I had a few extra days in Kenya after my Indy Escapes tour, so I searched for a walking tour in Nairobi. Discovering a city through the eyes of locals is by far my favourite way to learn about a destination. Historical facts are important, but what I love most is getting a better understanding of the culture through the eyes of a local. Someone who can share their own experiences and stories. I’ve had some brilliant walking tours over the year, but none as good as the walking tour I did with Nai Nami in Nairobi.

What is Nai Nami?

I spotted Nai Nami while looking for things to do in Nairobi. They had some brilliant reviews and were touted as one of the best tours in Nairobi. But it was reading about Nai Nami that made me really want to join them! Getting hold of them and booking wasn’t the easiest, but it was worth the effort!

Nai Nami was set up to help tackle youth unemployment in the slums of Nairobi. Poverty, a lack of role models, and the requirement to make a living mean that many kids end up on the streets, often homeless and relying on begging and crime to survive. My time with Street Child in Sierra Leone and Uganda has opened my eyes to just how challenging life can be for the most vulnerable children, but I had never before heard a story like the one of my Nai Nami guide.

Social Impact

Nai Nami is owned and run by former street children who have lived and survived on the streets of Nairobi, making it through each day by hustling, often resorting to violence to make it through each day, and numbing themselves with drugs and alcohol. This walking tour is like no other! It is a chance to experience Nairobi through the eyes of those who have experienced it at its harshest.

At the time, Nai Nami had eight guides, all former street children, and all with very different stories. They keep the groups small, with one guide to every two guests so that you can enjoy an intimate walk through the city and the chance to ask as many questions as you like. Although every guide takes you to the same places, each guide’s story is different, so you could do the tour eight times and hear a different story and perspective every time.

Downtown Nairobi

To the best of my knowledge, Nai Nami is the only walking tour that takes you into downtown Nairobi. This area is not considered safe, and most recommend avoiding it. There is a very clear divide between the Central Business District (CBD) and Downtown. There may not be any physical barriers, but an invisible forcefield keeps downtowners out of the CBD.

As we walked from the relatively clean and orderly CBD to the chaotic streets of Downtown, I became electrified with excitement. Tinted-window SUVs were replaced by noisy motorbikes, minibuses blaring music, and illegal vendors flogging their wear. There may not be any street lights, but this is where the soul of the city lies.

It is certainly not somewhere I’d like to explore alone, but I felt perfectly safe with King, my Nai Nami guide. Locals came up to greet him and, by proxy, fist-bumped me too. I was welcomed everywhere we went, and it was clear that everyone had a lot of respect for King. I’d soon find out why!

Life in Downtown

Downtown is where those living in the slums come to make a living. Most live hand to mouth, earning enough during the day to hopefully feed their families that night, but with limited opportunities to earn enough to change their lives.

Opportunities are slim, and therefore, crime is rampant. Police operate undercover and use their full force to enforce the law. Beatings from the police are common, as are shootings, and many use their kids as shields to soften police brutality. It is also not uncommon for the police to look the other way when “the people” choose to take revenge on those committing crimes, even if that revenge ends in death.

Not many people live Downtown; those who do are predominantly homeless, claiming the pavement as their bed. An apartment block is currently being built, but otherwise, it is mainly businesses and hotels operating here by the hour.

I felt alive as we walked the streets, dodging men pulling heavy carts, greeting passersby with “Mambo vipi” to their absolute delight, and taking it all in while listening intently to King’s story.

My guide, The One and Only

When we arrived at the meeting point for the Nai Nami walking tour, we were greeted by four guides. They didn’t give us their real names; instead, they introduced themselves by their nicknames: Quick, The Priest, Typhoon, and King, also known as The One and Only.

We were split into groups, and since we were uneven numbers, I got King all to myself. We started walking, and he began sharing his story with me.

King was born in Nairobi’s largest slum. He never knew his dad, and after his mum was made redundant from her job as a cleaner in an office building, she gave him up, leaving him at an orphanage when he was just three years old. He stayed there until he was 5, but due to financial reasons, the orphanage closed, leaving all the kids homeless.

Homeless at the age of 5

He tried to find his mum, but he had no way of remembering where in the labyrinth of the slum they had resided. And even if he did, the chances of her still being there were slim. He asked about and went to her old office building, but nobody was either able or willing to help, and so at age 5, King found himself living on the street of downtown Nairobi.

As we strolled through the walking tour, he showed me where he had slept in those early days. The safest place for young kids was to claim the centre reservation as their “home.” He and his friends would curl up here every night, hoping they wouldn’t be snatched like so many other kids were.

They would wake early and go to the CBD in search of leftover food and water. They’d scour the bins looking for sustenance, retreating back to Downtown before the “business day” started. If caught, they would face lashings from the police, who patrolled the area to keep the “likes of him” away from the much more worthy businessmen.

Imprisoned at the age of 7

At the age of 7, he didn’t get out quite in time and was caught by the police and imprisoned. He received daily whippings, the scars of which he still bears today. But it wasn’t all bad. Being in prison meant he was able to wash with clean water, which helped heal the horrible skin disease he had developed from bathing in the sewers.  

Once he was released, he returned to his friends in Downtown and continued scavenging and begging. It wasn’t all work though. He and his friends often played football with rolled-up plastic bags. It was while playing one day that his talent was spotted by a Norwegian. He thought he had the potential to be a professional football player and offered to sponsor him so that he could move to Norway.

