Four Nuclear Physicists Walk Into A Swahili Resturant in Vienna

Four nuclear physicists walk into a Swahili restaurant in Vienna and order biriyani. It sounds like the start of a good joke.

I was in Austria following an invitation to launch my recent book Strength and Sorrow at the Kenyan embassy in Vienna. It wasn’t my first time in the city. I had been to Vienna before, in 2019, to write a story about the INEOS 1:59 challenge where Eliud Kipchoge, became the first human to run a marathon under two hours, leaving us with the inspirational phrase: No human is limited.  

I was thinking about Eliud as I was welcomed by the outgoing Kenyan ambassador, Maurice Makoloo, a running enthusiast who had recently participated in the Vienna City marathon.

One never knows what to expect at an embassy event. They can turn into evenings of formal Nyayo era nostalgia, filled with speeches that begin with the compulsory mention of “all protocols observed”. At one event in Den Haag, the DJ’s music selection included Twala Kenya Twala and Mimi ni Mwana Kenya Daima, patriotic tunes that set the tone for a predictable evening of mandatory national feelings. 

The Kenyan embassy is located on the 16th floor of the Andromeda Towers. I was ushered into the roomy ambassador’s office to meet the affable Makoloo.  It was already dark and freezing outside at 5pm but the warmth of the reception from the embassy staff held promise.

The format was simple. I was to be interviewed by the gracious Petronella Gacheri about the book, followed by a question session and then book signings. We sat on two raised white leather padded stools and had a profound conversation on grief and loss that the audience resonated with.  

During the signings, one small bodied woman announced that she was part of a group of young Kenyan nuclear physicists based in Vienna who needed their copies signed. When I looked around the room of guests, I could not tell them apart from everyone else until they appeared casually one after the other. This was sisterhood. It had escaped my attention that the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) was headquartered in Vienna. 

The mention of the IAEA sent my mind reeling back decades.

I have only met one nuclear physicist in my life. He was undeniably the father of Kenyan journalism, the illustrious Hillary Ng’weno whose greatness was always preceded by the title “The Harvard trained nuclear physicist”.  Hilary Ng’weno was the first Kenyan editor-in-chief of the Daily Nation. Best known for his critically acclaimed Weekly Review news magazine, he also founded Kenya’s first independent TV station, STV and at the end of his long career, produced the 15 part series called “The Makers of A Nation”. 

I met Hilary Ngw’eno after the journalist phase of his life had tapered, dedicating his time to completing the historical documentary series. I was a rookie journalist then and editor of a small sports rag known as Sports Monthly. Everyone who had a name in Kenyan media had in one way or another been influenced by Hilary Ng’weno. He was the Godfather and as I made my way to his office in Nairobi, I was giddy in anticipation. I had secured an appointment to seek his advice. 

“How did he do it? What were his rules of success?”

The meeting did not last long for Hilary Ng’weno shattered my illusions with a stunning reply, 

“Why are you coming to me? I was a failure.” 

What do you do with that? How do you argue back with a nuclear physicist, I thought then? You simply meditate on his truth for the next two and half decades, pondering over the measure of success.

Since then, nuclear physics acquired a particular gravity. It was so far removed, a field that it is without argument a domain of sheer intellect. These are the true one percenters twiddling with the forces of the universe and tasked with the guardian role of stopping humanity from exterminating itself out of foolishness.

The function at the embassy moved onto a restaurant on the ground floor of an adjacent building in the complex of office blocks after the ambassador had asked the simple question, “Have you eaten?” I followed my cousin Terry’s lead to a well lit Kenyan restaurant that exclusively served Swahili cuisine. 

When I walked into the space, there, they were. The four nuclear physicist women, with colorful and aromatic plates of chicken biryani in front of them and that sense of awe returned.

Nuclear physics. Kenyan. Young Black women. All here, in Vienna. It wasn’t anything that they were wearing, or how they enunciated their words. There was really nothing about them that would have distinguished them as extraordinary professionals. This wasn’t some flashy, performative genius. No grand pronouncements, no intellectual peacocking and during the duration of our conversation, no one mentioned the half-life of isotopes.

They were just grounded, unassuming. Their ordinariness, the quiet grace with which they simply were, floored me more than any overt display of intellect could have. The most extraordinary part – the sheer gravity of their work contrasted with their calm, everyday presence. That understated collective brilliance, nonchalantly enjoying savoury biryani brought back memories of the casual genius of Hillary Ng’weno.

It was an image I would never have formulated. In my mind, nuclear physics was the domain of white old men, wearing thick spectacles, lab coats and dishevelled hair. I found myself paying keen attention when they started sharing the reality of their professional journeys. Sharing what it meant to walk in their shoes, to be doubted, to be unseen but also to scratch themselves in disbelief, that they, simply them, had access to these corridors in the global command centre for nuclear safety. They told me what it felt like to be laughed at and dismissed and to perpetually downplay achievement because people would immediately assume it was a joke.  

They shared the outbursts of tears, in the public train, alone overwhelmed to be living out the audacity of a parent’s dreams. They were simply being, acknowledging the relief of being seen not as anomaly.  There was Joyce, an electrical engineer who joined the agency as a Surveillance Systems Engineer. She used to work as a Wireline Engineer at an Oil Company blowing up oil wells. Seated next to her was Phoebe who worked as an IT Specialist and joined the agency as an Associate Assets Management Officer. Across from her was Nancy, an Energy Economist and next to me, Zubeda the physicist and Nuclear Safeguards Inspector. They all worked at the International Atomic Energy Agency, better known as the UN Nuclear Watchdog, where they had met as Kenyans and formed a sisterhood.

Their presence charged the cold Viennese air with a different kind of energy. I thought about the breath of possibilities that opened up not just for them, but for so many others that would follow after them. For my country, for society, for the very idea of what a Kenyan woman could be. These women were a synthesis of something that had yet to cross my mind, the unlimited bandwidth of Kenyan excellence.

Maybe all this sentimentalism is because I have two daughters. Not that I want to push them to become nuclear physicists, as flattering as that may sound but I left that meeting confident that there would be some truth to my words, when I tell them to open their minds to the vast universe of possibilities. 

There was that metaphor of limitlessness that I first encountered in Vienna five years ago. That audacious declaration by a Kenyan hero at the Prater park. And here I was, a witness to the manifestation of the limitlessness of human thinking, calmly munching a plateful of savoury chicken biriyani.

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