The shuttle back to Nairobi was uneventful except for a copper bracelet incident at the border crossing. It was a typical scam. The woman was trying to give me a copper bracelet (someone had opened my window from the outside of the bus to my dismay). I refused the bracelet and she grabbed my wrist and put it on. I took it off and tried to give it back to her but she turned away. I should have taken Derrell’s scathing advice and tossed it out the window past her. Fed up with the intrusion, I left it on the bus seat as we left the bus to get our passports stamped. That was a stupid move, I should have brought it with me. The woman hounded us all the way to the office and back. Finally back at the bus, I had someone hand the damn thing back out to her. She immediately attacked another two tourists latching bracelets onto them. Bah.
We decided to go for a five star hotel, and checked into the New Stanley Hotel. It was a comfortable place, but there were guards everywhere. As I exited the shuttle, I had a little girl literally hanging on my wrist begging for money. This was a bit disconcerting as I didn’t have my pack close to my body and we were in the middle of Nairobi. With her attached like a vice grip to my arm, I got my stuff out of reach. Then I drug her along down the street yelling at her to let go. Only when I neared a police guard in front of the hotel did the brat disappear.
Our final entertainment of the day was a protest march in front of the hotel. This reappeared about an hour later with people screaming and running down the street with anti-riot police officers firing tear gas canisters behind them. We called down to the front desk to find out what was happening and the response was maybe it was soccer fans? Um, right.
The next day we read in the newspaper what had happened. Hundreds of defectors from the Mungiki cult were chanting and carrying slogans which gathered a good support crowd as they went. I guess the cult has one of the minivan bus routes under its control to the dismay of the public and the Department of Transportation ‘which had ordered all routes to be cleared of goons.’ The anti-cult protest was in response to a pastor being kidnapped (and likely killed) by the cult and the demonstration was meant to elicit government intervention. They were ordered to disperse by the police which eventually resulted in the tear gas canisters being used. During the protest, one of the protestors was severely beaten by cult members just minutes after he gave an interview to the journalist on the street saying their lives were in danger from cult members. Freaky.
Well, Nairobi lived up to its billing on an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon. Guards, beatings, tear gas, and street urchins. Quite lovely, eh?