King had prayed for a way out every day and night, and now his prayers were answered! He was excited. There was light at the end of the tunnel. All he had to do was get the relevant paperwork. Having been born in the slum though, he had no paperwork. His mum had not gone to the hospital, and therefore he didn’t “exist”. Having tried to go through the formal routes with his Norwegian friend, the lack of a birth certificate meant that the door was closed to him. However, he met someone who could help him obtain the “correct” paperwork for a fee.

He begged and saved and did everything he could to raise the money to pay the bribe. He went with this new saviour to the immigration office, where his paperwork was signed and approved. All he had to do was wait two weeks, and he would be heading to a life of freedom.

To good to be true

Two weeks passed, and there was no sign of paperwork. Three weeks. Four weeks. Eventually, he tracked down the man who was meant to help him. He had used King’s details to create the necessary paperwork to get another kid out of the country, one who could pay a bigger bribe.

Devastated and angry, ten-year-old King decided to stop waiting and start taking. And so, after this devastating blow, he and his friends turned to a life of crime. They started with petty crime. One of them would stop passersby and pretend to beg, while the friends would pickpocket them. Finally, they were making some money and could eat regular meals. But they were soon noticed, and older kids started demanding a share. But King wasn’t prepared to be walked over all over again, and so he fought back with all the pent-up anger of the football injustice.

He soon earned himself a reputation as someone not to be messed with, and with it, his first nickname: King. He and his friends ruled the streets. Nairobi is locally known as Nai-robbery, and they certainly excelled at it. They soon progressed from pickpocketing to snatch and runs, to grabbing from cars, and eventually to forceful muggins.

“I am ashamed of the things I did” – says Daniel, his real name, “but it was the only way I knew how to survive”.

King becomes The One and Only

A life of crime is not easy though. Rival gangs want you gone. Police shoot to kill. And the people want you dead. Slowly but surely, the group of friends he had left the orphanage with were dwindling. Some were shot by police, some by “jobs gone bad”, but one was burnt alive by the people.

They were hated and feared by those coexisting with them Downtown, and after a robbery went wrong, the people captured one of his friends and decided to take justice into their own hands. After breaking his ankles so that he couldn’t run away, they beat him incessantly before setting him alight for him to burn to death.  

Police shot three other friends, and at the age of 20, he lost his one and only remaining friend. They had snatched a phone from a car unbeknown that undercover police were watching them. As they ran away, King turned down an alleyway while his friend continued straight. The police shot him dead. That is when King earned his second nickname: The Only and Only, because he was the only remaining friend from their original orphanage gang. We stood looking at the spot where this had all taken place, sadness still etched in “The One and Only’s” voice.

A few days later, Daniel was picked up by the police and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Redemption

The wish he had so wanted as a child finally came to him. An olive branch was extended to him by an old man in prison. “Son, if you can keep your nose clean in here, I will help you appeal”.

This wasn’t hard for Daniel; after all, his reputation as a mean motherfucker preceded him. Nobody was going to mess with him! And so, with the help of this old man, after two appeals, he was released only five years into his sentence.

On his last day, the old man said, “I don’t want to see you again. You need to find a new way to make a living, or you will be back in here in the blink of an eye. And that is if you’re lucky. Next time, you may just be underground with your friends.”

Is there such a thing as an honest living?

With the old man’s wise words in his head, he went to the market to earn an honest living. His plan was to cart goods about, but he soon learned it was impossible. In order to do this, he needed a cart, and to get a cart, he needed 100 shillings, but he had no way of making 100 shillings. How could he live a life of no crime, if in order to get your foot on the ladder, you need to commit a crime?

He did the only thing he knew how to do: he commandeered a cart—not just one cart, but two carts and three trollies—and set up his own business renting these out. Not only did he not have to do any manual labour, but he was earning 500 shillings a day.

With this modest “luxury”, he found himself a tin-roofed shack in the slum and even had enough to splash out and pay to use the slum portaloo every now and then.

The turning point

One day, while speaking to his neighbour, he learned of his predicament. The neighbour only had 100 shillings. He had no food, and he had to choose whether to buy food and feed his 7 children and wife or make them all go hungry so that he would have 100 shillings to rent a cart the next day and make some money.

At this point, Daniel had a moment of realisation. He was part of the problem. Daniel was only thinking of himself. With a change of heart, he said to his neighbour, “Buy the food, and you can have the trolly for free tomorrow.”

After this, he started reforming how trollies were hired in the market. Instead of the pushers paying for the trollies, the vendors clubbed together to cover the cost of the hire, meaning that pushers would always have access to a trolly or a cart and, therefore, the ability to make money.

Daniel started turning from villain to hero, from stealing to supporting, and from fear to respect. His reputation as “King” has never left him; that was obvious as we walked through the streets of Downtown. But it is now the thieves who fear him while the people revere him. The police are now his friends, and he spends his days trying to make the lives of others better, not worse. He has been guiding for Nai Nami since 2019.

He still lives in the same slum with his wife and three kids, but he works tirelessly to get out and create a better life for his children.

There is no room for judgment when we look at the world from a position of privilege

I came up with that quote in Uganda after spending time with Street Child in the Kyangwali refugee camp. I feel it is as relevant here as it was back there. Daniel certainly did some bad stuff. I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. But who am I to judge?

My Nairobi walking tour with Nai Nami was, without a shadow of a doubt, the best walking tour I have ever done. It was thought-provoking and incredibly inspiring. Plus, I got myself my very own street name: Queen Bea!

The best walking tour in Nairobi

If you are looking for things to do in Nairobi, I honestly can not recommend this highly enough. I am returning to Kenya in October to host a trip, and you bet I will be doing another tour with Nai Nami!