The beach run - part 1

The beach run - part 1

Aeroadplane
“This is like an aeroplane,” commented the lady sitting next to me. This was about five minutes after takeoff.

Early in the evening, I had left my workplace and got a taxi to town. The taxi ride was the employer’s way of getting me home after working me past work hours. How my ‘home’ turned out to be town on this particular Thursday, was just pure calculations on my part. My usual residence is a stone throw away from the workplace. But this is a story for next time.
At the bus station, various buses parked, filled-up and left, while we awaited our ten o’clock boarding time.

“Wanaosafiri Mombasa kwa Modern Coast, basi aina ya Oxygen, tafadhali nendeni kwenye basi KBD…,” the announcer started, and searched her words for the reminder of the registration plate.

Our team of eight had managed to get fairly scattered seats. I had managed a number 11. I remember calling the booking office six hours earlier, to reconfirm that this number was an aisle side seat, which they did. I do not fancy the window side during a night travel due to the cold.
There was no security check even as we boarded. All just filed in without any hassle. The only requirement was that each had to display their tickets for confirmation by the attendant standing outside the bus door. I was just about to ask the lady apparently sitting on no. 11 to move to the window side, when I noted that number 11 was actually a window side seat, about four rows behind the driver.

“What was the use of that confirmatory phone call? Cheating Kenyans!,” that is what my mind said. My mouth however said, “Excuse me, please let me through to my number eleven seat.” I settled on my seat, adjusted the headrest by lowering it backwards, then fastened the seat belt.

Videography
Before our departure, a video cameraman had gotten into the bus and without warning or notice, went ahead and took video coverage of the whole bus. As he moved around, he momentarily focused the lens on each passenger. Occasionally, he asked particular passengers to remove their specs and head gear and look straight up. This was quite strange. However, since no one seemed to worry or question the going ons, I followed suit.

At exactly 10.30pm, the hydraulic doors closed and the bus left the station. I hardly noticed this departure until the ‘aeroplane’ comment was made.

“I did not even notice that we are in motion,” I responded, by way of introduction to the person I was sitting next to. I was still bitter in the mouth due to my sitting position, but nothing beats a good conversation.
“What takes you down coast?,” I found myself asking, for no good reason, just to get acquainted.
“I live there. I was in this forsaken city for a graduation ceremony”
“You do not like the city much, do you?, ” I wondered aloud.
“With traffic jams that are a national disaster! Spare me!!”
So we kept the chit chat, even as the air-, sorry bus-hostess served bottled water, packets of juice and some nuts.
“Next they shall be offering 3D goggles for the movie,” I quipped to my partner. This got her off guard, forcing her to laugh this off, loudly, for a moment. My colleagues, sitting on the opposite aisle glanced at our direction with some envy and moved their gaze straight on after a moment.
“I have to be on duty early morning. I therefore have to obey the sleep that is catching up with me. The graduation ceremony took a toll on me.”

Comfort
When we hit Mombasa road, the coach settled onto a comfortable but relatively slow pace. There was hardly any discernible motion. It was as if we were at a standstill but the movement was real. This was super comfortable. The lights has been switched off, but the movie show must have been cancelled! Large red LCD display just above the driver position, visible to all, indicated, “Date: 7-28” then “Time: 10.50” and then “Temp/Humid 25 C, 65%”. The display alternated every fifteen or so seconds. The air-conditioner was real. At some point I actually directed a jet of cold air onto myself from an overhead knob. But eventually I settled onto the trip and started enjoying the ride. I started planning for my inaugural run at the coast – a beach run competition by the team of ten. Something like a relay between the dudes and the dudettes. How to position runners at the relay points still needed a calculation. Nonetheless, this scheme would only work if we were capable of making some time, especially in the morning or late evening. However, there is no harm in planning – the worst that can happen can be a cancellation.

“Lord have mercy!”
“Shindwe!!”
“Oh my God!”
“Reswa!”
I heard all such shouts almost simultaneously. This was hardly thirty minutes into the journey. As I was digesting the situation, I remembered the sound of a loud burst, followed by wobbling motion of the bus as it moved left and right for a moment. One minute later, the bus was at a standstill on the opposite side of the road, just at the edge of the road shoulder.
“That was a tyre burst,” someone said, even as passengers craned their necks to glimpse the windshield or impossibly look through the dark painted windows.

