Once frowned upon, skating is now popular

It is a pleasant afternoon at the Sunken Park on Aga Khan Walk in Nairobi. So named because it sits in a shallow groove, it is a parking lot during the week but on Sunday it becomes a skater’s haven. It is a place of magic, derring-do, torn-jeans and counterculture.

The crest of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre building juts into the sky nearby. A sizeable crowd of mixed spectators has turned up: people in their Sunday best, young dating couples, wide-eyed toddlers trying to figure out the blur of action; and teenagers who in an earlier age would have preferred to club at a downtown joint. There is a loud young woman in a riotous tie-and-dye shirt. She hollers instructions at a pair of boys gingerly holding onto each other as they make their debut in the art of wheels. It turns out that she is an instructor.

A trio of young men race around the park, their hands in imaginary handcuffs. They waltz out around without colliding, increasing the tempo with every turn around the corner. It is intoxicating and the crowd loves it. If there were a song to soundtrack the whorls, it would be Numb by Linkin Park, if only for the fast beats; or perhaps because the skaters appear numb indeed to everything around them.

In another section of the park, learners, mostly young children, teeter gingerly on roller skates. One falls to the concrete, but the kneepads cushion the fall. She rises, determined. Still in another corner, a few girls glide on skateboards, gleefully bouncing off the embankment.
Mark Musau, 14, has travelled here from Thika town, as he does nearly every Sunday. His skates are worn out and his helmet bears several scrapes. He took up skating a year ago, learning the tricks at the park. “I love it here,” he says. “I could sit at home and watch cartoons, maybe play a game on play station with my friends but this is more fun. I think I am already addicted.”
CHANGING ATTITUDES
Less than a decade ago, skating was considered a wild sport by the public. And skaters didn’t help matters, what with their slaloming between traffic without protective gear, a death wish imprinted on their backs. They would emerge under the cover of the night, bouncing off embankments.
The skating scene in Nairobi is now a phenomenon worth its own 15 minutes. In the past few years, skating has undergone a makeover, easing into polite quarters of society and cheque books.
“Skating is no longer seen in a bad light like in the past, no longer on the fringes,” says George Obulinji, chairperson of the Kenya Federation of Roller Skating (KFRS) Nairobi region. “We monitor and enforce good conduct, observing traffic clauses and council precepts.”
The regulator’s mandate covers sportsmanship and kitting, among other measures, he adds.
Today you are as likely to see kids weaving their way around the streets on skates, knocking on car windows or handing company catalogues and brochures to pedestrians as you are to find smiling models in heels handing out handbills.
There are more than 300 skating clubs in the country, located in big towns as well as in nondescript villages, and nearly all of which trace their roots to Sunken Park. Kennedy Kanene runs Magic Wheels Skating Club in Kikuyu town, Kiambu County. He took up skating three years ago, first learning the sport in Nairobi before deciding that Kikuyu was a better fit: the roads were less crowded and as he soon discovered, a ready market.
“There were young people here who loved skating but they were learning it ‘the hard way’; fall until you get it,” he says. “Some would drop out of skating or end up with injuries so I decided to become a skating coach.” To hone his skills, Kanene subcribed to skating tutorials and illustrations on YouTube.

CHALLENGE
“A big challenge was that since not all the boys skating around this place could afford a pair of roller skates for themselves and would borrow from those who had, so 10 guys would wait for one pair of skates,” he says. Kanene saved some money and bought five pairs. o
“We would meet every Sunday and skate. Engaging with these teenagers, some confessed that skating had helped them steer clear of negative influences such as drugs and idleness. It turned out to be some sort of rehabilitation venture,” says Kanene.
Today, Magic Wheels, located in the heart of Kikuyu town’s business district, offers skating and life skills to youngsters every weekend. “Through skating I teach young people to seize every opportunity out there towards bettering their lives and the community.”
The shadows are long and Monday looms, but that is still far away and at Sunken Park no one seems to be in a rush to leave. The energy seems to double as the day ebbs away. The inexperienced have joined the spectators, leaving the ground to the veterans. Round the park they zoom, one of them occasionally inventing moves on the fly-wheeling around to race in backward motion. There is no prize, no tape-to-chest at the finish line, just the suddenness on now.
But even the choicest of magic sometimes cracks, and just like that a girl in a bright orange T-shirt and combat jeans who has been the life of the gang currently holding serve, drops to the ground. It is a hard fall. The rest of the group carries on.
“Who is that? Someone fell from the sky?” a girl sitting next to me asks no one in particular.