm… what about women?”

  They all laugh. But the main guy does not. He looks quite upset.

  “They bring many problems. Many problems.”

  “Like what?”

  “We are in a special situation, you know…”

  “Oh?”

  “All those big men’s wives… they come to the gym… and if you say no… they finish you, and if you say yes, the big men will finish you. Abuja gyms are very difficult.”

  …

  We are driving in Lagos. We are lost on some highway. The traffic defies belief, all hooting. We are late. I am in a taxi, going to meet an old friend. There are a million motorbike taxis buzzing around us. The driver hails one, who sweeps toward us and runs alongside as the driver asks for directions. The motorbike swoops to the front and we follow. For twenty minutes we follow, and then he points out our destination and swoops away, waving. No money changes hands.

  No way in hell this can happen in my country.

  …

  Twenty thousand motorbikes hooting, a million collapsing yellow metal taxis—­all held up by talk, talk, move, move… beeeep, push car puush, arms flap up and down, neck tendons are guitar strings tightened, my jaws thrust forward yapping.

  Signs, notices, and billboards all rapturous: Victory Ncobo, Xtra-­Ordinary Value, Heaven, Crusade, Powering Forward, Transform Your World, Life’s Pleasures in Full Measure, Move You Ahead in Life!

  A billion tons of concrete and metal and glass and wood and paper teeter—­structural adjustments—­and eight million people are running at full speed, pushing at full strength, talking in surround sound: all the energy required to keep the machine moving. If they all stop, metal will twist, concrete will fall into the sea.

  We are Atlas, says Lagos. We will carry this thing.

  …

  The Kenyan mssslp is short and soft and is all about resignation. Mpslp, oh I am sad, my shoulders sag, what can you do? The West African mssssssslp starts with the forehead leaning forward; eyes lift, tighten, and shoot, like blowtorches; eyebrows gather together for the thunder­clap. It starts at the back of the tongue, mouth pouted, saliva pulled loudly in, long and slow, an inhaling hiss. It is disdain, contempt, head swings back, you turn and leave, hips swinging if you are a woman, shoulders squared and jaw forward if you are a man: you are not worth my attention.

  …

  Francis, one of our drivers, is in a good mood today. Like everybody in Lagos, it seems, he is always immaculately presented. Ironed and crisp in a navy suit and fresh haircut. He opens the boot of the car and shows me a massive box. “A hundred thousand million naira,” he says. “A television. Brand-new. I have been saving for months.”

  “So, where are you from?”

  “Enugu.”

  “Are you married?” He turns to me, eyes a little wild.

  “Nooo. I am the firstborn.

  We cruise onto the freeway. He puts on a cassette. An American born-­again gospel song. He taps the steering wheel and sings along… Jesus… Jesus… his head swinging from side to side. Then his phone rings. He turns down the stereo.

  He listens for a while, mmming and ahhhing, then explodes, banging the steering wheel.

  “I have no moni.”

  Long loud conversation in Igbo.

  Then: “Nooo. No. I have no moni-­o.”

  He cuts the phone. Curses. “Argh. Moni. Moni. Always moni. My sister she has her own husband. But always moni. Moni this, moni that. Moni moni always moni. Sisters, children, school fees, food, wedding, funerals. Moni. Moni. Moni.” Curses.

  Mssssssslp.

  After a while, he puts the cassette back on, adds the volume… Jesus… Jesus… the gospel choir is crescendoing now, there is much clapping. Soon Francis is tapping the stereo again and singing along.

  Mssssssslp. He goes again. Mssssssslp. He sighs, and turns down the volume, and picks up his phone.

  “How much?” he says.

  …

  We are in a suburb of Lagos near the airport, going to see Lagbaja, the Masked One, a high-life musician popular with university students and intellectuals for his political lyrics. He wears a mask and has his own nightclub called Motherlan’.

  We keep passing nightclubs. People dressed to the nines, music thump-­thumping from large buildings. But sometimes there are families with children. I ask my friend, “You mean you guys go to nightclubs with children?”

  He laughs. “That is not a nightclub. Those are all night churches.”

