House party

Last night I got a proper introduction to Nairobi’s party scene. I’ve been out to bars and clubs before, but last night, along with a couple friends, I went to a house party, staged on the lawn behind two villas in one of Nairobi’s affluent neighborhoods. Going to a house party, I think, provides a more intimate view of the city’s party culture, unrestrained by a public environment and expensive drinks, and stimulated by familiarity with the other patrons. Besides being a good time, it was by far most diverse party I’ve ever been to.

One of the friends, Peder, a Norwegian former volunteer in my organization’s Kampala office, was friends with the Italian IT consultant/Phd student/DJ whose birthday was the cause for the shindig. He’d been to a party hosted by this DJ a few years ago and said it was raging. So, along with Bosco, my Spanish coworker, we set off for the party – an American, a Norwegian and a Spaniard off to an Italian’s party. On the way back, we shared a cab with a Spanish girl and Parisian. In between, we met Japanese and Singaporean girls, Americans, White Kenyans, Black Kenyans, more Spaniards and Italians, Britons, even an Afghani.

Besides ethnicities, the crowd – which grew from about 30-40 when we arrived at 11PM to 70-80 at the peak around 1:30AM – was also varied in other respects. Expats and well-to-do Kenyans comingled (one thing that was probably not varied was economic class). Styles of dress ranged from the bland American girl with a tanktop and khakis to the Italian donning black capris with magenta-outlined pockets and a stylish top; from the European with a sweater draped over his shoulders to the presumably-gay black guy (nationality indeterminate) with his skinny jeans and tight fitting tucked-in button down; and from those with well-primmed hair to a crew rocking Yankee fitteds (who, unsurprisingly, I’d later see smoking a joint).

Libations were plentiful, for most of the night. Upon entering the garden, we soon recognized the store of alcohol, a table just beyond the fire pit, around which several of the 40 people were gathered. Guests were told to bring some alcohol as a contribution - we’d brought a couple of bottles of vodka and a six pack – all of which rested on this table: 20-30 bottles of alcohol, a plethora of mixers, and plastic cups. It was tough to make out everything given the lack of lighting, but the stock appeared dominated by vodka – Smirnoff mostly – with a few bottles/ boxes of wine, champagne, and at least one bottle of rum. A hookah also rested, dangerously, on one edge. Below the table rested three coolers stocked with beers, mostly domestics but a few Heinekens as well.

More than enough, it seemed. As the night wore on, however, the table got more and more depleted. By the time 3 AM rolled around, there were less than a handful of bottles left. (The depletion was aided by the slide of several bottles, in succession, off one side of the table and onto the earth below. How this happened is unclear, but it’s not hard to imagine several possibilities given the concentration of inebriation.) Nevertheless, the selection was more than sufficient to leave me pretty useless today, nursing a minor hangover that is only my second in the more than two months I’ve been here – for better or worse, a somewhat uncharacteristically low rate.

The music was what I call “Euro”: a mix of house, techno, trance (side note: are those all the same thing?), and pop-dance mash-up that I’ve heard many a time before, from clubs in Spain to Argentina. (Basically, I use this term to describe anything other than the hip hop which dominates the US party. Whether or not it is actually a genre, or the dominant party music in most of Europe/the rest of the world, I don’t actually know.) The crowd was somewhat into it – more and more as the night progressed – eventually filling the “dance floor” (the grass in front of the DJ table, illuminated by a multi-color strobe/party light). But the DJs were really into it – both the Italian and the drastically overweight Kenyan who manned the ones-and-twos (Macbooks in this case) pulsated as they played.

Overall, the vibe was good. It was like any other party: people were just having a good time, talking, dancing, smoking, drinking, making out. There was even a promoter: a pale white guy in his mid 20’s wearing a feather boa around his neck passed me a flyer for next weekend’s “Sex and the City” Easter Bash (9pm-6am).

Like any other party, but in a garden in Nairobi, with Euro music, and an amazing mosaic of cultures.