Tourist guide for Cousin Barry on surviving Nairobi in the grip of a severe 'tropical' fever

NAIROBI: I suspect our Cousin Barry, who is also the President of the US, is a little disconcerted by the Press reports over the past week, as all manner of threats have been issued against his visit and person.

This is a tourist guide to Cousin Barry and his visitors who need to accurately interpret what they see in the streets.

First off, there are the busy bodies that have threatened to parade in the streets naked if he speaks about certain things.

At the last count, some 5,000 had volunteered to participate in the street action.

Cousin Barry should relax; should the not-so-busy bodies make good their threat and arrive in the streets, they shall be met with the full force of 13,000 fully clothed men – most likely to be in uniform or plainclothes – deployed to guard our famous relative.

I also hear some 18 lasses are lining up to pass water on the tree that Cousin Barry planted at the University of Nairobi if he doesn’t call on the students at the institution – which sounds like modern equivalent of the female curse.

Since the water-passing lasses aren’t that many, I think they don’t pose any real threat and their protest should be allowed to run the whole course.

The reason for this is that the pee isn’t necessarily harmful to the tree. In any case, we should wait to see what they do next once their bladders are drained.

Should the lasses wait to fill their bladders again, that would be really nice, especially if they don’t dress up after the first act.

Neither do I want our Cousin Barry to be fooled by the mounds of earth that line up the road from the airport. The dry shreds of gaunt vegetation is supposed to be to grass, but you and I know Nairobi, after all, is the land where the Maasai brought their animals to graze as pasture was found in abundance.

Which is why Cousin Barry should not waste too much energy working out the mystery of the famished yellowy vegetation where grass should be standing; it simply wasn’t meant to grow.

It’s just one of those Nairobi things that are not meant to achieve much, despite the enormous resources devoted to them.

One would have dismissed the project as a cash-cow, only that that would be an insult to cows because the shoots of green aren’t enough grass to feed even one animal.

 

For if Nairobi so wanted to re-acquire the antiquated feel of the green city in the sun, why did the City fathers only plant the grass a few days ago, when Cousin Barry has been preparing his presidential tour for more than 50 years?

I hear Cousin Barry will be here for just eight hours, which sounds to me like just enough time for the plane to circle around while waiting to land, riding through the gridlocked city roads to get to his dala (home) to see his granny, before rushing again to catch his flight back.

But then, I keep forgetting Cousin Barry is not on a commercial flight; and neither is he ordinary enough to wade through our impenetrable traffic: actually, he will be whisked off before one can say, karibu Kenya, before heading back from whence he came.

Which is why I want our Cousin Barry to drop this tourist business, and consider filling a different form at the immigration. He should enjoy a proper reconnection with the land of his father and consider staying on.

I want Cousin Barry to stay a little longer because there are strong job prospects here. Since he would qualify for dual citizenship, I don’t see any reason he shouldn’t run for President of the Republic of Kenya in 2017. And the timing is just about right because we are in campaign-mode already.

Finally, Cousin Barry shouldn’t believe the hype created around his visit. He should remind all he’s been here before and he knows a thing or two about us. In any case, he’s one of us.