Afternoon sun, Athi Plains

Monday, March 14th 2005

Afternoon in the Athi Plains, Athi River, Kenya

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The Russian Pasha

My first neighbor was a jaded Russian ex-pat, well-known for his crankiness. He was from Baku, a former Red Army trained engineer, but now worked with an aid organization that door delivered Nestle to starving infants. Pavel (“call me Pasha”) drove about in a shiny land-cruiser decorated with appealing stickers of children with runny noses and animated grins. It was hard to tell if the kids were grimacing or smiling with joy.

Pasha always carried a bulky satellite phone, strapped to his waist in a leather case, quite like a side-arm. Like many ex-pats his manner was farcical. He rarely smiled, and when he did, it was flashed momentarily like a weapon.

Despite his seemingly virtuous assignment, stories went around about Pasha that suggested a rather more violent demeanor.

The most notable one concerned a weekend spree at the Florida-2000 (or simply “F2”) -- a notorious nitery, famed for its rapacious prostitutes and throbbing sweat drenched floor shows.

It was a particularly long night.

The Russian had gotten into a scuffle with a Slovakian diplomat for the charms of a rather desirable kamba girl (who went by the professional name of Teuché).

Knives were flashed, threats spat around like spent chewing gum (“I very quickly cut you with my knife…I will! EeeeeHaaaaa… ”). Teuché had screamed and clutched her face, simulating horror in an arousing way -- knees together, heavy breathing, a few tears coursing through the makeup.

The altercation ended abruptly -- with the appearance of the police and with the Slovakian stabbing the Russian through his hand.

Pasha spent a day in the gaol at Central Police, before bribing his way out.
The Slovakian took Teuché home, went on to fulfill his native girl fantasy -- diplomatic relations, thank you very much.

Pasha was often miserable. Africa made him tired and impatient, he said. The food tasted like manure. The beer gave him hangovers. The heat gave him fungus infections. He was forever glancing at his watch, tapping and slapping the dial, face twisted down in silent disapproval, always worried about Africans not keeping time.

Suspended on the walls of his study were photographs of Baku. It wasn’t a pretty place – but the images were detailed and vivid. There was a panoramic shot of his home in Baku; it was striking -- not because it was a cheerful looking stone building, but because it was flanked on one side by the towering pylon of an oil well (with an oscillating wellhead), and on the other by the world’s deepest swimming pool.

It wasnt really a swimming pool, but someone had dug an enormous foundation for an apartment complex (of which there were many in Baku), but some business deal gone sour and brought things to a halt. Now it was filled up with sewage and rain water. Sometimes he would look at the snapshots, and mention some such finer, melancholic detail (“That is not a cloud…its all smoke from the oil refinery…”).

We sometimes had a meal together in a small west African restaurant in Hurlingham.

It was in an abandoned looking building, down a narrow and dark dirt road. The place was frequented by backpackers and overlanders (“recommended by the LonelyPlanet”), who often engaged in explosive arguments over dinner. The restaurant was run by a man called Abdel. If rumors were to be believed, he was in fact Rwandese, and had slaughtered a few people during the Rwanda genocide. Now he was on the run and pretending to be Senegalese.

Abdel conversed in French with Pasha; so we were usually given a quieter table inside the kitchen. Pasha thought little of the food, but was generally on the lookout for penniless women backpackers -- who he sometimes accommodated at home in exchange for physical favors.

As a matter of course, we ate our Yassa and drank bissop on a pitted aluminum table, while mutton simmered in a huge pot; along side it, in deep penance with its eyes shut sat a freshly severed goat’s head. Abdel always took the heads home.

Pasha had the eastern European gift for languages, though he would sometimes unknowingly mix up words and meanings in conversation.
One day he was invited to an NGO party at the Grand Regency. It was a party where people discussed famine and disease over fine wine and gourmet meals.
He had struck up a conversation with a British lady. She was one of those uptight aristocratic types, a minor baroness, and a user-excessif of French words -- especially when it came to dining matters. Sampling a glass of rather expensive grandes cuvèe she had remarked on Pasha’s C'est magnifique gift for languages.

“yes, Madame it has to be like any other learn-ed skill…” Pasha said bashfully, “...you see, I have studied and then taught in the… what you call? Uhh…Faculty of … Cunnilinguistics …”

The lady spluttered and coughed in a most unladylike manner sending wine and scallops (freshly fished, flown in from Mombasa just that morning) all over Pasha’s jacket as he completed his sentence “…its just a matter of practice… my skills are 'très excellent' ”.
She stomped away in tears declaring him the enfant terrible, leaving him soaking and baffled.

It was towards the end of an unusually long “short rain” season in Nairobi. The stickers on Pasha’s 4wd had faded, the texture had gone all crinkly and broken into bubbles – the kids peering out now had a deathly pallor about them. Pasha had become increasingly frustrated – “the whole business of aid work “ was boring – he said -- “too much is too much”. He was now off to a road building contract, which had opened up in Angola.

I got a letter from him many months later – he had never liked using email, it scared him. It was brief, and written in his strange lopsided handwriting, the characters toppling of the page towards the end of a sentence. He had sent a photograph of himself, wearing a cowboy hat, sitting on an exercise bicycle; standing by, was his brand new Angolan girlfriend. He had signed of with a post script: “The food tastes better here”.

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