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What a great final that was, that one afternoon in September for 2006. Two champion teams going head to head for Australian sport’s most prestigious prize (sorry ARL followers, AFL far outranks yours in terms of players, fan base and money. Plus, I personally find league, well, let’s be honest here, bloody boring as batshit! I mean, come on, big dumb blokes running into each other, falling down, standing up, playing the ball back to another big dumb bloke, repeat 5 times before kicking to another big dumb bloke on the opposing team. Yawn!). And what a finish! My heart was literally in my mouth, more so being a Perth boy, even though I have been living in Sydney for the past decade or so. But you can take the boy out of the west, but you can’t take the Sandgroper out of the boy!

But I was extremely lucky to even see the final. Kenya is not known as one of the AFL’s hot markets, and so trying to find a bar or restaurant open at 7.30am Saturday morning willing to show the game on the South African sports satellite station Supersports turned out to be quite a challenge. One that I was willing to take up, doing for the boys who I know were relying on my support!

So, ring around early in the week, trying to test out the waters of the few KC’s I knew around the place. KC? Kenyan Cowboy. Basically white Kenyans who speak with British accents for the most part (though a few with South African accents), socialise with other white Kenyans or visiting white foreigners, live in large walled compounds guarded and serviced by low paid black Kenyan staff, drive around in air conditioned 4WDs from walled compound to walled compound, and freak out whenever the idea of them actually coming into town is mentioned.

But they’re not all bad… it’s more that they’re a product of their upbringing and environment. So not bad/evil/ugly people per se, just a little… well… different than the rest of us. And unfortunately the reason why I realised that I didn’t really know of any KC who was a close enough friend to invite myself around at 7.30 on a Saturday morning to watch a sport they had absolutely no knowledge of or interest in.

And my other Kenyan friends, being black for the most part but also a few mwindi (Indian heritage – white: mzungu, black: mafrica, Indian: mwindi), don’t have as pressing a need for the latest satellite stations beamed directly to their living rooms as do us white folk.

Okay, so that meant my only option was to find a bar or restaurant open at 7.30am on a Saturday with the sports channels. Easy in Sydney, not so easy in Thika or Nairobi.

A local Thika option was Thornton’s Sports Bar. How to describe Thornton’s…? If you can think of a cramped, stuffy, hot, overcrowded sports changing room, with neon lighting and sports or music volume of a similar level as a 747’s engines on take off, you might get some idea of what the place is like. Of course, Saturday morning the place would either be closed or in the midst of clean up. If I could rely on my enquiries about being open for cleaning eliciting a reliable response it was an option. But with my nine months (and counting) experience of the unreliability of any accurate response or resultant appointment being met in Kenya, I decided there really wasn’t much point in asking at all. No, what I needed was somewhere a little more “un-Kenyan” in its usual operations.

Not that I have anything against Kenya or Kenyans in general, just that they are extremely unreliable when I comes to being accurate with times and appointments. Kenyans’ have the intelligence to do anything they want. Many of them, however, need a little reminding on issues of time… They follow what they call “African time”, which as I say to my friends, is fine for matters of social occasions, but not where good business is concerned. Anyway, I’m digressing… another subject for another post sometime.

So off to Nairobi it was then. First challenge waking up 6.30 Saturday morning. Groan… but do I hate early mornings! Yeah, I know, whinge, whinge. There’s most of you guys trudging off to office to work 9 to 5 while I get to experience African life and adventure, and here I am complaining about the odd early morning. But I gotta ell ya, I’ve tried to embrace the African life in many ways, and one of those is “poli poli” (slowly slowly), which is how I regard my mornings…

Anyway, succeeded in rising early, and so drive into the city, going through my options – the more upmarket bars/restaurants that would definitely have satellite and might have the best chace of being open either for breakfast or cleaning.

First option – closed.
Second option – closed.
Third option – closed.

Okay, now I was getting a little concerned. If I hadn’t gone to all the effort of getting up with the intention of watching the footy no big deal. But now that I had, oh my God there damn well better be a television somewhere I could watch the game! Ugly Dave was rumbling inside.

Fourth option – Pizza Garden, part of the Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi. Gate was open, good. Cleaners were about, okay. One of the TVs was on, great! Can I watch the game?

“You can try the pool bar across at the hotel sir, they’re open for breakfast.”

Damn. Run (it’s now after 8.00, game started around 7.30) across the road, through the hotel (“Which way to the pool bar?”, “Which way to the pool bar?”, “Which way to the pool bar?”), and to the pool bar.

Nice big TV cabinet behind the bar, great, looks very promising.

“Excuse me mate, can I watch something on the sports channel while having breakfast?”

“Sorry sir, the barman has got the key, and he’s not in until noon.”

Damn.

Sprint back to the Pizza Garden. Convince them to let me in despite them being closed, and watch game through grilled TV cage (barman with key to cage not in here yet either). Might have watched a few unrecognisable players with faces hidden behind cage bars, but considering my efforts, all in all not a bad result. Well, except for the breakfast I “had” to buy to stay in the place, which cost about 10 times what I could have bought it for at a local restaurant. Sigh, the life of a mzungu (white person) in Kenya: over charged, over indulged… and over here.

Go you mighty Eagles!!

Your man in Africa, Dave.
Fri 06/10/2006 Dave Rooney 359 views

2 Comments about this article

  • Dave better than the guys back here who watched Fox Footy Channel - they had a replay of last years game & they caught 55,000 viewers!

    Posted by James Ashton Mon Oct 23, 2006 07:17pm AEST
  • GO EAGLES!!!!!!!!!!

    Posted by Reece Turner Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:15pm AEST

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