  Chapter Twenty-­Nine

  In 2005 we are three years into Kibaki’s government, and there is tension. Many things have happened. Many good things—­but tribalism is increasing. Kibaki is Gikuyu, and non-Gikuyus feel his government betrayed a gentleman’s agreement made when a coalition of political groups came together to remove Moi’s party from power in 2002. Raila, who was promised the post of prime minister and who had proposed Kibaki for president, is given the ministry of roads. There is a feeling that a powerful group of people around Kibaki, some of them from Kenyatta’s time, are determined to secure the grip of Gikuyus in power. We all thought that these sorts of games were over. They brought us to the brink. But our politicians are still playing them. Now that Kibaki has lost the trust of non-Gikuyus, Gikuyus are terrified that if he loses power we will be victimized. The beneficiaries of all these games are the political classes and their children. Most Gikuyus remain poor; most Kenyans remain poor.

  Five years ago, in 2000, I landed at home, for my mother’s funeral, and found myself in a small steamy office of a security official at the Mombasa airport. I did not have a yellow fever certificate. A group of red-­eyed officials had cornered me as I picked up my luggage. I tried to plead, using my mother’s death, patriotism, Kiswahili, hand-­wringing, ah bana, please, I said, head tilting sideways, Boss, Chief, Mkubwa, Mzee, Mamsap, Sir. There was no yield. A long shabby man just stared at me, smiling. So I reached into my pocket and gave him one hundred dollars. As I walked away, I could hear them smirk behind me.

  In 2002, less than a month after the election, I walked through the airport and found to my surprise that all officials smiled, said hi, welcomed me home. “Where are you coming from?” a woman asked me, smiling. “Many people are coming home now,” she said. If I asked anybody, of any tribe, so, how are things? I could expect a familiar answer, sometimes gossip: they stole the mayor’s chain. We were the most optimistic country in the world. Much bar talk was even sympathetic about Moi—­people were angry that during the inauguration, the crowds, the largest in Kenya’s history, had thrown mud at Moi. How unseemly. There were stickers with the flag everywhere. All the cool twenty-­something designers for the Sheng-­speaking new and detribalized generation of Kenyans were making baggy clothes with the flag placed proudly somewhere funky, a toned buttock, a hood, a bandanna.

  If you carry a Kenyan passport and are leaving Kenya to go to London, with a valid visa, on our national carrier, there is a particular little humiliation you need to go through: you are pulled aside, by somebody from our national carrier, and asked to explain why you need to go to London. You are asked questions; your passport is photocopied and examined closely.

  Tourists with better geopolitics sail past you.

  So, one day, two years ago or so, well into Kibaki’s season as president, a young woman, with a good middle-­class accent and that breathy sing­song air hostess voice, looked at my passport, then looked at me, then looked at my passport, then looked at me, then asked me, “What tribe are you?”

  I was startled. Something was wrong with this pattern. She manifested no tribe at all in her body language, in her English even. She was a young Nairobi girl in an air hostess uniform. In many y
ears of flying, nobody had ever asked me what tribe I belonged to. Of course, this is not to say that tribe did not matter.

  If I belonged to the same tribe as the red-­eyed crew who waylaid me those years ago for a yellow fever certificate, I would have escaped, but they would not have asked overtly. And I would not have asked them.

  I would have been clued in to them; it is easy enough to tell who shares your mother tongue. What we would do is start to chat casually in our mutual tongue, in low voices—­all of us conscious, for no clear reason, that this was a way of dealing between ourselves, and it is okay, but it can be shameful if it is too public.

  So I thought maybe this young woman was not serious. So I asked her, jokingly, whether the authorities in England had blacklisted Gikuyus. No. She laughed. “But… but,” she asked, “this name of yours, Binya-­minya-­faga, where is it from?” She was smiling her air hostess smile, head tilted to the side happily.

  “Nakuru,” I said, naming my hometown. The name Binyavanga originated in Uganda. I was not about to make this easy for her. She jabbed me happily with her elbow. “Haha,” she said. “Haha, you are sooo funny, but, really, where is that name from? I just want to know.”

  I switched to Kiswahili. This is easy enough to deal with in stern Kiswahili. “My sister,” I said, looking very brotherly and concerned about her manners. “Yaani, what is your business with this?” Kiswahili, the language of an old civilization, used to handling diverse people, full of rhetoric and manners, is perfect for revealing unreason. It is our national language, and it is more painful to be accused of ethnic bigotry in Kiswahili. In Kiswahili we feel a brotherhood and we are in the habit of this. If you fail with this approach, then real shit is coming.

  “Are you doubting that I am a Kenyan?” I looked her straight in the eye. In Kiswahili this is devastating.