I leave the house a few minutes earlier than advised, walk to the main road, and cross the street to make sure I catch the matatu going in the right direction.  I raise my right arm about half way and within seconds a door flies open and I jump in.  I grab the seat right by the exit, cross my arms and keep my elbows pressed tightly against my pockets.  It takes two people to run a matatu.  The first is, most obviously, the driver.  The second, more importantly, is what I call the hustler.  This is the guy that collects the money, jumps out at every stop tying to convince people to go in their direction, as if a passerby has no alternate plans- and he opens and closes the door.  He taps me on the shoulder and I drop 30 shillings into his hand.

In the matatu, they typically keep the most popular radio station on loud.  This morning the talk show is about personal hygiene.  The host requests all men to call in and complain about their woman’s hygiene issues.  A lot of smart men do not call in, and after three rounds of commercial breaks the host gives up.  This is in contrast to the previous morning where many women called in to complain about their men.  The music selection features three Whitney Houston songs, one from Celine Dion, and “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.

Having carefully studied the map of downtown Nairobi I wasn’t shocked when they dropped us off at a different ‘stage’ than expected.  A stage is the formal name for a station. Though a stage physically appears to be a boulevard with low curbs and no grass, that all the matatus drive up on in order to change directions.  A little disoriented, I step out and follow the masses,  intentionally not withdrawing my iphone to check my location.   I pass streets that I recognize from my mental map.  Nairobi reminds me of Washington D.C.  Lots of business professionals hurriedly walking to get where they need to be.   All in between bumper to bumper traffic and tall buildings.  I find my meeting spot and sit put.  Today is my first ‘trial by fire’ into sales activation, or what we may call promotions in the U.S.  We set up a sales display and harass people to buy stoves front and center in the supermarket.  More about sales in a future post…

I meet our sales activator, Hilda, in a restaurant named “Smothers-The healthiest food in Nairobi” I’m assuming Smothers is a family name.  I can’t think of anything healthy that you’d actually smother food in.  We leave and start walking to catch our next bus out of town.  We pass the national archives, the historical Tom Mboya memorial statue, and a memorial park recognizing the bomb blast in 1998.  As we arrive at the bus “station” a line of buses parades slowly in the opposite direction calling out their final destinations.  Hilda suddenly pushes me toward a bus.  I nearly miss my mount because the bus doesn’t stop.  I scramble to the back and find a seat.  The door closes and we pull out onto the main road.

The interior is wallpapered with pictures and quotes of Nelson Mandela.  There are newer looking speakers on the ceiling bolted down by strips of sheet metal.  The bass is high and the music dj mixed, high rpm beats, and loud.  At the front of the bus is printed a “username” and “password” for the free wifi.  I’m impressed.  A couple miles later we make a flying dismount from the bus and walk the remaining yards to Uchumi’s Supermarket.

***

5:00p.m. rush hour, we leave the supermarket and head back to town on foot.  Due to the density of traffic it’s at least 20 times as fast.  Just before we reach our bus stand, a large bus rolls by and puffs out an abnormally large cloud of thick, black, exhaust that coats Hilda from head to toe.  Embarrassed, she wraps a shawl around her once-white skirt and pushes on.  As we are waiting for our bus, she explains that we can’t take a matatu because they are very unreliable.  15 minutes later they don’t sound so bad.  We board the one headed to “Odeon” the stage I was supposed to arrive at in the morning.  We get stuck in “stop” traffic.  To call it stop and go would have implied too much progress.  I take a 15 minute nap, wake up and pound the two beef samosas I picked up on our walk back.  We start “moving”.  Unreliably, the matatu does not take us to Odeon.

It’s past dusk by now, just after 7:00p.m.  We’ve travelled a total of 5.4km.  Sticky, smelly, and frustrated we walk to the right station.  Hilda explains my novice situation to the hustler and says goodbye.  He promises he’ll get me home.  45 minutes later I complete the remaining 4.9km to the Burn house.  I’ve never been so happy to be home.  2hrs 45min to travel 6 miles.  I won’t be complaining about U.S. traffic any more.  This was a totally normal day of traffic.  2+ hours to and from work for such a short distance.  Hilda does this every day for work.