Author: Elly Wamari
Date: Februar 16, 2007
Type of article: Lifestyle Magazine
Source: The Daily Nation - only available online by registration and paid subscription fee

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Fed up with the image of red-light zone, firms that do business on Nairobi's Koinange street are gearing up for the mother of all parties that will showcase the more tasteful side of life, writes ELLY WAMARI

It is the only street in Nairobi where you can take your pick of 13 banks, rent a stylish self-contained apartment, visit the world’s greatest news agencies, buy a Mercedes Benz, unwind in a gymnasium, sip champagne in the five-star Nairobi Safari Club and go clubbing in one of the city’s famous nightspots.

Yet the very mention of Koinange Street will more likely evoke images of barely dressed twilight girls and clients in search of pleasures so far removed from the daytime business that goes on in the street that they could be chalk and cheese.

Lawyer Duncan Mwanyumba was defending clients at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha when the news about some prominent Kenyans and Koinange Street twilight girls broke. 

“My colleagues knew my firm was situated on Koinange Street. From then on, they would tease me by asking, ‘so, at what time do you go to Koinange Street?’ to which I would respond, ‘during honourable hours, and that is between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.” 

Although this was regular banter that he laughed off, it got Mwanyumba thinking as soon as he came back from the Arusha Tribunal in 2005.

Now Mwanyumba is a man with a mission to do something about the street’s red light district image by way of organising a Koinange Street Carnival.

K-Street is safe and decent by day, but at night, its name should change to Sin Street. Aggressive twilight girls take over the place as early as from 8p.m., chasing after every car that slows down — giving the street quite a name across the world, thanks to tourism, the Internet and globalisation.

Why and how the street developed nocturnal notoriety is a matter of conjecture. A plausible theory has it that it was Koinange Street — called Sadler Street before independence and shortly after — on which most multinational corporations and blue-chip companies used to have their offices.

Affluence and pleasure have been known to go well together, and soon call girls came in handy for the well-paid executive working late. The girls would discretely position themselves on the street and simply appear to be innocently waiting for somebody. That one of the multinational firms even had a staff club — now Dolce Club — only added to the street’s vibrancy at night.

In those days, twilight girls were not the presently bold variety that the brutal City Council askaris can only remove temporarily from the street after bloody fights. The extended life of the street to the small hours of the night – by people working late and revellers on adjacent streets –  offered them the cover they needed to hang around unnoticed, except by the potential clients they would signal.

With time, their population increased and market forces took over.  Aggression became a business technique, as did skimpy dressing and open touting for customers. These days it is a cut-throat battle for clients, and even though there has been a spill-over of the girls into the adjacent streets, Koinange Street remains unchallenged.

Type “Koinange Street” on the Google Internet search engine and one of the prominent sites that will roll out before you is “World sex guide”. That’s how that part of Nairobi is perceived out there. 

Wikipedia, the favourite Internet encyclopaedia, does not say much either about Koinange Street, other than a repeated mention that it is the “Red light district in Kenya”. So do several other articles on different Internet sites. They mostly discuss the nightlife in that part of the city.

Mwanyumba, a former state prosecutor, is not  amused that little is ever said about the commercial vibrancy of the Koinange Street during the day and wants to set the record straight through the carnival he and his team are planning for April 7. 

This, he hopes, will save K-Street tenants experiences like the one his neighbours recently went through when they had to explain to a group of Americans attending the World Social Forum in Nairobi that their law office was not on the street because they specialised in defending the twilight girls.

He is aware, though, that some businesses are convinced they may be benefiting from the presence of the twilight girls there. Tourists and potential customers looking for pleasure get to know what shops along the street offer,  which can’t be bad for shopkeepers.  

The carnival, which is being organised by a committee authorised to proceed with the preparations by the larger Koinange Street Business and Security Association, will  pompously celebrate the “positive diversity” of the street.

A variety of entertainment, including live music by various bands, cultural performances, fashion shows, exhibitions, processions, comedy and various competitions are planned to enliven  the fair.

The 20-hour party  will feature events suitable for general exhibition, and as night falls, more adult forms of entertainment like beer-drinking competitions, beauty contests, music and dance, will take centre stage. The whole street will host different events, and according to carnival director, Charles Asiba, it may be the beginning of an annual affair.

Asiba’s film distribution company, Film Africa (K) Ltd, is also situated on Koinange Street. He says: “We expect a total of between 10,000 and 30,000 people to attend the carnival. We want the event to enter the calendar as a regular Easter weekend fete in Nairobi.”

And in Mwanyumba’s view, Nairobi has been a little too dull, and needs something celebratory to kick it alive. Says the man who hails from Coast Province: “Nairobi has never hosted a real carnival before. At least Mombasa and Taita-Taveta have had some.”

Mwanyumba’s role in the street fete does not come as a surprise to people who know him well. His friends consider him a cultural ambassador of sorts because of his frequent involvement in entertaining cultural events. There’s a whole line up of fetes he has organised as early as the 80s as a university student, and as recent as last year.

“You can use entertainment to achieve very positive results, even in conflict situations, ” he says.

A Kenya Night he helped organise in Arusha in 2004 broke the tension between defence lawyers and the administration of the Rwanda genocide tribunal that sits in Arusha, Tanzania.

“When some of us took to the floor and sang, we broke the ice,” says the lawyer. He sings too and plays the saxophone and does some of that as he explains the various aspects of the carnival. 

He might just end up being one of your entertainers too at the carnival, when he probably joins the regional band he owns — The East African Orchestre — expected at the carnival.

“Be at your best” is the slogan for the day. “We want people to come here that day and night feeling good about who they are,” explains Asiba. But there is more to that. The slogan, accompanied by the peacock as the proposed mascot for the carnival, are meant to instil pride and promote the other side of  Koinange Street.

May be the twilight girls will also feel like peacocks and be at their best on April 7.