Matatus are ubiquitous in Nairobi. The makeshift buses (the bigger ones, there are also smaller ones more like minivans) are often pimped out in elaborate designs, colored lighting, and sometimes loud music pumping. Like a rolling club, but full of weary commuters trying to get home.
They are also notorious rogues of the road. They are known for aggressive driving, to put it mildly. Sometimes on the wrong side of the road if it will gain them a few seconds (though this unfortunately can be true of Nairobi drivers in general). Their manic honking as they stop to solicit passengers carries far over the landscape. Like hearing a faraway train whistle but far less romantic.
I did ride on one once with a Kenyan friend, it was fine, uneventful.
Maybe the most notable thing about them is the mish-mash of pop-culture motifs in the paint jobs, to attract customers (the buses are privately owned and operated). The rear end in particular usually has some sort of face. Maybe Bob Marley or a sports star or celebrity. Sometimes a generic or hipster reference that an oldie like me wouldn’t get.
Sometimes the face staring back at you in traffic is white.
Sometimes it’s James Bond.
I won’t try to unpack the jarring (to me) colonial context of that. A Kenyan friend here told me I’m overthinking it, that the average Kenyan doesn’t see a ghost of the past, they just see a movie star.
Photographer Notes
My shooting tactics are different here. These photos were generally taken very quickly, sometimes without looking through the viewfinder at all. Or from the car when it's the only way. Good luck trying to pull over, get out, and run over to shoot something properly. The lead photo was taken with my phone while driving.
The streets of central Nairobi can be a bit rough and chaotic but are alive with photos. Yet street photography is historically not really a thing, until fairly recently it was illegal unless you had a permit.
That's all changing, there is a new generation of young Kenyan photographers out there doing it, telling the stories of the city from the inside. I know because some of them took my photo workshop a while ago and I still mentor and collaborate with them. It's hard out there for them too, they also worry about getting their cameras snatched.
As a mzungu (white guy) it's harder in some ways. Not necessarily more risky, there's just no stealth-mode option. People see you. They will say 'hi mzungu!'. It's a trade-off, on one hand you do get a bit of polite deference. On the other, you're a potential mark. In a year and a half I have literally never shot on the streets here alone, as I normally would. But with a Kenyan companion all is possible.
We were having dinner with expat friends once, one of them was talking about how Nairobi has become so much safer than it used to be, certainly compared to some other places where she had worked in Africa, like Lagos. While it was once dubbed 'Nai-robbery', she said no one she knew these days in Nairobi had a crime story. At one point I mentioned the idea of walking around with a camera. She paused, looked at me, and said:
"Um, yeah, don't do that."
Select images are available as fine-art prints: