About a month ago Ryan and I had a conversation about what to do about the pervasive stench that lingers in the car after Enoc, our house man/occasional driver, has occupied it for longer than a nanosecond.  Enoc’s personal hygiene standard is a bit different from ours.  Whereas we shower at least once daily, particularly when it’s hot outside, there’s no telling if Enoc showers or how often.  We use deodorant; Enoc doesn’t.  That’s understandable — given how expensive deodorant is in Nairobi, he likely sees it as an unaffordable luxury.

While we understand why the aroma wafting from the car hits you in the face like a blast from an air rifle fired at close range the minute you open the door, we weren’t exactly loving it.  So we toyed with the idea of buying one of those taxi-driver Scented trees to hang from the rear-view mirror so that we could experience the sensory ecstasy of ripe armpit with top notes of red fruit, laced perhaps with hints of chocolate, aged Corinthian leather and green peppercorns.

Ultimately, we decided that it was unbelievably rude and hurtful to make such a bold comment on Enoc’s offensive body odor.  Better we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous olfactory assault than hurt his feelings, we decided.  It’s just too difficult to tell someone that he stinks like an open sewer sizzling in the blazing heat of a million suns, or that his personal scent reminds you of a thousand camel asses left to decay in the roiling cauldron of the Sahara, we felt.  We were being noble.  We were being sensitive.  We were better people for making this sacrifice and doing it with all the good cheer we could muster.

One morning Enoc dropped Ryan off at work, took me to Kiswahili class and then took the car to be serviced before picking me up after class.

To my horror and shame, swinging from the rear-view mirror was a taxi-driver scented tree when he picked me up.

Ryan and I have been puzzling over the message since.  Do we stink?  Or rather, does he know he stinks?  Is it because we eat so much garlic?  Or does he hate the scent of soap and shampoo?

Frankly, it’s all a bit of a worry.