"Good morning, Maina"

Every morning I take the bus to work. While Finns would sit quietly by themselves, most likely with their phones or listening to music, in Kenya the public traffic is in fact a shared experience. Most buses and matatus play loud music which makes it difficult to listen to anything else (the music is mostly hip hop, random old r n' b-tunes or house music) and some have pimped their ride to the point where, like my ex-roomie, The Ugandan, said: it's amazing how Nairobians aren't severely hearing impaired. The inside of the bus is usually covered with posters of famous artists, or according to a theme, like religious quotes or pictures and quotes from their heroes like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.

What's most amusing with these bus rides is the radio show that most buses I have been taking play in the mornings. Everyone seems to tune into Classic 105 while they're stuck in the morning traffic. Maina, the host, chooses topics that mostly have to do with relationships and sex and the craziest storytellers call in to contribute, which usually leads to Maina just saying, in disbelief, "Okay", sighing deeply and asking jokingly someone to bring him a whiskey even if it's only 8:30 am in the morning because he "can't handle this so early in the morning".

The first time the show caught my attention was when the topic was polygamy and why it's approved for men to have many mistresses but fround upon if women have several lovers. 

First a man calls in to tell that he has a wife, who is a great mother and takes care of the house well, but that she is so tired after taking care of everyone that she doesn't have the energy to take care of him, so he seeks the love from various women - the cleaning lady and her sister, the wive's cousins and so on. Maina seems understanding. 

Then a woman calls in to say pretty much the same thing - her husband is a great provider but a horrible lover, so she goes out to meet strange men, sometimes five times a week. This sparked a reaction in every passenger in the bus with me - people called "Ay!" disapprovingly, and shook their heads. Maina, of course, is shocked and wonders if she isn't worried about contracting HIV and other illnesses and how the woman has time for so many men. I turn to the lady next to me and say: "Probably the same way as the guy who had time for all those women, too" and the lady next to me laughs.

One funny episode was also the one before Valentine's Day, when Maina's question of the morning was how people are planning to spend the Day of Love. A lady called in and she said she's the second wife, but that she's planning to meet with her husband in the morning and take him out for the day, show him a great time with romance and drinks, so that by the time he makes it home in the evening to spend Valentine's with his first wife, he'll be tired and drunk.

 It only takes me about 5-10 min. to get to work, so I only hear tiny pieces of the show and as most of the scandalous callers mix Swahili and English (typical in Nairobi) I just understand half of what's said. Who's regretting slacking off in Swahili class now, huh?