Wednesday in Nairobi's City Center

Wednesday we headed into the city center so I could meet with the artistic director of the Phoenix Players, the largest producing theatre in Nairobi. The theatre has a long and interesting history built on the ashes of the Donovan Maule Theatre, which was Nairobi’s first professional producing theatre in 1948. While I was in my meeting Marcus and Humphrey, our taxi driver and tour guide, hopped on the matatus and headed to a couple of large markets. He described them as large farmers markets that also sold clothes and toys, but were dominantly fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, and meat.

We reconnected at little before 1 pm and headed to the large cathedral to meet up with my cousin, Father Curtis, a priest with the order of the Missionaries of Charity, who is currently appointed to the Nairobi mission. I slipped into the cathedral’s bathroom, which required a five shilling maintenance fee, but decided after viewing the Turkish toilets (a porcelain covered hole in the ground) that I could in fact hold it until we got to a coffee house or restaurant. There was also no soap in the bathroom, which makes me wonder what the maintenance fee is used for.

Outside of the Cathedral we met up with Curt and headed to a coffee shop in the city center to chat. They generously let us occupy a table for a couple of hours and then we all walked back to our hotel together and spent the rest of the afternoon into early evening together.

My handsome cousin Curt

Humphrey took us to Pugani to drop off Curt and then we headed to restaurant in the city center. A famous Nairobi businessman that started as a street peanut salesman owns this restaurant. He moved on to a snack shack and now owns a hotel, restaurant, and bar. The restaurant did not have a set menu, but rather four main course dishes that changed daily. You would pick your meat, and either rice or greens from the cashier and a waiter would bring you a plate and take your drink orders. There was live music and dancing directly across from the open dining area. This was a pretty popular place and the beef stew was excellent.