‘Meet me at bomb blast’

If you ask for directions in Nairobi, the answer will usually be something along the lines of ‘Come, I'll show you’. Instead of listing a set of instructions, this helpful person will guide you to your destination. This is not because people in Nairobi are nicer than elsewhere nor because they don't have anything better to do, but rather it indicates a different way of knowing the city. Lifelong Nairobians often do not know – or do not need to know – the official names of the city's streets, beyond the major thoroughfares. Instead of navigating by lefts and rights along specific named streets, most will refer to landmarks and places of memory. This is in part a matter of perspective. Most Kenyans have not grown up using maps – indeed, before Google Maps began making digital headway, road maps of Kenya were hard to get hold of – and so they do not carry an objectified aerial view of the city in their minds. Their view is from the street rather than from up above. They know a route by experience: a familiar sequence of movements, sightlines and memorable places. This knowledge, located as it is in experience, is hard to translate into a verbal list of directions; it is easier to simply show someone the way.

‘Meet me at bomb blast’ Fidelia said to me on the phone. We had arranged to meet so I could help her shop for her cousin's wedding. I had already reached the city centre and, wondering where to find her, I called her mobile. But before I could query her startling choice of meeting point, she hung up. Not wanting to appear ignorant, I was reluctant to call her back. Instead I turned tentatively to a smart young woman standing nearby. ‘Do you know bomb blast?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘Come, we go’ she said, leading the way. Bomb blast, she explained, is a common meeting place in Nairobi city centre, the site of the 1998 al-Qaeda-linked bomb attack on the US Embassy. Constituting a small garden of dusty shrubs, a couple of benches and a memorial to the attack, the site is now a tiny oasis.