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EDITOR’S NOTE<br />
NAIROBI’S REVENGE<br />
I<br />
like to joke that my favourite thing to do in Nairobi is to get out of Nairobi. This<br />
should however not be mistaken for a dislike for the capital, though, because I’ve<br />
come to realize that the best thing about going to our beautiful coastal beaches<br />
or heading north to the mountains is that I get to come back to Nairobi. Oh my<br />
life is a paradox.<br />
Recently, I’ve been particularly vocal about my disdain for Nairobi. I’ve mentioned how,<br />
after living here for 10 years, I’ve simply exhausted the list of things that I could possibly<br />
do in this city. Besides going out to restaurants, of which there are some excellent ones<br />
continuously cropping up, what else is left to do for a restless soul that has ticked everything<br />
off her list tenfold?<br />
In a bout of karma…wait, does it come in bouts? And when do you know when it is in<br />
fact karma instead of just a series of unfortunate coincidences? Being a Christian, I don’t<br />
exactly prescribe to that brand of spirituality, but the writer in me does quite like how that<br />
word rolls off the tongue. Anyway, in a series of unfortunate events, Nairobi decided that it<br />
had had enough and decided to exert its revenge. It struck at the right time too, when I had<br />
booked a flight out of the country and was excited about that for weeks.<br />
On the said day, I missed my flight because the road we decided to take had been<br />
blocked off for the day, and when we finally got out of that situation, it sent its agents, the<br />
police, to derail my driver for a further 30 minutes due to a minor traffic violation. By the<br />
time I got to the airport, the check-in counter had been shut off despite there still being some<br />
30 minutes to flight time; I was simply too late. Determined not to spend another night in<br />
Nairobi, I booked the evening flight, and after hanging around the airport all day, got to<br />
the immigration desk only to be turned back due to an <strong>issue</strong> with my passport which I had<br />
used only one week prior.<br />
I then had to go back to my apartment and spend another night in Nairobi. It had won<br />
the fight, and just for the record, just so we’re back on good terms going forward, my dear<br />
Nairobi, I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve said about you. Most of them, at least.<br />
wattaonthego<br />
Wendy Watta<br />
NOMAD ISSUE 21 · SEP/OCT 2019 · PUBLISHED BY WEBSIMBA LIMITED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.<br />
MANAGING DIRECTOR MIKUL SHAH EDITOR WENDY WATTA DESIGN BRIAN SIAMBI SALES VANESSA WANJIKU DIGITAL FAITH KANJA<br />
CONTRIBUTORS SAMANTHA DU TOIT, KARI MUTU, DIANE MCLEISH, SABINA VIVALDI, FAITH KANJA, MAURICE SCHUTGENS, ERIKA KOSS<br />
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS BRIAN SIAMBI, JAMILA HASSAN EL-JABRY, TREVOR MAINGI, RAHIM MANDVIWALLA<br />
MARKETING & OPERATIONS DANIEL MUTHIANI, JANE NAITORE<br />
SALES ENQUIRIES CALL NOMAD 0711 22 22 22 EMAIL EDITOR@NOMADMAGAZINE.CO<br />
<strong>Nomad</strong>MagazineAfrica @<strong>Nomad</strong>MagAfrica @<strong>Nomad</strong>MagazineAfrica<br />
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