“We took a bus into the countryside with 50 skaters, almost half of them girls, and bombed the hill all day.”
Small scene, big energy
Kenya is a large country with a very small skate scene. Mike Boisvert puts it at 50 skaters, maybe 70 in the whole country. What it lacks in numbers it makes up for in the one thing concrete can't buy. “They say Kenya is the heart of Africa. The people are really warm.” Everyone skates together, nobody is chasing an Olympic pathway, and a striking number of the skaters are women, rare anywhere in the region.
The only park in the country
Shangilia, built with skate-aid, sits inside a children's home outside central Nairobi and is the only skatepark left standing in Kenya. It's a good park, repainted in fresh colours regularly, with everything you actually need. Two catches: it's a trek from the centre, and there's an entrance fee (the kids who live there skate it free). “I've seen way worse in Africa, for sure.”
Mike's favourite spot is on a roof
The DIY on top of the Business Bay Mall is the one he'd go back to. A few banks, a quarter pipe, ground rough enough to keep you honest, and the whole city laid out behind it. It doubles as a hangout for breakdancers and anyone else looking for somewhere to be. Dead in the heat of the day, alive at night. “It's my favourite spot because of the vibe, the city around it, and the obstacles are chill. I like it.” A handful of downtown street spots round out the map.
Three skaters to know
Skitty (@moonsoon_skater) is Mike's pick for the best skater in Kenya: built like a gymnast, with a nollie heel and a tre flip worth the follow, and the best guy to spend a week with. Mo Eazy (@moeazy) is a US rapper now living in Nairobi who makes music for the scene and pushes it wherever he can; his tracks are in Mike's videos. Ian Magby (@magbydeliic) runs a skate shop and teaches, which matters more than it sounds: most African countries don't have a shop at all. The crew that ties it all together is the Skateboard Society of Kenya.
The Valentine's Day session
The story Mike tells about Kenya isn't a trick. Fifty skaters piled onto a bus on Valentine's Day, drove into the countryside, and spent the day bombing hills, grabbing on to motorbikes to get back up. Roughly half of the group were women. YouTube took his Kenya video down over the motorbike footage. He's still not over it. “It was such a nice video. You don't see this often.”
What's holding it back
Money and parks, in that order. Average wages make a complete setup unrealistic for a kid from the slum, and there's one park to skate. Mike's read is simple: “The more boards you have, the more skaters you have.”
If you go
Nairobi is modern and the nightlife is genuinely good. It's also one of the only capitals in the world with a national park inside the city: giraffes and elephants with skyscrapers behind them. The Giraffe Centre costs about $10 and takes fifteen minutes. And Kenya's safaris are why most non-skaters come.
Mike Boisvert: “The energy is what's underrated. They're dancing, they're singing, they're so funny. I love them for this.”
Watch the Kenya video
Photos and video: Mike Boisvert / The Skate Nomad. Part of the JACKALOPE Skate Atlas, one country at a time, with the skaters who live there. See every country on the map.
