It was a typical Saturday in Nairobi. People were sipping fresh juice on the front patio of a cafe in the mall, kids were on the roof finger-painting. Women were shopping for make-up, teenagers eating pizza in the food court, friends eating sushi in the fancy sushi restaurant. I was in Rwanda, flying back that evening. Our office phone tree quickly kicked into gear. Our staff were safe.
Westgate was my mall. It was around the corner from where we lived. It is where we had a video store, picked up coffee on a Saturday, shopped for groceries and met friends for a glass of wine after work. It was hard not to think 'what if?' What if I had not been in Rwanda? What if I did my usual thing on a Saturday--woke up, went for a run, ate something, showered and then went to Westgate for a coffee and to grocery shop?
Westgate was a double whammy for the terrorists. It is partially owned by an Israeli and in addition to the hoards of Kenyans that frequent the mall, a lot of westerners living in this part of Nairobi shop at Westgate.
The images of the attack were horrific and all too familiar. A women lay dead under the Dorman's Coffee counter, where we would treat ourselves to a cappuccino on the weekend. An Al-Shabaab masked man with an AK47 points a gun at customers in the cereal isle of our grocery store. People with their hands in the air descend the escalator we rode weekly to the second floor to Mr. Price to get sheets and other household goods. Children lay in pools of blood in the parking lot where we parked on weekends.
Not surprisingly Kenyans rallied, they always do. On the Monday after the initial attack there were still hostages in the mall. Our staff showed up to work and when released raced to the local hospital to donate blood. Stories of heroism emerged about Kenyans who risked their lives to save others in the attack. Stories were posted on Facebook in remembrance.
The mall reopened in 2015 and the idea of returning to Westgate never enticed me. After the bloody incident shopping or dining in any mall was not that enticing to be honest. One needs to appreciate that in Kenya, shopping is clustered in malls. So while in the USA shopping in a mall is a bit foreign to me as I grew up and lived in towns with shops on the street, in Kenya many stores are clustered in the malls. I found myself avoiding meeting friends in malls and if I had to shop, I would be quick and efficient.
I had driven by the new Westgate before, but again, had never found the need or desire to go in. Sure, it was no longer my neighborhood, so I rarely found myself with the opportunity. On Friday however I was in Westlands for a number of meetings and was meeting a colleague who is based on that side of town, so we decided to meet at Art Cafe, in Westgate. I did not think too much about it except that at some point it would be good to go back, so why not now?
The outside of the mall looks the same, except now, like many places in Nairobi, your car is searched inside and out by private security company staff, you go through a metal scanner when entering the building and a German Shepherd with a metal wire muzzle is held at the front door by a police man in camouflage. The inside looks similar, shiny, new. Busy. Some stores changed but the core remained familiar. People went about their business, people of all ages and walks of life.
I grabbed a table on the lovely, leafy porch and ordered a Chia Firecracker, a juice made of baobab powder, chia seeds, honey, banana, sweet melon, passion juice and red chili. Hip music played in the hidden speakers, a Chinese business man ate lunch next to me with a Kenyan, a blond European women drank an espresso and smoked a cigarette. As I watched people eating, drinking and laughing, I wondered if anyone was thinking about September 2013. I wondered how life just moves on. Life does move on, and life should move on, but somehow we always need to remember these events as they shape who we are, how we interact with others. They shape our history and our future, and we must always, remember.
