November 21,2014

THEN...

Today, I want to go back to a space that even now perplex me. It was a couple of years ago, we were filming a lifestyle documentary and one of the last locations we were to film in was a penthouse. Until then, I had never been to a real penthouse, worse I never thought they existed in Nairobi.

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daniel duwa's

SCARS OF WARStories of days past, people I have meet, places I have been, experiences, love, work and life. The joys and the scars.

November 21,2014

Many times, I had the pleasure of meeting and conducting magazine or film interviews in great spaces from lavish presidential suite or ensuite like they were then called. Other times The team and myself would be invited to exclusive spaces like fully furnished apartments, or strange wall-to-wall carpeted government or corporation head offices. The most ridiculous was a 2000 square space for a prominent business man who was never in that space. They often used it as a holding pen for the likes of journalist, visiting groups and business interest before transporting forward to the location the boss were. One thing that is always in plenty in this vocation is waiting. Whatever it is, it is less than glamorous, you have to show up on or before the allocated time and you will at times wait ours on end. Even for obvious straight forward deals, as they say patience is a virtue, here, you have to have plenty.

As you wait, a whole new world open up to you. Spaces became important, you notice the very impressive, the less than average and the outright horrid. For instance, I really didn't always get the antique furniture or overly reproduced period rooms. Period rooms in the sense of boutique hotel poorly themed in the floury of the past. Instead of having an inviting appeal, despite the spending, they often just look cheap.

That said, some of my favorites spaces within this context have to be ones with exquisite wall paintings and other such like fixtures. I especially like abstract art for their dreamy purge, getting lost in the moment and like a good story they have legs that travels the imagination.

Over the years, one thing I really struggle with however are chandelier. Like the feature of this article, penthouses,

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@youngmotherafr

November 21,2014

chandelier are to me the most useless add-ones off all house fixtures. Unlike Feminine fairy tales of knights, castles,

chandelier and glass slipper that get girls to go gaga I think they are presumably archaical and silly. Times have changed, no human I know owns a castle neither do they have real kingdoms. Talking kingdoms, is that not the reason we were colonized, we in these parts? But I digress.

NOW...

This Scars is a reflection on that useless space that are penthouses. In all honesty, I am still not sure what make a penthouse. I am not sure why that matters, I thought I clarify. I will not try define what a penthouse is, however the going concern is that a penthouse is a space a top a commercial building that is meant to be livable and self contained with a nag to be exclusive.

If you have ever been to a penthouse, the 1st time you encounter it, it's is grandiose. Even terribly exciting. Epithet, the excitement fades as quick as it emerged as the realization what a functionless space this glorified brother is. While I

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November 21,2014

cannot talk for girls, it is common known facts that men with penthouses have homes where they nest, shelter and copulate.

In blunt terms then, penthouses would be for most part slaughter houses where the flock go to roast, everything up in flames away from and up above from prying eyes. Like the males and females who go to brothels are never there for wedding rings, neither do those in penthouses. This are no spaces for marital bliss. This is space is like no other, unlike apartments, members clubs, mood setting restaurants, parks, sunsets or sunrises over the mountains, tented river camps. Penthouses are just grown men pens, not even a man cave As 1

in a dog's pen.

From observation, girls worth their salt prefer an audience, a celebration, some common decency not simply fireworks. Penthouses on account of the exclusivity are like I said exclusive hence limited audience. It might be argued that they are playgrounds of the super wealthy, however we all know where the super wealthy live in this town. Out off the city limits or on the still grassed not glassed leafy estates. We also have an idea where their second, third and forth homes are likely to be. It's highly unlikely they way we have been socialized, that they would have a penthouse as a second home. I have it on good authority that in certain cities, this spaces are town houses, or summer or winter getaways. Originally,

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November 21,2014

penthouses where show pieces for wealthy New Yorkers in the

1920s. Not here though.

Researching this article, I talked to men who keep penthouses, the women taken there and the wives would were mostly unaware of their existence. Not the women taken to penthouses but rather, the fact that their husband had or rented a penthouse. Some didn't even have an idea what penthouses were.

Just to balanced it out, I spread the scope wider by spending two days with people in the wedding industry, not to establish an average profile of the kind of girl who gets a ring at the end of the day, but secretly to find redeeming grace for penthouses. If perhaps they were some out of this world proposals, marriage tanginess or just good old fashion family gathering that they directed to this spaces. There was no such redemption for penthouses. One group of people who had insiders insight in this spaces were the different candor of 'girls of the night'. They could map where, who owned and in some instances what went on. The findings were striking, hard and quite unexpected. Most penthouses are occupied by men often

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November 21,2014

wealthy. They don't always own the spaces, penthouses just like any other spaces are leasable.

The going price arête is slightly over a hundred thousand upward of seven hundred thousand in Kenya shillings. Most of them are sparred all over the city centre but they are also available on the outskirts of the city. About 15 that I know off within the city centre, a couple in Westlands, Riverside, Mombasa Road and a few in other 'leafy surrurbans'.

Most of penthouses host senior visiting dignitaries but in the absence of those guest, the spaces are a breeding ground of all sort of vices. Orgies, drug-taking, less than moral behavior is also the norm. What is not common is any trace of evidence off the going-ons due to the shielded nature of this spaces. Access is strictly controlled, most times even the guards were unaware of the existence of this spaces. They simply thought this were office spaces were people worked late nights.

Some of the men hosted their flings in these penthouses and not all were interested in females. This kind of men masked their real intentions from the society by mirroring a perfect marriage and a family life while also keeping a string of little boys or 'male relations'. This men tend to be dangerous often having enforcement teams to make certain that in the rare cases that some of the boys wanted out, or explore thoughts to expose this masked society, they are dealt with, with brutal force. Any person who tries to expose them will met the wrath of hell.

Exclusivity is a must and access is extremely limited with a main lift that opens into the living room and on the back a service lift for couriering supplies or the 'help'.

Still even as we go past this shinny office spaces, up above the ground a par verde world exists. Maybe we should start looking up, inquiring and being more aware of our surrounding. Maybe then we might save a soul or better our own nativity.

*By no means does this article assume to make any grand revelations on courting, morality, marriage, male, female

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November 21,2014

relations or absolute anything, you will not learn anything new here. Yet in the spirit of shedding some light, this article exist.

In closing Spaces should means something, form and function. A museum doesn't exist for the sake of being a masterpiece of its own. It exist to shed a light of the master pieces that are exhibited there.

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If you are still into classroom definitions, redirect here.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penthouse_apartment

Daniel D'uwa, 2

Film Director, Writer, Poet, Techie, Change Agent, Motivational Speaker

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