It was Valentine's Day; my husband and I planned to have dinner with our friends at Thai Chi, a fancy shmancy restaurant at the Stanley Hotel downtown. Our reservation was not until 8:30 pm which was pretty late for dinner on a school night anyway, and the traffic was terrible. We attempted to go to a restaurant closer to Westlands where we live, but they were booked. So we decided we would brave the traffic. It was Valentine's Day after all.
We took a side route which spit us out in the worst roundabout flooded with matatus (minivans of mass destruction) and gargantuan cross-country buses. Somehow we had ended up near the exit for the bus station. We creeped along mere centimeters from every other vehicle. I smiled and waved my mazungu cheerfulness at matatu drivers in hopes they might let me sneak in. Some laughed and cut me off, and after almost hitting someone, I just barreled into the jostling crowd.
Noxious fumes, clouds of black exhaust clouded my view practically blocking out my ability to see the massive bus muscling his way into my lane. Our little Nissan Xtrail was no match for this beast, so I slowed down to let him in leaving a millimeter of space between us to keep the other cars from bulldozing me out of the way. Strangely and nicely enough, Kenyans have not learned to honk like the Chinese. It was relatively free from blaring horns.
All of a sudden, I heard a sickening thud towards the passenger side and the car vibrated a little. Oh no! Did I just hit something? Or someone?! Not a second later I saw a flash of someone on my side of the car. There were a few more thumps and I realized my side view mirror was gone. Out of nowhere, two adolescent boys had come from behind our car, and made a synchronized attack. In less then two seconds and a couple of thuds, we were sans our side view mirrors and the petty thieves had disappeared in the sea of matatus.After a moment of shock, disbelief, and numbing fear, I started hysterically laughing. Maybe it was my "brush with death," at least we weren't carjacked. My husband on the other hand swore and hit our dashboard, almost adding to the abuse of our car. It took a while to realize that the two miscreants had taken the entire side view mirror and its attachment. All that was left were a few straggly wires. Our poor little car.
Luckily the night continued successfully and dinner was delicious. We made it home without incident.
Since then, I have heard the most exciting stories. Another friend of ours experienced the same thing near the Sarit Center in the middle of the day. He tried to get out with something resembling a tire iron to defend his mirrors but realized that the seven men surrounding him were not worth the effort of a few parts of a car. A girlfriend of mine told me a story about being stuck in traffic at night when a man came along. He smiled at her and proceeded to steal her headlights, leaving her in the dark. My favorite story of all time was about a woman who very crudely screamed the rudest of all womanly c-words, "You c**t!" to the driver of a matatu as he cut her off. He leaned his head out the window and yelled back, "I can, and I will!" Something was obviously lost in translation. I love it here!
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Location:Nairobi, Kenya