The lights were turned on and the driver stepped out. Our hostess disembarked and folded her seat to give passage to travelers who were now disembarking in total confusion, and some in panic.

When it sank in, we realized that we had had a front tyre burst on the driver’s side. But because misfortunes must always come about in good measure, it was not a coincidence that we did not have a functional spare tyre nor the tools to change the tyre. I also disembarked, finally, and passed by the red LCD that now displayed 11.00. I noticed that we were not far from the city. In fact, the lights on the horizon dotted the outline of Nairobi. The billowing smoke in the nearby industrial establishments signaled that we were actually at Athi River. The night was chilly and hence I got back to the bus after my short stint on the dark road that was seeing vehicles, especially buses, zooming through at lightning speeds.

Silence
There was no official word from anybody on our mishap nor the course of action. Everything happening was an interpretation of what ‘some passenger heard from the driver’. At some point, we heard that the bus was completely incapacitated and that there was no chance of the journey continuing. Some passenger came back to the bus, picked his bags and said that those who needed to travel to the coast urgently were supposed to board any other bus of the same brand heading to the coast. With fear of the unknown, I was one of the people who found themselves in a non-comparable bus, looking for any available seat. My colleague, who was ahead, had already managed a seat. I tried the empty seat immediately behind, but was told that it was broken, unless I was willing to travel ‘with a straight back’ to the coast. I had to disembark and wait for our unknown eventuality.

Later on, a mechanic came from Nairobi and changed the tyre. The replacement was not any good and could not sustain a long journey. We were informed of the big issue, that there was a mechanical fault that was causing the tyre to be eaten into by a metallic part of the wheel compartment. With this fault, any tyre changed would eventually wear out and burst, when the tube surface is eaten into. For our own safety, the bus was driven slowly to the nearby Athi River Police road block. We now had only about half the passengers, after the others got into other Mombasa-bound buses. Even at the road block, more passengers decided to jump bus and got going.

“We are staying here till morning, since there are only two buses of this kind,” one passenger volunteered loudly, in the midst of the chit chat in the bus. There was laughter, anger, disgust and some few 'Shindwe's in reaction to the statement. The number of buses was a sure statistic, but the waiting period was based on lack of information from anybody. We were just there – in the cold bus, with the AC now turned off, in the dark… and in a restless panic. The time was now 12 midnight. I just sat there. Resigning to fate I closed my eyes even as I said, “Good morning my team! It is a new day. Let me catch some sleep.”

Water bottle
Something hit me and I stirred.
“Sorry, it was not meant for you!,” I heard from deep sleep. I struggled with wakefulness to notice a half empty bottle of water lying next to my seat. That is what had hit me, that was the subject of the apology. I noticed that the lights in the bus had been turned on, but turned down.
“Wewe sleepyhead. Bure kabisa! Hebu amka! We are about to start our journey,” the same lady who had dropped the water bottle told her girl-friend. Their seat was just a row behind, on the opposite side. I had to rub my eyes off sleep, since I momentarily saw her plant a kiss on ‘sleepy’s lips and tell her, “Sweety, kaa vizuri. Our trip to the coast is back on track.”

I become more sober when they clasped each other in an embrace that I would interpret as romantic and soothed each other to sleep. To keep me guessing, they covered themselves with a sheet and made sure that there was good exposure around sleepy’s dropping trousers. As the bus turned back to face the direction of Mombasa, the lights were finally turned off and we started our journey to the coast. The time was 2.30am.

When we broke a record of arriving at Mombasa at 10.30am, four hours later, I got to understand what happened at the Athi River Police road block. The narration occurred as we got into our chartered van heading to our hotel rooms. We heard that a mechanic came from Nairobi and fixed the problem and realigning the front wheels. The adjustment removed the metallic protrusion that was eating onto the front right tyre. The problem of the tyre had been with the bus since its trip from Mombasa to Nairobi before our boarding. The very wise mechanic back at Nairobi had given the bus a clean bill, stating that the problem was ‘not too serious’ and could be resolved at Mombasa after this particular journey. One of the phone calls that the hostess made early in the morning was a status report to ‘someone’ on the other end of the line. “You mean atapoteza kazi?,” was one of her statements over the phone.

With four lost hours, my planned beach run was not having good prospects on a now tighter programme.

On part 2 of the story, to be published next, we find out how my run at the coast went.

WWB, Nairobi, August 10, 2011