Kenya Letter: It is not even rush-hour yet and the thick fug of diesel fumes hangs over the thousands of commuters thronging the forecourt of Nairobi railway station, waiting for their ride home.
They are not here for the trains (today two are running, making it a busy day for the good staff of Kenya Railways), but rather the brashly painted minibuses known as matatus that swarm across the road, honking their horns and filling the air with black smoke and pumping bass lines.
The scene is chaos. Conductors wave their drivers into ever- tighter spaces as hawkers lift baskets of bananas or newspapers to the windows of the minibuses.
Intrepid pedestrians weave their way through the fumes dodging bumpers as they try to find the number 111 that will take them out of the city to the leafy lanes of Karen, or the 46 that will drop them on the edge of Kawangara slum.
Everywhere the ground is covered with the splintered plastic and shattered glass from those occasions when the matatu drivers fail to evade the laws of physics.
The same sight is played out each day at several sites in the city where thousands of the brightly painted matatus congregate.
All this could be all about to change, though. Last week the government confirmed it was planning to stop licensing the 14- seater matatu. Instead, new owners would have to buy 26- seater buses as part of a drive to tackle the city's crippling congestion.
The announcement has provoked howls of protest from passengers, who fear cartels of owners will raise prices, and sent shockwaves through the drivers, conductors and owners who earn their living from the 20-shilling fares (just under 20 cents).
Solomon Mutiso grabs my elbow and steers me inside his matatu, safely away from the honking and yelling outside.
This battered Nissan - with a windscreen cracked by stone- throwing thugs when the conductor refused to pay protection money - earns Mr Mutiso about 2,000 shillings profit a day. That's little more than €20, but still enough to feed, house and clothe 12 people.
"I am very, very sad because obviously my driver will lose work, my conductor will lose work and he has four children to support," he says. "What am I supposed to do? I cannot afford one of the 26-seater buses. No one is going to loan me enough money for that."
Love them or loathe them, the matatu is one of the defining features of Nairobi's roadscape.
They take their name from the Swahili term for three - tatu - which was the price of a ride when they were introduced back in the 1960s.
Today most are 14-seater Nissan minibuses, often imported from Japan. There they would have pottered about on the country's sedate roads for a couple of years before being brought to Kenya, where they will see out their days being bumped over potholes, driven across pavements and the wrong way up one-way streets.
Some are emblazoned with macho names, hinting at speed and excitement, such as "Airbus Striker", and some offer some sort of religious experience, like "Haven of Prayer".
Other slogans - such as "Ballin' all day" - are probably best left unanalysed.
There's no doubt about it, though, many are fun.
As a lone mzungu (white man) crammed into a matatu, I have been propositioned by a schoolgirl, survived several attempts at having my soul saved and learned a fistful of Swahili swear words. However, I have lost a mobile phone and a wallet to pickpockets before I discovered their modus operandi.
I hadn't stopped to wonder why so many people seemed to climb into a matatu carrying a large sheet of card. After sitting down next to me in the cramped interior, they would balance it flat on their lap, steadying the sheet with the hand closest to me.
It was only when I discovered a hand in my pocket, extending from an arm snaking beneath the card, that I realised what was going on.
Then there are the accidents. Each week the country's national newspapers will carry a picture of a matatu looking more like a sardine can and a headline listing an improbably large number of casualties.
Now that I have a car, I will be happy to see the matatu maniacs, who lurch suddenly out of side roads or stop violently to allow passengers to alight with little regard for the niceties of braking distances, removed from Nairobi's streets.
However, millions of passengers and thousands of drivers, mechanics and conductors will be inconvenienced at best and made jobless at worst. Dickson Mbugua, chairman of the Matatu Welfare Association, says banning matatus will only serve to create misery among thousands.
Back at the railway station, some passengers, such as George Mutahi, say they have already made the switch from matatus to the bigger buses.
"The small ones are unreliable," he says, waiting to board his ride home. "They tell you they are going to Ngong but then stop halfway so you get into an argument, while these other ones have a constant fare so you know where you stand."
With that he climbs into a shiny new 26-seater bus and is off, bouncing over Nairobi's potholes.