Aroma Restaurant - Koinange Street

There's something about this street that feels different. My girlfriend works in one of the towers so in my habit of bumming a ride home with her I keep noticing that this street in Nairobi seems wider or more systematized or something. Will have to check with the City Archives. When I look at the city from more of a distance I can see the old blueprint of what it used to look like when it was small and usable. The photos from the 60's are amazing - it's like a completely different world that you would never recognize in the mass of people today. The black and white shots remind me of the 60's in the American South - like Martin Luther King was going to drive by in a big black car and kids hung about in their saddle shoes. Before all the cars and people crowding it up in a completely unplanned vision of confusion.

Seem to have located a favourite restaurant - it's a Kenyan diner really - the Aroma on Koinange Terrace, connecting to Koinange Street. As I photograph it and the new highly designed and branded 'Java Hut' it makes me realize this is the very dilemna facing Nairobi - the old familiar local hangout that's a bit cheaper but more run down and the new upscale chain across the way where everyone is wearing suits and chatting on mobiles. Personally I would rather stare out the windows of the diner but if I need chai to go - it's to the Java Hut because the Aroma doesn't have take away cups. Guess I should suggest that to them.

Again here it is - the funky joint is an opportunity for someone to transform into a viable future competitor to the Java Hut to give it a makeover and preserve all the warm simple Kenyan-ness I love about it inside.

Hanging out at the National Theatre across the street from the Fairmont/Norfolk Hotel near the University. These kids are Nairobi's future. When I ask them what it is they want to see here they go a bit silent. Most of them have never even seen or walked through any of the amazing cities in the world to give them ideas of how much potential surrounds them. If I had my own 747-400 I would fill it with kids from the theatre and university and street and jet them to Manhattan with video cameras for five days. It is always by going away that we truly appreciate the coming back.

The Factory. Theatre for the people - one minute from the Norfolk and Tusker baridi.

Brand of the Week - Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Kenya (kwaheri Lonrho - jambo Kingdom)