Nairobi, Kenya, August 1, 1982
My parents had arrived the night before for a 2-week visit and we were all prepared for a full schedule of touristy adventures. That Sunday morning, we were getting ready to go to church, when a friend from down the block anxiously rattled our locked gate. “There’s been a coup”, she breathlessly and somewhat dramatically announced, as she did every time she had news to report. The sound of gunfire broke through the sunny, quiet morning air, and, after continuing her conversation for longer than was wise, she finally decided she should go back to her home. Turning on the radio, there was a continuous loop of patriot songs with an occasional announcement urging calm and reporting that the president would be addressing the nation; this being the state-run station, we had no way of verifying the facts. Throughout that day, we heard sporadic gunfire coming from the slum a block from our house. Planes flew overhead all day and we stayed inside; at some point, we learned that a faction of the Kenyan airforce was involved, so there was no way to know who was flying them. For the first time ever, our neighborhood was deathly quiet, with no buses, no matatus (minibusses usually packed to overflowing with commuters), and no one venturing outside beyond their locked gate. That evening, the president did address the nation, thus confirming he hadn’t been assassinated, and assuring the nation that the government was in full control(was it?). In the next few days, people gradually came out of their homes to walk to the market for needed food and supplies; we watched in amusement as everyone walked with both hands high in the air, identity cards (and even newly purchased toilet paper rolls) held in full sight.
Our carefully made travel plans were put on hold until we knew more about conditions beyond Nairobi. One evening, after our one-year-old was asleep, we settled down for a game of Rook, my family’s go-to game. The quiet night was suddenly shattered by rounds of automatic gunfire. Having watched enough movies to know what to do, I doused the lights, we dropped to the floor, and crawled up the stairs, pausing to briefly peek out the window. As if on cue, every house in our entire neighborhood was dark; only the streetlight revealed the armed soldiers stealthily creeping through the field directly across the street from our townhouse. We made our way into a bedroom on the backside of the house and hid under the beds, an automatic response as if that would somehow protect us. Our son continued sleeping in his room at the front of the house; we decided that he was probably safer asleep there than awake and screaming. A few more volleys, stillness, and then we heard the approach of government vehicles. In a flash, the soldiers were whisked away and we returned downstairs. The next morning, our neighbor showed us a bullet casing and the hole in the wood frame around his front door.
Eventually, things went back to normal, though for days seeing armed soldiers, crouched and on full alert in the field off the main road, was a somber reminder of what had transpired and what, thankfully, had been averted, We were able to travel out of Nairobi and managed to visit the game parks and the coast as planned (and, bonus, there were very few other tourists out and about). Witnesses to history being made, we lived to tell the story and stayed for another 14 years.
— cmshingle
My parents had arrived the night before for a 2-week visit and we were all prepared for a full schedule of touristy adventures. That Sunday morning, we were getting ready to go to church, when a friend from down the block anxiously rattled our locked gate. “There’s been a coup”, she breathlessly and somewhat dramatically announced, as she did every time she had news to report. The sound of gunfire broke through the sunny, quiet morning air, and, after continuing her conversation for longer than was wise, she finally decided she should go back to her home. Turning on the radio, there was a continuous loop of patriot songs with an occasional announcement urging calm and reporting that the president would be addressing the nation; this being the state-run station, we had no way of verifying the facts. Throughout that day, we heard sporadic gunfire coming from the slum a block from our house. Planes flew overhead all day and we stayed inside; at some point, we learned that a faction of the Kenyan airforce was involved, so there was no way to know who was flying them. For the first time ever, our neighborhood was deathly quiet, with no buses, no matatus (minibusses usually packed to overflowing with commuters), and no one venturing outside beyond their locked gate. That evening, the president did address the nation, thus confirming he hadn’t been assassinated, and assuring the nation that the government was in full control(was it?). In the next few days, people gradually came out of their homes to walk to the market for needed food and supplies; we watched in amusement as everyone walked with both hands high in the air, identity cards (and even newly purchased toilet paper rolls) held in full sight.
Our carefully made travel plans were put on hold until we knew more about conditions beyond Nairobi. One evening, after our one-year-old was asleep, we settled down for a game of Rook, my family’s go-to game. The quiet night was suddenly shattered by rounds of automatic gunfire. Having watched enough movies to know what to do, I doused the lights, we dropped to the floor, and crawled up the stairs, pausing to briefly peek out the window. As if on cue, every house in our entire neighborhood was dark; only the streetlight revealed the armed soldiers stealthily creeping through the field directly across the street from our townhouse. We made our way into a bedroom on the backside of the house and hid under the beds, an automatic response as if that would somehow protect us. Our son continued sleeping in his room at the front of the house; we decided that he was probably safer asleep there than awake and screaming. A few more volleys, stillness, and then we heard the approach of government vehicles. In a flash, the soldiers were whisked away and we returned downstairs. The next morning, our neighbor showed us a bullet casing and the hole in the wood frame around his front door.
Eventually, things went back to normal, though for days seeing armed soldiers, crouched and on full alert in the field off the main road, was a somber reminder of what had transpired and what, thankfully, had been averted, We were able to travel out of Nairobi and managed to visit the game parks and the coast as planned (and, bonus, there were very few other tourists out and about). Witnesses to history being made, we lived to tell the story and stayed for another 14 years.
— cmshingle
Comments
Post a Comment