How Do You Write About a City? – Meho Wahome

Nairobi is a city of fragments – pieces that never quite fit but refuse to be ignored.
This piece is not a map of Nairobi – no neat lines or clear answers here.

It listens for the rhythms beneath the noise: echoes of people’s lives, their dreams, their scars.
A collage of voices, memories, and flickers of contradiction.
Hope, laughter, pain – sometimes all at once.

Nairobi is never complete; it is always becoming.
It is a memory still unfolding.

Artist Statement

How Do You Write About a City? began as a question I couldn’t answer – and maybe still can’t. It is a lyric meditation on Nairobi – a city too alive to be captured whole.

I wasn’t trying to capture Nairobi in a single piece. That would be dishonest. Cities like this one don’t fit into clean categories or clean endings. They pulse. They contradict. They hold memory, grief, absurdity, beauty – sometimes all in the same hour.

Rather than define Nairobi, I wanted to feel through it: its humour, its heaviness, its heartbeat. This piece is stitched from my own memories and the voices of those around me – family, strangers, lovers, ghosts – forming a collage of fragments, contradictions, and unfinished stories.

It is both heartbreak and hustle, a city-sized bedroom and a courtroom under trees. More than anything, it is an attempt to glimpse Nairobi as it really is: incomplete, still becoming, and always moving.

This is not a guide – nor a confession.
It’s a fragment. A feeling.

— Meho

How Do You Write About a City?

(ksskss. Ni Nairobi.)

Not just any city —
Enkare Nairobi.
The one I call home.
So how do you?

You just begin.

But what happens when no words suffice to tell of it?
When the tongue folds under the weight of memory, of madness, of melody?

You write it from the memories of its people.
Their hope.
Their joy.
Their pain.
Their laughs.

The heartbeat that echoes across these 696 square kilometres of grit, green, and grind.

I asked my brother once —
“What’s Nairobi to you?”
He shrugged.
Said it’s too full.
Too crowded.
But so is Tokyo. Berlin. New York.
“It’s a different kind of full,” he added.

A foolish full, maybe. A lively full.

He didn’t explain further. Just repeated:
It’s full.

Then paused.
“I like it because… Mwendas.”
That place, still holding its own through generations.
Uncle Edu used to go there in his youth —
Now he’s 42 and joined us again last year like he never left.

And Molly’s – where my brother dances with the night like it owes him something.
He says Nairobi is the nightlife.
A good time.
Laughter under cheap neon and basslines that forget your sorrows for you.

But me?
I don’t know how—

I’ve seen the immolations —
for the doles who terrorized our homes in the 2010s.
I remember the Monday morning whispers at school:
“They burned him. The man whose tongue they cut out.”

The smell of flesh and petrol still clings somewhere deep in my nose.
And fire – fire doesn’t forget you when you grow up too close to it.

I could write about nganyas —
The new soul of the youth imprinted on their skins.
Icons. Dreams.
Route 32. 35. 58. 114. Kasarani.
Still roaring, still flexing.
Kenya 1 – the phantom title all nganyas chase.
Each one gunning for the crown.
Loudest. Flashiest. Fiercest on the road.
They are the spirit of Nairobi – a moving collage of voices, memories, and flickers of contradiction.

Whose turn is it next?

I could write about love.
About how falling in love in Nairobi is just that – NAIROBI.

A city-sized bedroom.
Your girl might be with your best mate.

(Pause)

Your dad might be her sponyo.

And you —
you, the lanky youth barely 22 —
una live it easy na aunty wa Harrier.

(Society calls it shame. You call it survival. She calls it lunch.)

God forbid a young woman mentors a boy.
God forbid a young man helps the elderly.

But for the real lovers —
They sit at Jevanjee,
wrapped in each other on those cold, concrete benches.
A quiet war on the lonely.
We watch them, bitter and soft-hearted,
wishing them triplets when the July cold kicks in.

Sukari na majani ikipanda bei, bado haijafikia ya pampers.
We lament softly, soothing our lonely hearts.

At least they’ll get legal counsel from the LSK guys
who’ve made Jevanjee their office.
Men in faded navy suits and scuffed tan Oxfords —
shoes that have stepped into more buildings than they’ve been welcomed in.
They stopped counting rejection letters after the first 50.
Now they debate with Bunge la Wananchi,
holding court with words sharper than hunger.

