4.1 Localizing the Speed Wave Cyber in the city center
The city center, also known as the CBD (Central Business District), is one of the most important business centers in Nairobi and a very important public administration district. Many public office buildings like the parliament or the City Hall are situated there, but also lots of colleges and universities can be found there. Many of these buildings are connected to Kenya’s past, starting in the colonial times, during the time of independence and the post-colonial era. The city center is one of the liveliest districts in Nairobi. Full of urban activities and movements; millions of urban dwellers thrust their way through the busy streets. Most of the people who are moving through the streets of the city center are formally dressed mostly in business outfits. The city center, unlike various major European cities, does not provide living spaces but only business space. Hence, this confines people coming to the city center to stick to a specific purpose of visiting the city. The city center constitutes a business center hosting office spaces for workers as well as spaces that host job seekers. Skyscrapers are everywhere and most business offices are embedded in them as well as shops, hotels and fast food restaurants. In the central part of the city center, the streets are clean and cared for by the city workers. But this impression of ‘clean’ in a busy and somehow cared for district is deceptive at best and on closer inspection one gets a different perspective. The front of the first-class global chain the Hilton Hotel, next to the Hilton Park, is characterized by a large number of job seekers parading or uniformly seated in benches wasting away their time with the hope of securing jobs that are non-existent.
In the recent past, the city center hosted various shopping malls that also formed the central space for many cybercafés in Nairobi. Despite structural and reorganization changes of the city center due to city expansion and a whole set of factors, still observable are the resilience and continued presence of cybercafés in the city center. The appearance of the city center is still like no other district in Nairobi, where they are mainly characterized by new property and technological development like Upper Hill district and Westlands. The outlook is characterized by computer colleges, computer and mobile phone services shops, cybercafés, computer and mobile phone shops, outlets belonging to major internet and mobile phone service providers like Safari.com or Orange phone companies.
4.2 The Speed Wave Cyber
The Speed Wave Cyber is located in the middle of the city center on the third floor of the World Business Centre (WBC) in Latema Road, a building near the central Matatu bus station on Tom Mboya Street. It can be accessed through the main entrance on Tom Mboya Street or a side entrance at the Government Lane. The building is guarded by private security scanning everyone entering both entrances with a metal detector. However, the presence of these security guards and their procedures are compromised by a transactional culture and are not effective because of
a differential and unequal application of the scanning process, especially if you are known to them or pay them some token in order to gain entry without security check. The visitors of the cybercafé enter the Speed Wave Cyber via the WBC through glass doors and in the event that the glass windows are opened, the surrounding noise from the variable mix of hustle and bustle invades the cyber space and fills the small room with voices and indefinite murmurs. The Speed Wave Cyber is comparable in terms of structure and environmental surrounding to the other cybercafés in the WBC, also by the fact that it is a relatively smaller cybercafé that holds on average 15 computers per station. One minute of internet surfing costs 80 cents. The cybercafé is equipped with a wooden construction for the computer stations as found in nearly every cybercafé. These are connected computer desks made out of chipboard where every desk is separated by a wooden plate. Every computer desk is equipped with a flexible keyboard box that enables the user to pull out the keyboard if needed and put it back if not needed anymore. It is quite useful because the computer workstations are quite cramped and do not provide a lot of space for the users. Most of the computer workstations are equipped with flat screens, some with tube monitors. The workstations with the tube monitors are not very popular with the users; they are very rarely used. Some of the computer workstations are not equipped with a computer at all; they contain a frame for laptop usage. In front of every computer desk stands a somewhat run-down white plastic chair. On the left side, next to the entrance is the counter area. This area is separated from the rest of the cyber by a wooden counter. The counter area is accessible only for the service staff via a swinging door. Some small plastic containers with lollies or bubble gum are positioned into the wooden counter. Sweets or matchboxes are sometimes issued to clients as change instead of coins due to the inadequate stock of small coins in circulation and perceived low values to facilitate the smooth settlement of such transactions.
Given the high overhead costs incurred in running a cybercafé, it follows that the space is not fixed only to internet services; observable also are soft drinks and refreshments offered for sale to cyber clients in strikingly visible inside fridges situated behind the counter. The fresh drinks including sodas are not just very popular with the cybercafé users, but also with the visitors of the surrounding beauty salons. The employees of the beauty salons are buying the sodas quite frequently as an incentive for retaining and encouraging their customers to revisit. Drink sales is an additional and supplementary source of income for the Speed Wave Cyber apart from revenue generated from the provided internet services. A green wooden rack is also fixed at the wall behind the counter. On the rack, you can find small packages of cookies and rolls that are sold as snacks to the customers.
The Speed Wave cybercafé, just like other cybercafés, is not just a place where people have internet access but also as a small service center. In addition to the internet service, it also provides a scan, print and lamination service to its clients.
At the initial stage of my visits to the Speed Wave Cyber, Victor and Kelly7 were employees in the
7 I use the first names of the employees for two reasons: 1. During my ten months stay in Nairobi I developed a very
cybercafé. Since the Speed Wave Cyber is situated on the third floor and has a lot of competition from the city center as well as in the WBC building itself, it is functioning via the feel-good factor and personal relationships. Victor and Kelly use the Speed Wave Cyber as a meeting point with their friends. Their friends and contacts regularly visit mainly to talk to them but also to use the internet service. Also, the employees from other shops in the WBC pay visits during their coffee/tea-breaks for a chat and sometime to use the internet especially in the evening when the cyber is full of clients on their way home after working. Students and pupils comprise a huge proportion of the evening clientele at the Speed Wave Cyber but also older people who came to use the internet after work. During the daytime, the cybercafé is normally mainly filled with unemployed people using the internet to search for jobs online. The customers were quite a mixed regarding age and gender. When Kelly and Victor were working at the cybercafé, I got the impression that more men were attending the cyber. After approximately three months, the cybercafé changed its owner as well as its employees. With this change in ownership Victor and Kelly lost their jobs. The new employees are Millicent and Christabel together with a third service employee. Upon Millicent and Christabel taking over, the gender of the clientele shifted towards more women visiting the cyber than men. Victor, Kelly and their friends also continued visiting the Speed Wave Cyber quite regularly.