Photo: Nairobi matatu : NPR
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
From the moment you board the Onyx bus, the music grabs you.
Gospel, Gengetone, Afrobeats – competing at volumes that render conversation unnecessary. Eight television screens play music videos in the cockpit alone. 16 in total. The blue LEDs continue across the ceiling. Every surface is painted: footballers, rappers, politicians with wild chromatic details.
I take the front seat and drive for about 30 minutes with Henry Muindi, the owner, from Nairobi’s central business district to Dandora in Eastlands. Onyx is new and currently the most popular bus on the route due to its graffiti, music choice and young crew. It’s very sumptuous. Outside, a child spots the bus and screams. Henry beams.
“There is no Nairobi without nganya” he says, using Swahili slang for these bling-bling vehicles. “If you haven’t experienced this matatu culture, you should never say you are in Nairobi. “
These private minibuses are legally public transport. But over the past decade, they’ve become something entirely different: animated canvases, mobile sound systems, rolling declarations of what young Nairobi thinks is cool right now.
Driving one is not a ride. It’s being inside the pulse of the city.
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