In Nakuru, a secondary city in Kenya, herbal doctors argue that African bodies are infested by ‘dirt’. Gathering at crossroads, they teach about the dangerous effects of processed foods on African bodies. During public product demonstrations, they patch together urban gossip, kemikali (chemicals in Kiswahili) and consumer goods from abroad to demonstrate their overheating effects on stomachs. In this article, I think through metabolism and digestion to demonstrate how ‘navigating’ urban toxicity in Nakuru implies a bodily praxis that hinges on debates about the porosity of the nation's borders responding to the afflictions of globalization. I show how the occult character of kemikali pivots on the collapse between insides and outsides, leading to overheating stomachs, and consequently argue that herbal interventions coating the lining of the stomach and the gut do what national borders are unable to achieve: keeping out toxic intrusions. From this point of view, herbal practices in Nakuru demonstrate agency and resistance to worlds perceived as increasingly toxic and polluted.

在肯尼亚的第二大城市纳库鲁，草药医生认为非洲的尸体被“污垢”感染。他们聚集在十字路口，讲述了加工食品对非洲人体的危险影响。在公开产品展示期间，他们将城市八卦，kemikali（斯瓦希里语中的化学物质）和国外消费品拼凑在一起，以证明它们对胃的过热作用。在本文中，我认为是通过新陈代谢和消化作用来证明纳库鲁市“驾驭”城市毒性如何暗示着一种身体惯例，这种辩论取决于关于应对全球化问题的国家边界的孔隙度的辩论。我展示了kemikali的神秘特质围绕内部和外部之间的崩溃，导致胃过热，并因此认为，覆盖胃和肠壁的草药干预措施无法实现国界：阻止有毒入侵。从这个角度来看，纳库鲁的草药做法证明了其对被认为有毒和污染日益严重的世界的权威和抵抗力。