Nairobi River is a historic landmark in Nairobi.

The Nairobi River from which the Kenyan capital draws its name remains an important landmark in this city that has grown to be East Africa’s Commercial capital and one of Africa’s most important transport hubs. Meandering from north to south, the river serves as a natural boundary between the affluent west that includes the city centre and Eastlands where the larger population comprising the majority poor lives.

The city started around 1900 when the colonialists constructing the railway line between the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa and the lake Victoria town of Kisumu, then part of Uganda decided to make the swampy plains with attractively cool climate their inland headquarters.

The Maasai tribes people whom they found grazing their animals in the plains called the place, enkarre nairobi  (cold water) because of the cool waters that the main river and its labyrinth of tributaries carried. Unable to pronounce enkarre, the white man settled for Nairobi as the name of their new settlement.

Though infested with malaria carrying mosquitoes that they dreaded, halcyon climate and ready availability of portable water dictated their decision to build a town that would serve as the head of the railway line midway to Uganda.

The town grew fast, prompting the colonial authorities to move the capital that had temporarily shifted to Machakos from Mombasa. Machakos is 63 kilometres away to the east of Nairobi.

As the population grew with the availability of jobs and industries sprouted, the river and its tributaries were consumed by wanton dumping and soon lost their clean water status, turning into smelly flowing mucks that could not support any life.

It took the iron resolve of a former minister for environment, the late John Michuki who passed on only last month to rehabilitate sections of the river cutting through the city centre. Today, people can be seen bathing and washing their clothes in these sections where the once neglected banks of the river are populated with groves of beautiful trees and picnics have become the norm.

It is worth sauntering to the Nairobi River when visiting the green city in the sun, as the Kenyan capital was once known

A contribution from Joe Ombuor, who writes for The Standard, Nairobi.