We set out full of hope and ignorance. And a fortnight later, it was ours. Not the Jesus cup or the coordinates for Atlantis. Not even the Southern Pole by foot. Something more elusive and improbable — a decent used pick up truck in Nairobi. I pestered my contacts here, rounded up info, and Monte and Masa, the finest taxi driver south of the equator, and sometimes Tony, and I teamed up and followed trails, cold and hot. It seemed a straightforward thing, but like the square root of two, it turned out to be a stumper.

Day one brought us this. A used car salesman named Kim who took us to see a guy about a truck… a shiny red truck, 2006, Nissan.

Looked good…bent frame.

The above photo Monte took put him in mind of this famous shot of Kerouac’s cohort similarly engaged.

But I get to be Neil, though, right??

This 1999 Isuzu Kim showed us sounded like an unoiled threshing machine.

Looked bad …sounded worse

We drove down Thika Road to see a man about 2000 something Isuzu pick up truck

Looked good…too expensive

We went the other way, to Hurlinghum to …Ya Ya Motors…to see a man about a 1996 Toyota pick up truck. No doubt the Sisterhood has claimed this lot as its own because of Kamau, the strikingly handsome salesman.

Looked good…wrong price

We split the border between Pangani and Mathare

and the street boys sniffing glue and sifting garbage

to see a farmer about a 2000 Toyota pick up truck. We felt particularly safe in this small enclosure, because as you can see, this space was…

Looked bad…wrong year

Even given Kenyans’ general innattention to dates and years, passing this 1993 off as a 2000 was Ocean’s 13-style daring. (There is a small, nearly impervious tag at the base of the seat belts that indicates the year of manufacture.) The owner, a nice man, offered the 600,000 kilometer reading on the odometer as clear proof of his honesty. It is true that all the others we looked at had been rolled back with vigor. A ten year old truck with a 42,000 kilometer reading, for example (something less than 30,000 miles).

These two identical Toyota pick ups had had their spirits and suspensions broken by life on a tea farm if I remember correctly. From their price you might assume they had been served tea every day on the tea farm.

Looked tired…were tired

This one’s cosmetics couldn’t cover its beleagured true self. Even the salesman, Gitau, admitted as much.

Looked fancy… acted plain

We were actually on the way to buy the other pick up in the above photo, just the right fender showing. A 1999 that had been a country rather than a city mouse its whole life. It was the pick of the very challenged litter that our saviour mechanic, Marzio, had checked out for us. We were all dulled and beaten down from the search and had decided to end it, like a lopsided fight, here and now. We got in a bit of a traffic jam on Muranga Rd. when I saw this beauty sitting there.

Masa knew of it, but it was more than we wanted to spend. OK. He turned around to avoid the jam and as he drove back by I asked him to pull into the lot. It was a 2001 Toyota, petrol (not deisel), automatic, just brought over from Japan. It was the only automatic we saw, and a big plus with all the wrong handed shifting, etc. It also hadn’t been broken by the unimaginably bad Kenyan roads for the last six years, and it had the only clean oil I had come across in a slough of dip stick removals.

Looked good…was good

The owner, Robert, came down a little on the price the next day and so we eventually did some business.

or became friends, if you adopt Robert’s stance. Maybe that’s why he thought it ok to start holding hands right off the bat.

Our first and last date.

To cement our new “friendship,” Robert suggested we get some Kenyan girls and go camping upcountry. I demurred.

A few side notes:

We didn’t change clothes off camera for dramatic effect. The chase took place on several long days in Nairobi over the course of a week and a half or so.

I don’t know who snuck in and doctored the photos, but all of the trucks, like air brushed centerfolds, look so much better in the pictures than in person.

Finally, Monte, the chronicler of the this escapade, is almost invisible in the photos, but he was there through every grueling automotive interview, advising, encouraging and making the whole mess a lot less messy.

This photo was taken less than one minute after I began driving in Nairobi, and not more than two actual minutes before my first “ticket” driving in Nairobi.

Everything is reversed here, right? You drive on the opposite side, steering wheel on the opposite side, etc. I came to a red light, and wanted to make a left turn (the equivalent of a right hand turn in the US). I wondered if I could. I stopped, waited, no cars, conferred with Monte, deliberated further, decided to go. Five second later, a thinner, less friendly version of Panch from CHPS pulled up next to me and asked me why I had done the awful thing I did. I apologized, pleaded, accurately, ignorance on so many levels, promised never to do this again, but we were on our way to the police station, or more precisely, the back of the police station. After a long and very boring, parentally toned, and often incorrect disquisition on international and Kenyan traffic rules, came the punch line — we can settle this without having to bother the important people inside for 5000 kenya shillings, clearly the mzungu price. I pretended to call my lawyer to check this out with him, “too much,” I said. When the price fell to 2000ks (about $30 US). I ponied up, pledged my reformed behavior, and said good bye to my new friend who promised he would salute me when he saw me again. I continue to be be ticket free, and my only vehicular crime since is shortening Monte’s young life by ten or twenty years from his spot in the passenger’s seat.

The same night that we got the truck, Monte and I decided to dig deep into our moth eaten (mine, anyway) pockets and have dinner at the Trattoria, by any accounting, a good Italian restaurant. We met Kirby and Laura, our dinner companions, and walked there. A warm Nairobi night, a 2001 Toyota truck safely tucked in the underground parking at Nakumatt, a table on the second floor balcony, and lovely company. So many new things.

The steak Florentine was too rare. The first bite fussed and resisted going down. It began as a group experience. I remember telling the waiter, through and around the half-swallowed bite, to cook it more. I remember Monte saying, “Are you all right?” Then the little hunk of beef went further, but not all the way, down, and I was admitted to that private parlor of people who are dying, of those who have no oxygen. Like the death zone at the top of Everest, but with a lot less waiting around.

Here the drama plays out in pantomime. It’s not unlike chatting pool side with friends and then stepping off into the deep end. There is movement but no sound, and the experience at that moment becomes entirely solitary. I remember the wine taken to force the meat down, cascading with maybe a little risotto from my nose and the spreading stain on my white linen napkin. And I remember thinking how quickly things had turned and how unexpected all this dying was and how inconvenient. And how simple things had become. I didn’t need a 30,000 liter water tank anymore, or a new pair of shoes or dark chocolate, or even the love of my family. I needed a little shot of air. But it might as well have been a little piece of Mars.

The keener among you have already figured out the ending. The little engine that could, did. And that improperly chewed chunk was evicted by a desperate diaphragm from its snug new home. And I popped up out of the water and rejoined my friends: Monte, all athleticism and quick twitch muscle, a split second from a table leap and the Heimlich, Laura and Kirby still straddling stunned and relieved, and the waiter, thrilled at the averted fatality.

I chewed more thoroughly. We skipped dessert, sat and talked instead, and breathed in Nairobi’s polluted, lovely, night air.

On the maiden voyage of the truck, Monte and I brought about 1500 pounds of fresh produce, donated by a new friend, Christian, who owns a produce exporting business, to Mary’s.

Christain, Mary and I with the first load.

A few of the first beneficiaries of Christian’s generosity and the project’s new vehicle at Mary’s.

Monte and his protector, Josephine

Matthew and Courage and a Giants’ fan

In addition to Mary’s kids, the bi-weekly deliveries will be distributed, through a network established by Mary to over five hundred orphans, identified in the Machakos area. She is confident that the infux of fresh, fruits and vegetables will result in a noticeable upswing in the health of the orphan population there.

So now we’re in the produce delivery business. What could be better?

The green grocers,

Monte and David

Posted on June 21st, 2007 by david
Filed under: David's Journal