Nairobi is a beautiful city in the sun, so said the elders.  Where else can you see colourful flowers?  The Bougainvillea grew over the wall of our house with its multicoloured flowers, magenta, purple and golden yellow.  The Flame Tree produces bright red flowers, like poinsettia leaves.  The flower of the Bird of Paradise is perched on a tall green stalk with a plume of golden orange petals shaped like a bird. In November, when the rain arrived, the Jacaranda tree would produce a great quantity of purple-blue flowers that would fall and cover the ground and it had a sweet pleasant fragrance enjoyed by whoever walked past. Sounds romantic?  Well, that’s not the whole story.

I lived my early childhood in Nairobi, some 5400 feet above sea level, the Equator was an hour's drive away northwards on a rough murram road near the rocky jagged peaks of Mount Kenya.  Kenya is a country that is defined by the Great Rift Valley, two high upheavals in the earth’s crust about 100 miles apart with the level flat floor of the valley about 2000 feet lower.  The Rift Valley is known for its many lakes, Lake Victoria is the largest, and extinct volcanoes, Mt Kenya and Mt Kilimanjaro are extinct volcanoes.  The landscape was rough, scraggy and roughhewn, but had a picturesque beauty, just as nature designed it.  The land around the Rift Valley was fertile and green, and thanks to its altitude it received regular rainfall.  Farmers grew coffee, tea, sisal, and pyrethrum including tropical fruit like banana, pawpaw (also called papaya), pineapple, passion fruit, avocado and custard apple.  The custard apple has an irregular green shape with black spots, a little larger than a tennis ball, and its flesh, which is edible, tasted of vanilla, hence its name.  The temperature in Nairobi was moderate and pleasant, the early mornings were cold, but when the sun came up it warmed up quickly.  Being near the equator the hottest part of the day was at lunchtime, when the solar radiation would be scorchingly hot.

We lived in Nairobi South ‘C’ the newest suburb being developed on virgin land.  Behind our house was the Nairobi National Park. In the dry season the tall grass was brown, the same colour as the coat of the lion, only his mane was darker.  The lion was suitably camouflaged to go hunting.  The Athi Plains stretched across the horizon, dotted with a random distribution of umbrella shaped Acacia thorn trees. In the distance, towards the west was the Ngong Hills which were green all year round.  Towards the southeast, and on clear days, you could see the silhouette of Mount Kilimanjaro in the distant horizon.

At that time we had a pet cocker spaniel, who had long floppy ears with a shaggy black and white fur coat.  My dad named him Scamp, an apt name that resembled his mischievous nature though he could be a lovable scoundrel when he wanted to be.  One day when I came into the kitchen for breakfast, I noticed Scamp was curled up on his blanket almost motionless.  Maybe he has tick fever, said my dad, I will take him to the vet.  After breakfast, and before school, I climbed onto the roof of our house, to see the wildlife.  It was eerily quiet, no gazelles, no zebras, no buffaloes, no ostriches, only vultures circling in the thermals.  A clear sign that lions are around.  I adjusted my binoculars and searched, and searched, then I noticed the grass moving.  Yes, to my joy, a pride of lions were having breakfast on a dead zebra, which they had stalked and killed during the night.  The cute cubs fought the adult lions and one another to get a morsel.  It was exciting to see the lions in their natural habitat.

The lions have good eyesight at night, much better than us humans, unfortunately, they are not able to perceive colours.  The zebras like many herbivores like the wildebeest, buffalo, and gazelles are gregarious and graze together and move around in herds for protection.  They keep the newly born foals within the centre of the herd for safety.  According to theory, the lions do not see an individual zebra but see a grey mass of the zebra herd on the horizon.  However, at dusk or night, the lion uses his eyesight, smell and hearing to track and stalk their prey.  Using the long grass as cover they steadily approach the zebras that are upwind, careful not to alert the herd.  As they approach the herd, they pick out the weakest or young foal.  When the unfortunate zebra is within striking distance, they make a swift dash to attack.  The lions expend a lot of energy chasing their prey.  Scientists tell us that if the lions fail to catch a zebra within three attempts they could run out of energy and could starve.  There is a fine balance of survival in the wild. In this case, the lions caught their prey at some time during the night, and then the whole pride arrived for the feasting.  They had to eat quickly before the pack of hyenas and vultures arrived to challenge the lions for the remnant of the carcass of the zebra they had trapped.

Maybe it was a mistake, but I told my mum about the lions, and she telephoned the game warden on the landline to alert the authorities.  We did not have mobiles in those days, the latest electronic device at the time was the transistor radio.  We did have a Bush Radio, a polished wooden box the size of a trunk that was used to tune to the BBC World Service, which crackled and whistled as it gave the latest cricket score. In response to my mother’s call, within a few minutes, the game warden’s green Land Rover bounded over the portholes and arrived on the scene, and another Land Rover, and another Land Rover.  I sadly, yet politely, pointed in the direction of the pride of lions to help the game warden.  The Land Rovers slowly and gently drove into the bush in a pincer movement towards the pride.  The game wardens proceeded carefully, half cajoled, half guided, half enticed and then chaperoned the lions away from civilization and into the safety of the bush and the game reserve.

Dogs have a keen sense of smell, and Scamp must have smelled the danger and took refuge in the kitchen.  After the lions departed, Scamp made a miraculous recovery and brought a tennis ball and invited me to toss the ball, and then skillfully leapt and caught it in mid air.  Time to go to school instructed my dad.  My dad had an old green Ford Prefect, its maximum speed was 35 mph, and that was going downhill with the wind behind us.  My dad would proudly say it was made in England, and after a momentary pause he would add ‘Old is Gold’.  The car had an indicator shaped like an orange triangular flag that flicked out from the side, to warn other motorists of the intention of the turn the driver wishes to execute, right or left.  If the indicators failed, my dad had to use hand signals, according to the highway code, which used to scare my mum as he only had one hand on the steering wheel.

 We got into the car, and my dad pulled out the choke and tried to start the car, but unfortunately, the battery was flat.  Hooray!  I thought, no school today, but I thought too soon.  Our trusted servant Musa started the engine with the crank handle.  Back to normal.  We drove into town along Queen Elizabeth II Highway which was lined with Bougainvillea bushes.  Passed the Holy Family Cathedral and the LegCo building then up Ainsworth Hill, passed Dr. Leakey’s museum and to Parklands a journey of about 5 miles.  My School was near St Francis Xavier’s Church, an important landmark for Goans in Nairobi who had contributed to its construction in 1933.  The head of my school was a catholic priest from Ireland.  He insisted that we sing a hymn at the morning assembly.  This morning was an exceptionally exciting day but I missed the morning assembly, and I was not sure what I should do.  Don’t worry, said my mother, just say three Hail Marys, and say it with devotion she advised, and she will help you.

I tried to slide along the walls of the corridor like a lizard avoiding detection.  Got to my class, peeped over the glass window, then tried to sneak to my desk without being noticed. I’m sure Dr Ribeiro, looking down, would forgive me.  Before I could make my final manoeuvre to hide behind big burly Edwin, I was surprised, like a leaping gazelle, I was greeted with:

“Desouza, why are you late ?” my form teacher demanded peering through his dark-framed glasses.

“ Sorry Sir, there were some lions in my back garden !” I blurted.

“Oh? ...... Well just don’t make a habit of it” he retorted.

The next day, the headline on the East African Standard was ‘Lions escape from Nairobi National Park’. Instead of playing football at break time, Scamp and I enjoyed our ten minutes of glory, another exciting day in Nairobi, the beautiful city in the sun. 

Some of my cherished memories are from our life in Kenya.