Down town Nyeri the place to be:

Down town Nyeri is the place to be. A cacophonous place teeming with (confused) activity as pedestrians compete with delivery trucks, matatus, boda bodas and handcart pushers for right of way and where booming music coming from a myriad of speakers advertising the wares on sale deafens all but those with the keenest of hearing. This is epicenter of the matatu business, actually one of three, and affectionately known as ‘stage ya chini’, where matatus arriving from Nairobi, Muranga, Karatina, Othaya etc jostle for space as they pick up and disgorge their passengers like hungry beasts eating and vomiting at the same time creating an almost perpetual traffic gridlock and where the main parcel delivery pick up and drop off points for the various matatu Sacco’s are located. This must be how hell looks and sounds like on a normal day!

It is also where you have many micro and SME businesses located in a swathe awash with all manner of businesses from hardware, spares, used clothes, small supermarkets, wholesalers, green grocers, paper sellers, CD’s and VCD’s, hats, shoes, bananas and other fruits, assorted vegetables, restaurants, offices, cafes, hotels, opticians, drycleaners, mobile phones, airtime and so on. This is where the main Soko Mjinga market (no idea why it is named so) is located and where all manner of business is conducted by enterprising people who call this hodge podge, mish mash area their office or work place! In the evening this street becomes a large open air flea market where vegetables, shoes, clothes and all manner of goods are displayed on the pavements and on part of the road thanks to the largesse of the county government possible to appease the many disgruntled hawkers and other people who need to earn a living. God help you if you trample on someone’s wares so you have to look out where you step!

To add to this cacophony, Naivas Supermarket a national supermarket chain with stores across the country opened its doors recently (on 30th December 2014) to an almost tumultuous welcome from Nyeri residents – a New Year’s gift to them no doubt! This is the first building with escalators within the building and it looked like the grand stand at Immoler or Hockenheim what with the many residents wanting to experience the sensation of a first time ride on an escalator some even sitting down probably suffering from motion sickness. I am sure the other supermarkets did little business that day as a result of the excitement generated by Naivas because Nyeri residents now have a choice of supermarket to shop at between the existing ‘big’ three Kasturi, Samrat & Maathai and now Naivas so competition is bound to bring a lot of relief to the town residents and is bound to attract shoppers from other outlying areas in Nyeri County out to satisfy their curiosity and possibly get a good bargain in the process.

Welcome to Nyeri Naivas!!