Growing Up Buru Buru

This is part one of a two or possibly three part tribute to Buru Buru

Growing up in Buru Buru estate, on the eastern side of Nairobi meant alot of things to lads my age and older. To me it meant hanging out at mausoleum taking in the sweet smell of nyamchom and checking out the ladies as we played pool at ‘Friends’,. The joint was later flattened (literally and figuratively speaking) after neighbors complained of the noise. Growing up buru buru meant inter-court rivalry. It meant whoever won today’s round got to brag and demean the opponent, it meant tension on the field, it meant fights.

Growing up buru buru meant not being out after eleven, not walking home from the shopping center at night, not walking the divide between buru and umoja estate at night for fear of being mugged. It meant running from crooked cops looking to add to their catch in the mahindra jeep. It meant bribing cops to get out of the mahindra and sometimes not bribing them because you’d rather be locked up than be dropped in the middle of nowhere in the wee hours and have to walk home for fear of being mugged or even killed! Growing up buru buru meant sheng was the numero uno tongue. I’m amazed by the number of ladies who have openly admitted to me that it makes a difference what language a guy vibes in even though they understand and can speak both swahili and english fluently. Actually you are, in no scientific terms, twice as likely to get digits from a chic vibing english than you are in swahili. That’s just how it is, I didn’t come up with this stuff.

Growing up buru meant new years at Bass Club (once), meant ‘Studio-B’ mixtapes and hot mats (matatus), Virgin Islands, Raiders, Pony, Solid-Gold, all the way to the number one manyanga “URVAN SPORTIFF”.

Growing up buru meant Wanja & Kim kindergaten, Shepherds Junior, Harambee, Buru Buru Girls or Buru mambao, it meant church at phase 4 or St James. It meant barbeques (or if you’re from buru - bahbahque) on the little space behind your house and inviting your neighbors, it meant wading the flood waters in 86, it meant tunneling from buru to harambee estate for fun. Growing up buru was fun, there was something going on all the time.

We have since moved on from the place, but I still consider it my home. It was (at its time of construction - 1970s) the largest housing development in Africa. Buru Buru was a pioneer in more ways than one. Other localities spawned around and it is impossible to talk about Nairobi’s eastlands without mentioning it. I have a great deal of respect for the place. If Nairobi was NewYork then BuruBuru would be Harlem. It’s my Harlem which I went back to visit when I was in Kenya and had some of the best nyamachoma and ‘kienyeji’ I have ever had. I took in the sight of young kids beggining their journeys, back-packs heading on to Shepherds junior. What a trip the lads are in for and just think, “that was me a few years ago!”.

Torments From High School days

Magaidi
Tuned in to capital fm this morning to listen to ‘The Drive’ and inevitably stumbled into a discussion on the ‘monolization/rabblization/hazing’ e.t.c in high school. I’m sure most of us went through the same thing. My first day in high school was a challenge of sorts. Of course my old man, prompt as he is dropped me off at mid-day. I was one of the first dudes to arrive and have since been questioned by some whether my intention was to arrive early enough to make lunch on that day. My answers typically leave no doubts as to what I think of their mental abilities, lineage and their childhood including their backgrounds and where they were born. I remember on the first night two dudes were locked in a locker and told to sing each time coins were dropped in akin a juke box. Horror and amusement at the same time, I couldn’t help but laugh and be scared at the same time. Another episode involved a dude who was told to bleat each time he was called. It’s all funny when you look back at it but it wasn’t when you went through it. A buddy of mine, let’s call him Will, was waxing lyrical on a chic during a function when the on-duty teacher, who’d been herding people back for 5 O’clock roll call, got pissed and whacked him infront of the chic! That was as comical as it got. You can imagine a dude trying to impress a chic and along comes this instructor with a kane and proceeds to administer ‘corporal punishment’ on this poor soul. Reverberations were heard across the hall!. I know worse things have happened. Dudes being told to go fetch ‘darkness’ in a bucket, others were told to push 10 cent coins along a 100 yard corridor with their noses, others were being sent to buy 2 loaves, 5 biscuits and chewing gum with a kshs. 20 note and being told to bring change. I did have my moments – was once told to sing lullabies to grown men outside their cubes (which by the way killed any ambitions I had of being a singer), once woken up at 3 in the morning and told to dance like I was at a club. None though funnier than a guy on his way back to the dorm after buying bread at the cafe decided he couldn’t wait to eat it so he started chewing on his way back. He met a senior cop and was admonished for his ‘shao-ness’ – his punishment was to dig a hole right where he was since he had energy now after chewing the bread. The hole still stands, I hear, to this day!.

Almost Lost

Magaidi

I was sifting through my CD collection last night and came across some very interesting music I had almost forgotten about. The likes of ‘Trisha Covington’, remember ‘After 7′, ‘Colin England’, ‘Shai’, ‘Montel Jordan’, ‘D’Atra Hicks’, ‘Peabo Bryson’, ‘Prince’that song ‘dial my heart’ Almost makes the nonsense that is now hip hop sound obsolete with all due respect to Dr. Dre and his cronies. This journey captures you, an unrelenting grip on your senses and continues on. I blow the dust off an ‘Adriana Evans’ CD and recapture old neo-soul sounds. Seeing as this album had been released in ‘97 she was definitely ahead of her time. Continue on to grab that blue shiny Maxwell’UrbanCD. I still contend that got to get to know you is one of his best songs with the album notwithstanding. I also come accross an old 7-inch Pointer sisters LP. It belonged to my mom back in the day when she used to swing and sway to the soulful sounds of Earth, Wind and Fire’s let’s groove tonight A Gap Bands’ - greatest hit’s LP alongside, don’t even get me going. My cell phone rings rudely interrupting my journey into the vast abysses of timeless music - it’s baby girl calling to say g’night.I acknowledge and realize that it’s time to hit the sack, but I am yet to go through half the collection. There’s time I say - pop that ‘Sade’ Cd and drift slowly into oblivion..

Admin

Podcast Powered by podPress (v4.8)