We are living in an apart-hotel type of arrangement, with a monthly lease but where there is room service and daily turn downs etc. The glamour and novelty of this arrangement is slowly wearing off, and is proportionately related to the increase in efforts towards securing longer term digs in the city.
In our present compound, I am by now of course on first name terms with all the maids and nannies, with whom I exchange surprisingly juicy gossip over loads of laundry, and while playing with S. and the several other children living here. Most recently, our talk has been of a child who fell from his bed and had to have several stitches, and what the parents must be like etc. Another nanny complained about how she had been told off because she forgot to pack her employer's phone charger in his lunch bag (I remain suitably impressed with this detail!)
I am a well-tolerated anomaly among the maids, in that I am male and foreign, but there is also a low-grade sense of pity towards me (unemployed but well-intentioned half-wit, unable to contribute in a meaningful sense to his family). It is in no way unkind, in fact they are very sweet with S. because of it, so I do resent or resist it. On some level, it is very relaxing.
Battle-hardened as I am from the NYC real estate trenches, the Nairobi housing search is not for the faint of heart (or those in their third trimester of prego!). Firstly, the economy in general and the real property market in particular are in a genuine boom here - of the 'bring your cheque book to the open house' variety! Secondly, and more complicated, are the increasingly crass socio-economic and even racial fault lines along which the rental market seems to operate.
Again, using my Indian frame of reference, I am constantly surprised by the number of Europeans who own land and means of production here. The largest land-owner in Kenya is the grandson of a British colonialist (Lord something-or-other). This grandson has been charged with 2 murders of black Kenyans (settled out of court both times), most recently in 2006! Of the 2 houses we've liked most, one was owned by an Austrian, the other an Italian (more on this latter house below). This is simply unthinkable in India, where foreign ownership of real property is highly regulated. I suppose it is none of my business, but I am beginning to empathize a little with Angry Bob Mugabe! Also, I must read about the Kenyan independence movement - I would be grateful for any reccos.
The top of our rental short-list list is a baby 'Out of Africa' kind of house, sitting on an acre behind a coffee plantation in a nabe called Runda. Owned by an Italian guy, brokered by another Italian guy, rent payable quarterly in USD in cash. Dodgy enough? Wait, there's more... The broker, sensing perhaps my rawness, described how the market here viewed people as simply Whites, Blacks and Indians. There seems no room here for nuance or complication. I am an Indian in this paradigm. Indians, he further shared, are 'like the Jews in the US' in that we are 'good business (sic.)' (read "cheap") and tend to circulate our dollars in the community (e.g. an Indian shopkeeper will only work with Indian lawyers, accountants etc.) Also, in the 'security' discussion, he explained that a dog or two is better than any electrical fence, because "Kenyans are afraid of dogs". With my toes tightly curled, I gestured the waiter with what nonchalance I could muster for another drink. How much more of this could I swallow even if we did really like the house? Considerably more, I suppose, because as of this writing we have an offer in at asking.
Having left America, and despite having been a young Muslim man there in the age of its war on common sense, I felt a pang of longing for the deep sense of decency and fairness I had experienced among my socio-economic tribesmen in Brooklyn (beyond that narrow circle, there be dragons, of course).
We find out re: the Italian house mid next week (owner and broker need to confer with partner in Italy - sigh). If positive, I will post photos of the walk-through...
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