It was 10 p.m., and I was downright spent. I felt entirely out of my depth. Parked in the dark in front of Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall, I had just removed eight dripping wet spark plugs from their sockets. Now, they lay neatly arranged around me in the cramped, filthy space under the hood of my car, each awaiting their turn to be dried and cleaned. A futile task, really. The moment they were scrubbed and screwed back in, they would foul up again within seconds, leaving me right back where I’d started.
For the third time that day, I found myself buried chest-deep in the grubby engine compartment of my capricious Land Rover. This miserable ritual had become absurdly routine. I was seriously contemplating relocating the steering wheel and driver’s seat to the engine bay since, at this point, I was spending far more time in here than in the actual cabin of this infernal piece of British rubbish.
As a result of the dire predicament I found myself in, my thoughts began to dangerously teeter on the edge of a full-blown mental breakdown. I even began entertaining the idea of setting this cursed car ablaze and simply walking away—back to the long-forgotten comforts of my home by the beach in Germany, never to return to Africa again.
Silently, I vowed to cheerfully embrace my profoundly boring and unfulfilling former life, returning to the monotony of alternating my time between managing my company and enduring the snobbish confines of a golf course. I even found myself looking forward to squandering weekends in toffee-nosed Armani stores or on race tracks, pretending to find joy in such hollow pursuits.
Perhaps, after this humbling reminder of how hard life can be when you strike out as a total stranger in a foreign land—a distant continent, surrounded by people you don’t understand, immersed in a culture alien to you, and on a naïve mission to save the world—perhaps now I could finally appreciate the so-called “normal” life.
An opening excerpt from What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Chronicles of Chaos and Courage remains available here. The full book can be ordered here.
🧨 Land Rover Misery + Mental Collapse 💀
This was the moment—stranded in front of Westgate, Nairobi, elbow-deep in a Land Rover engine built by someone who clearly hated humanity, believed nuclear leaks were a healthy hobby, and probably drank embalming fluid for longevity—where I questioned every life choice that led me to this greasy abyss.
If frustration had a mascot, it would be this British engineering failure: a Land Rover—unreliable, oil-soaked, and hell-bent on killing its owner one breakdown at a time.
Drying eight spark plugs for the third time—each wetter than a yoga influencer realising her chakra retreat isn’t insured—I weighed my options:
• Step in front of a Matatu,
• Turn the engine bay into a controlled explosion and mail the ashes to England,
• Walk away forever and return to Germany’s spiritually vacant safety of golf courses and small talk with hedge-fund psychopaths.
But God—armed with a very dark sense of humour—had other plans for me.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Ask Romdane. He bought a Land Rover.
The Gospel of Grease, ft. “Sir, I am Hungry”
“Sir, I am hungry…”
He didn’t say “please,” or mention paperwork, or request a form in triplicate.
He just asked—politely, softly—for a little piece of human fuel.
So I handed him 500 Kenyan Shillings, and like an angel in a crumpled uniform, he disappeared into the night.
To the oat-milk-sipping influencers and Lonely Planet pilgrims who gasp at the mere mention of bribery: relax. In most of the real world, a small token isn’t corruption—it’s lubrication.
The machine doesn’t move without grease.
Out here, you don’t win hearts or solve problems with hashtags, policies, or scathing Instagram captions.
You fix it with lighters, pens, a cracked smile, or a pack of gum you forgot in your pocket.
Sometimes, even God sends help in the form of a hungry rent-a-cop in a crumpled uniform holding the last thread of your sanity together.
Western outrage can stay at the airport.
Because when your life is falling apart and your Land Rover coughs blood in a Nairobi parking lot at 10 p.m., the one man who shows up and says “Sir, I am hungry”
might just be the miracle.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Ask Romdane. He paid the bribe. And he’s still here.
AMEN