Can I Get Some Service?

Girl, what dates you talking about? June 3rd, 2012


“Um, you can take that back to the kitchen.”

I've noticed that I get particularly bad customer service when I am in all-white company in Nairobi.

So, after the AMAZING day at the Nairobi National Park/Giraffe Center/ Elephant and Rhino Orphanage, we decide to get lunch. After all, we had been out since 7am in the morning and we finished at 3pm. We were famished!

We go to a restaurant located in this resort called Mamba Village. It's a resort in the more affluent Nairobi suburb of Karen. http://www.nairobimambavillage.com/.

My safari crew of 9, including the driver, was split into two tables with two different servers. My table is composed of me and 3 white colleagues. Upon sitting down, everyone at my table gets a menu except for me. Uh? I'm pretty sure my ass came there to eat something. I pause for a moment, seeing if she's going off to get another menu. Nope. So, I have to explicitly ask for one. We all order food at the same time. In the time it takes everyone else to eat and GET THEIR PLATES TAKEN AWAY, I finally get my food. What the blue hell? At that point, I was livid and simply asked for the plate to be taken away. My appetite was gone. Thankfully, the manager came out to apologize to me in person as we were leaving but yeah... wasn't pleased to be leaving on an empty stomach. The driver said, "If I had sat at that table with you, the service would have been better."

This happened to a much lesser extent the day before when we went grocery shopping at Yaya Centre. I noticed my friend (white) and I (blacky blacky black), were getting different customer service. When both of our carts were broken, her was replaced without request. I had to explicitly motion for a new cart. Upon checking out, which we both did at the same time, her cart was taken from her. I looked around for someone to take my cart and ended up just plopping it somewhere.

Now, the next logical question to ask would be: "Are you being mistaken for a Kenyan, therefore seen as someone who doesn't need help"? After all, Nairobi is a diverse city so to label someone as "Kenyan" is a bit of a tall order and I have been mistaken as such a few times. I am not so sure about this hypothesis because as my sister says "West Africans and East Africans do not look the same". You may not be able to guess "Ghana" or "Nigeria" until you know their last name, being fat and having a red/orange afro may be a momentary distraction, but yeah... West Africans look West African. Additionally, my accent is a dead giveaway. Ultimately, I was demonstratively in need of customer service, so my Kenyan or non-Kenyan status was irrelevant. I’ve gotten great, even wonderful service when moving around Nairobi on my own or with another Kenyan, so I don’t know what this nonsense is all about. I've read about this sort of thing on some "Black and Abroad" blogs. Prior to coming, I was advised to not go out with too many white folks because it could potentially make my trip considerably more expensive (foreigner tax) and dangerous (e.g. hey, I'm white, therefore rich, so rob me!) but I wasn't expecting this. I've never noticed reverential treatment of white folks in Owerri or Port Harcourt the way I am seeing it in Nairobi.I have my hypothesis as to why, but I will save that for another entry. I guess the lesson learned is to roll with darker company or I will get mistaken for The Help and get completely ignored.

P.S.
Sign of the day: 

Not a cute animal, Dinesh, but enjoy this photo anyway.

Insomnia is a bitch. It's like 4 am here! So yeah, apologies if this is disjointed.

Up Next: An entry about Nairobi National Park and an aside about the commodification of the "African" identity.