Food & Drinks
Downtown, Nanyuki: Where you fit only at night, if you’re in your 40s
Friday July 21 2023
Nanyuki’s Downtown— as the cool kids say — is a vibe. PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK
I met an artist in Nanyuki who lives with tortoises. He’s called Mcbull and he’s a highly creative craftsman and human with a workshop in Nanyuki’s Downtown.
This is a creative youth hub that is not unlike the Alchemist in Nairobi. During the day you are likely to see cool kids in skinny jeans and tattooed arms, dreadlocks, smoking cigarettes with backpacks hanging about there.
There is a co-working space where more cool kids sit behind their Macs, vaping and scratching their full beards.
You might not fit in, dear reader, if you are as old as I think you are 42 going 51. But you don’t have to fit in, you could always buy yourself something artsy.
Or ask Macbull about his tortoises and this dream of going around the world with an old vehicle he is rebuilding from junk. He goes about in a sexy motorbike he rebuilt from scrap.
You might not fit in during the day but if you wait until dusk, you will fit right in.
First, someone will light up a huge roaring fire in the square. I want to call it a bonfire because that’s what it is. Nanyuki gets very cold, so a fire like that gets everybody gathering close.
The deejay sets up in a raised makuti booth and suddenly the square fills up with the most beautiful sound you will ever hear. I think those speakers are Bose.
The sound is electrifying, with just the right base and range. The kind of sound that makes you turn and look at the speakers.
Of course, the DJ is skinny, sullen and cool. But that’s only because he’s quite good. The only DJ who isn’t sullen and skinny and is good is probably Grauchi.
And maybe Joe Mfalme. A wide open bar serves this square with drinks. In the square, the fire leaps, as if trying to reach into the top shelf of the dark starless night.
You might be happy to learn that the age group of the bar increases as the night wears on.
A young cool troupe will start dancing to encourage everybody to dance because nobody wants to be the first on the dance floor because humans are like wildebeests at the riverbank. Downtown— as the cool kids say — is a vibe.
