Nairobbery dreaming

'So how do you like Nairobi?'

The man who is asking me the question - aged about 30, smart, well-spoken - has forgotten that he already asked me the same thing last week. And last month, and last year and a few other times before that. He's used to the tourists, who fly into Kenya for the game safaris or the beach holidays, and who stop over in Nairobi for the minimum possible time before setting off again in pursuit of the real purpose of their visit to Africa. There's no point in remembering someone you met more than a day or two ago because none of them ever stay long enough to make it worthwhile.

Even so, Anthony (or Abraham, or Andrew - his name has changed every time he has asked me the question, although he seems to stick with the letter 'A') makes a show of recognition when I tell him that we've met before.

'Ah yes, I remember now,' he says. 'I'm sorry, remind me, what is your name?'

Anthony is a scamster. No matter the detail of how our conversation develops from now on, he will eventually steer it around to the fact that he is a student with an offer of a place to study veterinary science at Reading University. Do I know Reading? What sort of place is it? What is England like? Do I have a few minutes to spare to chat?

Anthony turns out to be waiting in Nairobi for an educational grant to be processed, after which he'll be moving to England to take up his place at university. He may have various papers with him or photographs of himself with his English friends and fellow students. He is very lucky because life in Kenya is hard and he has been given an opportunity that is not available to most Kenyans.

Sooner or later, although he is embarrassed even to mention it, he will get round to the fact that he has a problem. His grant has been delayed. His mother is very ill (his father died of Aids some time ago, or was killed when his family fled the civil war in Sudan, or Somalia, or Uganda). It is very expensive to live in Nairobi and he has no money left for food or rent.

Having won your sympathy (and although he really hates to do this), Anthony is soon asking for a loan. He can do this in a matter of minutes as you negotiate your way across one of Nairobi's crowded highways. Or he can take a more leisurely approach over a drink or meal (at your expense). And depending upon how good (or gullible) he thinks you are, the amount required can vary from a few thousand shillings to keep a roof over his head and food in belly in Nairobi, or a few thousand pounds to pay for his air fare and university fees in England.

Anthony has been doing this for as long as I've been going to Nairobi, which is a few years now, and he was probably doing it for a few years before that. And he's not alone. I've met scores, possibly hundreds, of people in east Africa who make their living in much the same way, by approaching likely-looking mzungus (actually, any white visitor is likely-looking) from the moment they step off the plane to tap them for a little assistance. An astonishing number of these people have places waiting for them at Reading University, moreover. What it is that attracts them to Reading is a mystery that I have never managed to unravel.

It's difficult to dislike Anthony and his fellow scamsters on the streets of Nairobbery. (The name derives from the fact that you're said not to have really travelled if you haven't been relieved of at least some of your possessions in one of Africa's most notoriously crime-ridden cities.) They're not violent. They're mostly friendly and fairly entertaining company, even as they try to fleece you. They'll leave you alone if you let them know that you know what they're up to. And there's something to be said for their attitude that even if their story isn't true, they need that money a lot more than you do.

My usual escape route from the scamsters of east Africa (and the safari touts, the 'flycatchers' who lie in wait for the foreign visitor) is to speak to them in Swahili. 'Si mtalii, ninafanya kazi. Mimi ni mwandishi wa habari,' usually does the trick: 'I'm not a tourist, I'm working. I'm a journalist.'

But occasionally, when I have a little time to spare, I talk to them. I've got to know a few of them quite well, Anthony among them. Now he jokes that the reason he didn't recognise me all those times when he approached me to ask what I thought of Nairobi, was that 'all mzungus look the same to us'.

Once, over a drink and a meal (Anthony tried hard to hide just how hungry he was, and on his food-starved stomach a single beer had him slurring like a drunkard), I asked him why someone who was obviously smart enough to go to a university wasted his talents on a scam. There's an obvious answer, of course - one that I knew without posing the question. Kenya is a poor country; there is large-scale unemployment; even the most talented can go without work.

But what I really wanted to know was why he had made a career of it. Why not use his intelligence, his initiative, his fluency in other languages (as well as English, Swahili and his own tribal language, he could speak a passable German and Italian) in other ways. He wasn't a street kid, sniffing glue: even in Kenya, he could find some sort of legitimate living.

'Why?' he asked blankly. 'Why would I do something else?' He was good at what he did, he explained. There were enough good-natured tourists around (Anthony saw those who gave him money as 'good', not gullible) for him to keep body and soul together. And occasionally, just occasionally, he might hit the jackpot when he was given more in one go than he could earn in a year.

What came across most of all during our conversation, though, was that he made no distinction between 'legitimate' work and what he did. 'If I was a mechanic, I'd be a mechanic,' he said. 'If I was a doctor, I'd be a doctor.' If foreign visitors want to give money to strangers spinning yarns about university places in Reading, he was simply providing the service to meet the demand. It was no different, in essence, to selling newspapers or souvenirs or safaris. The mzungus have the money; Anthony and his ilk are just after a share.

At one stage while we were talking, a couple of young men appeared at a nearby table. Anthony told me to take special care of my bag. 'Thieves!' he hissed with undisguised contempt. 'They'll steal from anyone.'

'What about you?' I asked. He didn't understand what I meant. 'Isn't what you do stealing?'

'I'm no thief,' he said curtly. He looked hurt, offended - and not a little upset.