City of smiles: A young woman photographed in Thika, Nairobi
ESTHER SWEENEY _ GETTY IMAGES
Nairobi. She gets her name from Enkare Nyrobi, a Maasai phrase that means ‘cold water’ in reference to the river on which it was established, that once was a source of life to the people who inhabited this area many moons ago. But we just call her “City in the Sun. ”
Like any city, everybody — even those who have never set foot here — has a story to tell about Nairobi. Some call her chaotic, unsafe, an urban sprawl, a spread of hooting traffic jams and a shrewdness of a people.