Shopping mall yet to regain its glory

Mr John Ngugi is a brave man, but you will not know that by looking at him from a distance as he goes about selling African jewellery and accessories at the Westgate Mall.

He is one of the workers who have decided to go back and work in the mall, although he witnessed the horrific attack in which 67 people — some of them his acquaintances — were killed two years ago.

“I don’t fear death,” he said during a recent interview. “When your day comes, there is nothing you can do about it. That was not my day to die.”

Despite returning to his old work station, Mr Ngugi admits that things are not the way they used to be.

“Before the attack, business was great. In fact, another reason I came back was that we were doing very well here. You could not compare us with other malls,” he said.

It is not hard to see why. Westgate was built in the heart of the upmarket Westlands section of the city, where the residents have high disposable incomes.
However, business is yet to pick up since the mall reopened in July.

Nakumatt, for example, does not have as many customers as one would expect and high-end clothes and furniture outlets hardly have shoppers.

Mr Ngugi said there is not much human traffic compared to the period before the 2013 raid. Even the people who visit the place do not stay long.

In the two years Westgate was closed, Mr Ngugi was engaged in casual jobs at a local tour firm as he waited for the mall to be reopened. When he returned, his employer had to start from scratch by purchasing new stock because everything had been lost in the attack.

Unlike Mr Ngugi, Ms Pauline Ishimwe gets emotional when asked about the attack.

“I don’t want to talk about it. It is too painful for me,” she said.

Like Mr Ngugi, some of the people she knew were killed during the attack. Luckily for her, she was off-duty on that day. A colleague who stood in for her also survived.

“You can say I came back because I am not afraid of dying. You can meet your death anywhere, even in the comfort of your home. But the real reason I came back is that I have to work so that I can take care of myself and my family,” she said.

Security at Westgate has been heightened, but Ms Ishimwe cannot shake off the fear stemming from the attack.

“I think people are still afraid of coming back to the mall. That is why our business is not as good as it used to be before the attack. But we are hoping that the fear will go away and people will return,” she said.

For now, Mr Ngugi and Ms Ishimwe, who work side-by-side for different employers, said they take one day at a time and hope the situation will improve.

At the ArtCaffe on the ground floor, a worker who spoke on condition of anonymity said most of the waiters who used to work at the restaurant before the attack refused to return to the mall.

“They were all transferred to our branch at the Oval, a few metres from Westgate. The trauma was too much. This is a new team,” she said.