sleeplessineastleigh

Eastleigh never sleeps. It is 2 am on a Friday morning. I have been up all night, kept awake by loud music and khat-fueled conversations outside. I am in Blue Sky Lodge on 10th Street because I have a 3 am bus to catch.

Eastleigh is an eastern suburb of Nairobi predominantly inhabited by immigrants from the Horn of Africa hence its moniker, Little Mogadishu. People imagine it a dangerous place teeming with thousands of undocumented Somalis deemed shrewd businessmen by day and ruthless al Shabaab operatives by night. I had fearfully sought directions from a taxi tout in the city centre the day before. He instructed me to take a number 8, alight at Garage – pronounced ‘gerej’ - and ask for 10th Street.

Shiny new buildings overlook roadside vendors of foodstuffs, clothing, electronics, cosmetics. Motorcycles and handcarts manoeuvre through throngs of black-clad women. I dodge mounds of litter and cavernous potholes half-filled with stagnant water. Chaotic, yes, but a harbinger of promise and prosperity for many.

On 10th Street I find buses to Moyale, the border town between Kenya and Ethiopia. It is not the methodically planned street I had anticipated but a muddy road lined with small businesses of all sorts, a casino included. Powdered chilli and roasting coffee, traditional coffee jugs and signs in Amharic script. An Ethio-Kenya Leather Shop and a Best Ethiopian Restaurant. It is as if I have been magically transported to Addis Ababa. If Eastleigh is Little Mogadishu, then 10th Street is Little Addis. Later, I learn that 10th Street is indeed the predominantly Ethiopian area of Eastleigh, where people simply wait. To pass the time, they learn Swahili and English, obtain papers and forge new identities. Some grow into Kenya and stay while others proceed to the greener pastures of South Africa or America.

I see the Moyale Liner booking office and hurriedly make my way to it. Some men load sacks bursting at the seams onto the bus, others chew khat, others buy tickets. They stare, who is this unlikely traveller? This unrestrained curiosity, I would be told later, was the Somali survival instinct: living in hostile environments forced one to sift and grade people into groups: civilian or police, friend or foe. Questions of who one is and what one is after are crucial.

I book a seat to Marsabit. The seller advises me to sleep in Eastleigh so as not to miss the 3 am check-in ‘later tonight’. When my alarm goes off at 2 am, I am wide awake and ready.