r/nairobi

Wueh! Jana was a close shave. Anyway, story story…

Jana ilikuwa like this: niko jobo, nini nini… alafu First Lady (mamaa) akanidungia masaa sita hivi. So context kidogo — the previous night tukibonga, alisema nimechezaa chini sana and anadai kunicheki. Nikamshow Friday iko fiti, so akasema atakam kunispoil hapo Yolo Ice Cream kando ya Kenya Cinema.

Anyways, nikapick tenje kubanja nini nini…
“Unatoka job what time?” akauliza.
Nikamuambia nangoja meeting flani ya saa saba — side hustle yangu ya mayolo, nilifaa kushowcase progress ya app flani namjengea. Anywho, hamjali kuhusu hio🤣. Nikamshow by 3 I’m all free na atanipata tao. Ofisi zetu ziko CBD anyway, so sina pressure.

Namalizia meeting na bahati nzuri pia akapiga kusema amefika tao. Nikamshow phai, apande tupatane sindio.

All this time nilikuwa na colleagues wangu wawili madem kwa ofisi. Na walikuwa wamesema nikimaliza niwatrace juu personally sikuwa nimemake plans na mamaa. Plus ni colleagues wangu wa nguvu, ifykyk. Sijawakula.🤣

So tukapatana, tukapanda hivo Yolo. Tukaorder ice cream. Yooh, I’m not even the biggest ice cream fan, but wueh… ilikuwa tamu! And the portions too? Well served 👏. So far so good.
Mid-date, mid-convo, her sister calls.

“…I’ve clocked out jobo and I’m in town…”
First Lady anajibu, “…okay, I’m at Yolo with Mr. Man.” So Apparently the sister alikuwa ameplan ku-link up na her girlies, but alikuwa amefika tao mapema. So alikuwa anatafuta njaro ya kubuy time. First Lady akamshow, “Pull up.”

Yoh! Si akafika, na wacha niwashow, Dem ni mreeembo, na alikuwa amepiga body suit flani, yani tu, wueh! Acha tu😭Not that ety my mamaa, si mrembo. She’s actually very cute and gets compliments a lot! But yoh…her sister was good looking wallahi wallahi🙌🏾 Yaani alinichanganya for a minute.

I remember at some point nikajiuliza, “And Jabura (not my real name) is quiet? Alikuwa hivi kweli?”🤣 I was that speechless.

Now, to make matters worse, she pulled a stunt that, looking back, felt like a set-up. She acts like anataka ku-unblock mtu. So she finds a way to bag my attention for a second and casually utters the words: “…si you’re an iPhone user, how do I unblock people?”

As she hands me her phone. Mind you, at this point simu iko kwa dial pad.

😂😂😂

So sasa sijui kama ni mimi nilioverthink, ama kiwanja ilikuwa wazi na mimi ndio sikucheza.
Mnaonaje wadau?🤣 Anyway, sikueka digits zangu, date ikaenda fiti, and after dropping her kwa stage (nilimuacha na sister yake), nikachukua senke nikapatana na my two colleagues. 

I went to the Nairobi Show recently and honestly, I left wondering: what the fuck happened to this country?

Let me start with the entrance fees.

KSh 350 for adults. Fine.

But KSh 300 for children?

Who the hell is bringing their kids to the show at KSh 300 a head?

I remember a time when the Nairobi Show was something families could actually go to. Kids were charged significantly less. It was an event you took your children to because they could walk around, see things, learn things, discover stuff.

Now you're basically looking at KSh 1,300 for two parents and two kids just to walk through the gate.

And then you get inside.

Where are the exhibitions?

This is the part that genuinely shocked me.

I remember going to the Nairobi Show and seeing companies showcasing actual products and innovations.

New agricultural equipment.

New cooking technologies.

Biogas systems.

Machinery.

New inventions.

Companies showing people, “Look what we've built.”

That's what made the show interesting.

This time?

Empty stalls everywhere.

And the stalls that were occupied were overwhelmingly government-related institutions, food vendors, hawkers and a handful of companies that could obviously afford to be there.

And that got me thinking.

What does it say about the state of the private sector when an exhibition that is supposed to showcase what Kenya is producing has so little private-sector participation?

Because the Nairobi Show isn't supposed to just be a giant marketplace for nyama, clothes and snacks.

It's supposed to be a showcase of what the country is building.

You should walk through there and come out thinking:

"Damn. Look at what Kenyans are making."

Instead, I kept seeing empty space.

And then there was another thing I noticed.

Where were the Chinese businesses?

Where were the Indian businesses?

For years, you could go to these kinds of exhibitions and find foreign companies and entrepreneurs showcasing machinery, equipment, technology, manufacturing products and all kinds of things.

