26th Sep, 2016
The Green City in the Sun. Enkare in Maasai means Cool Waters. This is the main description that earned Kenya’s Capital City the name Nairobi.
Back then tall trees long famed for their shade protection reigned the streets and a cool breeze always blew away the fatigue during your daily commute. A time when the population walking along the streets was equivalent to your rural village counsel holding a meeting under a tree, few but impactful.
First off, let me just say I don’t get this chance often (to write). Usually interns get coffee, make copies, to be seen and not heard and somehow hope to learn a thing or two about office dynamics.
A loud Matatu siren suddenly jostles me back to reality and I can only brush off my nostalgia to focus on my task ahead; making it to the office before 8am. You see, being an intern is tricky, your boss cannot make it to the office before you. Sigh.
Believe it or not, waving through the populous streets in Nairobi these days makes climbing a hill feel like an easier task. The scorching sun hits my forehead as soon as I peak my head out of the bus door. It’s as if it was waiting for me to shine brighter than Rihanna’s infamous diamond.
Walking down from the bus park I glance at my dainty doll shoes that look like they have gone up Mount Kenya and descended. The struggle is real.
A deep sigh reverts me to my mission ahead and I soldier on making a mental note that if I don’t buy a car really soon, I might as well end up hiring elves to be my shoemakers (laughable ideas of a millennial intern)
Just as my favorite jam reels through my senses, another Matatu menace decides to remind me that this world is indeed not my own and misses my shoulder by a whisker as it negotiates a dangerous corner. (I now sound like a police constable, but let’s move on).
I had not even recovered from the shock of nearly joining my ancestors when an empty juice bottle thrown from an uncultured passenger in the next matatu knocks me smack on the forehead. Nincompoop! It dawns on me that I was probably not meant to leave the house that day.
A huge pile of rubbish along the pavement, a result of fruit peels thrown wherever and whenever by whomever have become the norm among Kenyans.
This is disheartening and it makes you wonder where we are headed as a country. Nairobi used to be the epitome of cleanliness and now only the piles of rubbish at every corner speak on its behalf. We need to save our city sooner, rather than later, before we have nothing to show our children and the generation after that.
The late Laureate Wangari Maathai is renowned for her efforts to clean up the environment and preserve our forestry. It would be a dishonor if Kenya’s environment continues to deteriorate yet we are the first East African country to have produced a Nobel Peace Laureate.
18th September was World Cleanup Day. As a gesture to sustain conversations around this noble cause, we should take a step to make our world cleaner in whatever way possible.
You can organize a cleanup day with your family, colleagues, church mates or even random strangers. Clean up your compound, estate, nearest town, river bank, anywhere actually!
Be a leading example to the next generation. Your efforts might be recognized consequently causing a change of heart for many to practice better disposing habits.
Let us not wait for El Nino to remind us about our clogged drainages that we blocked. Let us be our own keepers. This country and this city is ours and no one else’s.
P.S I reached the office at 9:30, sigh…