So, how do you write about a city?

You just begin.
You remember.
You stitch people into paragraphs.
You let the city breathe through broken lines and full stops.
You let her cry, laugh, bleed, dance – unedited.

There’s only one truth:
Nairobi cannot be captured in whole.
Only glimpsed.
Only felt.

Still incomplete —
Like the City —
still hunting for litter bins around here.

Still incomplete —
Like my heart without another heartbreak
from a 5ft Nairobi baddie.
(I’ll still meet your mother xD)

Still incomplete —
Like my never-ending story na msee wa mayai.
Gonga mbili tukisonga…

Maybe that’s the closest we get to writing about a city — not by capturing it whole, but by walking through its fragments and listening carefully. Nairobi lives in these small encounters, revealing itself piece by piece. You don’t finish writing a city like this one. You only pause, look around, and realise it’s still writing itself. And tomorrow, like always, it will begin again.
— Meho, Nairobi, July 2025.

Glossary:

For those who know — : )
For those who don’t — here’s your cultural passport.

Baddie: A confident, stylish young woman — often admired for her boldness and attractiveness.

Bunge la Wananchi: Swahili for “People’s Parliament.” Informal gatherings — often in public spaces — where everyday Kenyans debate politics, law, and current affairs with unfiltered passion.

Doles: My own slang. A word I use to mean oafs, thugs, or those who roam the streets and shadows with misplaced power. Nairobi knows them. We all grew up watching them become warnings.

Enkare Nairobi: The Maasai name for Nairobi means “Place of Cool Waters.”

Jevanjee: A public park in central Nairobi, known for its mix of romance, political discourse, informal legal advice, and street hustle — all happening at once.

Ksskss: A flirtatious or teasing sound — Nairobi’s version of a cheeky catcall.

LSK guys: Young, often struggling lawyers (or “lawyers-in-waiting”) offering advice from park benches. Their suits are faded, but their legal takes are fiery. Regulars at Jevanjee. Hustle meets ambition.

Majani: Swahili for “tea leaves” (majani ya chai). In the piece, it’s about warmth and simplicity.

Molly’s: A popular entertainment joint in Nairobi, synonymous with music, movement, and memory-making after dark.

Msee wa mayai: Literally, “the egg guy.” A street food vendor selling boiled eggs, smokies, sausages, kebabs, and sometimes hot potatoes — a Nairobi staple for staving off the munchies.

Mwendas: A beloved Nairobi bar that’s stood the test of time — a generational hangout for unwinding, bonding, and keeping old memories alive.

Nganyas: Nairobi’s tricked-out matatus (public minibuses) — mobile canvases of youth culture. Known for their bold graffiti, booming sound systems, and flashing lights. Covered in gospel verses, gangsta rap lyrics, film and anime icons, LEDs, and attitude. Fierce competition for street clout drives their design. They are the spirit of Nairobi — a moving collage of voices, dreams, contradictions, and declarations.

Pampers: A popular diaper brand — used metaphorically here to imply the realities of parenthood. When tea (sukari na majani) becomes expensive, diapers still cost more. A nod to the financial struggle of raising children in Nairobi.

Route 32, 35, 58, 114: Nairobi’s matatu (minibus) routes — each with its own vibe, story, and signature madness. Symbols of urban rhythm.

Sponyo: Slang for “sponsor” — usually an older partner (often male) providing financial support in exchange for romantic involvement. Society calls it shame. You call it survival. She calls it lunch. A powerful line unpacking how the same relationship can be judged differently depending on where you’re standing — survival vs scandal.

Una live it easy na aunty wa Harrier: Mix of Swahili and English: “You’re living comfortably with an older woman who drives a Toyota Harrier.” A tongue-in-cheek nod to transactional love or strategic romance.

Meho Wahome is a writer and designer from Nairobi. He is the author of the poetry collection Broken Seams and was published in Bano Tano: Voices of the Revolution. He writes like he lives – curious, unfinished, and still asking. Lately, life has felt like a field journal, and his writing follows suit – tugging at questions more than answers, and finding joy in the asking.

*Image by Nicholas Gray on Unsplash