Nairobis spread and growth, as it expands by near 7 per cent a year, has seen former residential zones of walled mansions and gardens emerge as the heartlands of bedsitter flats for Kenyas young professionals, university students, and working, single parents. For the mansion in Ngara, at the border of Parklands, it is a change that has filled the house with more than 50 residents.

Once home to just a single family, the mansion now houses 13 bedsitters, each with an average of four residents. More still live in what was the former servants quarters. The rent comes in at around Sh7,000 a month for each bedsitter within the house, including water and electricity, making for a sum on the mansion of over Sh100,000 a month.

For the Kenyans who live here, the average Sh2,000 a month for home and bed is a top option.

For Parklands is still a tree-lined place. As at independence, it remains the centre of the citys Indian culture and community, a zone dotted with temples, mosques, and buzzing with Asian businesses, the countrys top Asian schools and food and stores that match its roots. Within the suburb, Ngara sits just north from the citys vibrant Central Business District, making it an easy location, on a Sh10 to Sh20 matatu fare or a Sh300 taxi ride, for the countrys city workers.

As a snapshot it city life, the road outside the mansion majors in contrasts. The noise of vehicles hooting on the busy Muranga Road, as the matatus swerve off-road to collect more passengers, fills the air even of the road-side market where farmers sell vegetables and fruits. Across the road, alert hawkers without licenses sell clothes and trinkets, but take off instantly at the sight of a jungle-green truck cruising in, packed with City Council Officers and police. Sometimes, the police are armed with teargas. Next door lies a church and a school.

Inside the mansion, live students, single moms, young couples and older ones whose children are looking for greener pastures locally and abroad. The house bustles with house keepers cum gate keepers who seem permanently on hand in an ever-busy business of assisting the landlord.

The gate is not the original. This is a jua kali gate, made locally, by a street blacksmith. The spikes on its high top add security, according to the gate keeper, unlike previous gates. Beside him, men sit indolently on concrete stones chatting. As visitors come in, two dogs bound up and bark. They do not bite, says the gate keeper. While inside, in the compound, children play: boys oblivious to their surroundings, engaged in their game.

On the verandah, women wash clothes and hang them out as they catch up with the gossip. There is a faint aroma of stew spiced with garlic and chapatti breads, overpowered by the much stronger smell of smoke from charcoal stoves.

It is all full. Action and people are everywhere. But only at the entrance is the lingering feel of a brown and white painted mansion finally gone. Here is a building of bedsitters, long since transformed from a grand family home. Only the walls, the high ceiling and the banister on the stairs give a hint of old fashioned architecture.

On the ground floor, five rooms are locked except the one from which a girl, about two years, peeps out. As one climbs the stairs, the smell of food and smoke smell stronger. After the first flight of stairs, the washing area at the balcony comes into sight, filled with women washing clothes and utensils as they speak to each other in their native language. In a corner, past two bathrooms, a small stove is on, the source of the smells of cooking.

Finally, a tenants welcoming visit to his room in themansion solves the mystery of life inside bedsitter land. His doorstep is clustered with a rack of shoes and a simple doormat just a metre away from the neighbours stove. On a hook inside the door, hang a calendar and a small water heater, bought for Sh100 after intense bargaining. Beside them sit a small gas cooker supported by a kerosene stove, clearly not in use for a while.

The smoke and smell from the corridor cooking is invasive and slightly worrying: does not it make people ill. Why do residents not buy the small upcoming electrical cookers worth Sh 500. They are risky, and they merely consist of an electric-heating coil attached to an electrical wire with a plug, he says.

His ideas on electrical support are different, for the room is not short of electronics. A 21-inch television, a DVD player with a stack of compact discs, an iron box with a board and a computer are all placed at intervals. Opposite the door is a fridge, holding a microwave. Beside it a sofa, a small cupboard of basic utensils, a bookshelf, a wardrobe with a mirror and a single bed that seems to be attached to the walls. Under the bed are cartons of old clothes and books. While in the centre of the floor-tiled room lies space, made to feel more airy by the way the green curtains on the three windows complement the rooms cream colour.

Yet though this tenant has managed to get the seven by four square metre room with a tiny balcony, he feels unlucky. He missed out on the room that has a small kitchen area, and has to fetch his water from the washing area. He mumbles his discontent, with passion.

Under pressure, he grants that the potted flowers in the balcony lift him a little. But agrees with the young lady who has just moved into another of the bedsitters: It is tough getting used to the noises from cars coming and going, people flushing toilets, and running water. At least, though, there are eyes all around me, neighbours watching. I like that, she says. The mansion is secure. It is stuffed. It is noisy. But in its corners are spots of privacy, and home, against a backdrop that still just hints at a prettier, greener, more spacious beginning.

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