This time?

Almost nothing.

Maybe I caught the show on a bad year. Maybe there were exhibitors I simply didn't encounter.

But that's precisely why the whole thing bothered me.

Because when you walk through a national exhibition and the overwhelming impression you get is:

government institutions + food vendors + hawkers + empty stalls

you have to ask yourself what happened to the productive economy underneath all of that.

And here's the thing:

I'm not an economist.

I'm not going to pretend that one exhibition can tell me exactly what Kenya's GDP, private investment or manufacturing output is doing.

But I do know what I saw.

And what I saw did not look like a country confidently showcasing a thriving private sector.

It looked like a country where the people who are supposed to be building, manufacturing, innovating and investing are increasingly absent from the room.

And that, to me, is far more disturbing than an empty stall.

Because the Nairobi Show is supposed to be a mirror of what we're building.

And if the mirror is mostly empty, maybe we should stop arguing about whether the reflection looks good and start asking why there's so little in front of it.

And yes, politically, I have to ask the obvious question too:

What the fuck has this government actually done to create an environment where businesses want to invest, manufacture, innovate and show up?

Because if this is what one of our country's biggest public exhibitions looks like, I'm not interested in being told everything is fine simply because some macroeconomic number somewhere says otherwise.

I was there.

I saw what was there.

And I saw what wasn't.

Fuck Ruto and his government for whatever responsibility they bear for this mess.

But more importantly:

What the fuck happened to the Nairobi Show?

Apparently it gets easier as you get older for men, you're probably wiser, have sound decision making and if you're lucky, a good income and the potential to increase it and a a good physique if you were physically active.

Assuming one attains that, what's the market like? Who are you attracting and what's the preferred age difference? Are you going for your agemates in their 30s or ladies in their mid to late 20s? Where are you looking for finding them?

The reason I'm asking this is because one day I'll actively want to look for a companion and that one day is probably in my 30s, right now I'm just interested in other things

It was the anthem in our household.

Even though my parents were a bit well off, I understood early that I couldn’t build my life around what they might give me. I needed my own plan.

So I hustled.

I remember taking up a house manager job. My employer was incredibly strict, and eventually, I broke. I called my parents.

My dad asked me, “Why would you do all this? Mbona uteseke hivi?”

My sister blamed me for having no backbone.

And then my mum held me as I cried, for the first time in my life as an adult.

That moment broke something in me.

I realized how much pressure I had put on myself to prove that I could do everything on my own.

Endurance is commendable, but not all the time.

I had spent so long thinking that being independent meant never needing them.

But home is home.

My parents are my parents. Their support doesn’t take away from everything I’ve worked for. It just means I don’t have to suffer unnecessarily to prove that I can stand on my own.

Life will happen. Plans will fall apart. Setbacks will come.

And that’s okay.

Because no matter what happens, I know I have somewhere to come back to.

Home.

They’ll always have my back.

The pressure to make it big before a certain age will always be there. I just have to stay calm.

Because somewhere along the way, I realized that peace is also a form of success.

And honestly, getting my peace has been my biggest, most successful purchase yet.

Decided to give today my full focus and set aside a 4-hour block strictly for upskilling.

I started right at 3:00 PM and ran a strict 50/10 structure—50 minutes of deep work, 10 minutes to step away. Here is how the blocks broke down:

Block 1: Python Fundamentals

Block 2: Power BI (DAX)

Block 3: Python Fundamentals

Block 4: Python Fundamentals

Python has been my main focus. I’ve been on the basics for three weeks now, and I wanted to make sure my logic was solid before jumping into Pandas. To test myself, I had AI generate practice problems so I couldn't just coast on theory.

Following through on the exact plan without folding feels incredible.The best part? Work ikishakua done, saahi ni kutoka out ku-socialize na ku-unwind na zero guilt hanging over my head. Form ni kujibamba after putting in the work.

For anyone else grinding on the side. keep pushing. How’s the upskilling journey going on your end?

What cole songs do you think are underrated?...mine are

sideline story

welcome

runaway

worlds empty'

Hey everyone!

I’m 27M Indian and will be moving to Nairobi in January 2027 for work. It’ll be my first time in Kenya, so I’d love to connect with Indians or anyone living in Nairobi and get to know people before I move.

Would be great to make some friends, learn about life in Nairobi, and have a few connections there before I arrive.

If you’re in Nairobi, hit me up! 😊

Im trying to obtain a student pass to allow me to basically stay in the country for longer , so in terms of courses is there one that you know of that is online that doesn’t require too much work to allow me to get my student pass ?.

Real person with real morals.

What’s the demand for affordable laptops/ electronics in Nairobi? Content creators looking for products to grow their platform? Let me know what y’all want.