Uhuru Park, perfect getaway in the city

By Tony Mochama

If you thought Uhuru Park was for the ‘mboches’ — that is, the Sunday hang-out for house helps smelling of Rexona soap and glistening in the sun from over-application of Vaseline — then you’ve got another think coming.

Last Friday afternoon, the day after ‘Happy New Year,’ my friend and I decided to go chill out at Uhuru Park and reminisce about the olden days when we were young and knew nothing about vodka shots.

The writer enjoying a boat ride at Uhuru Park with a friend.

Also, last year at this time, when Uhuru Park was cordoned off by police with batons who looked like refugees from the movie Robo Cop, I promised myself that should Uhuru Park ever re-open, I’d re-visit it. There is still police presence at Uhuru Park but it is in the parking lot that borders the gardens of the All Saints Cathedral, and their work is to thwart petty criminals on the loose.

Serena Hotel serenely stands to one side of the park. From the Uhuru ‘hill’, one can get a visual feel of Nairobi’s central business district — from Parliament buildings to Times Towers, KICC and other architectural mainstays of the city.

Inauguration

But it is the park itself that is amazing. Although the pub, restaurant and nightclub that was once there is now a decrepitude building of no meaningful purpose, everything else is better than it ever was. The Coke stands that sell sodas, biscuits and scones are spick, span and enjoy brisk business. Surprisingly, the vendors are a polite lot.

‘Memories are made of this’. An old picture of Mochama hanging out with friends at the Park. Photo/Courtesy/Standard

On the green grass of Uhuru Park, idlers lie down and enjoy the sunshine while romantics saunter over the little bridges that span the park and overlook water that, while not crystal clear, is a far cry from the muddy brown murk that post-Moi regime revellers almost jubilantly drowned in as they celebrated President Kibaki’s first inauguration.

Pedal-Powered

For a small fee, kids can get pulled around in manual miniature vehicles. I can hear you clamouring, what about the boat rides? Ahh yes, the boat rides!

They cost Sh50 per half-hour and, if you’re thinking that is a rip-off, take a breath.

First, the boats are being run by some mzungu (who has been christened ‘Kiptanui’ for some reason), and they are a new plastic lot that are pedal-powered with khaki canopies to pull up to provide a shade from the sun.

Second, they are fun, and although pedalling gives the upper thighs quite a work out, it sure beats playing ‘row row, row your boat’ that those rough old boats called for.

And what would Uhuru Park be without the omnipresent photographers forever snapping away for finje (fifty bob). Wangari Maathai deserves a Nobel if, for nothing else, saving Uhuru Park from being turned into a concrete Kanu jungle headquarters back in the 1980s.