The motorbike that ran me over on a prayerful Sunday

The motorbike that ran me over on a prayerful Sunday

It was just a matter of when and not if.  I already knew that this day would come, and when it come, it did come so suddenly!  All those scenarios that I had played on my mind did not seem to conform to the current reality.  I found myself sprawled on the dusty grounds.  My specs had flown out of my face to I-do-not-know-where.  The bag on my back had been dislodged and had fallen just next to where I was.  The laptop bag that I had been carrying on my hand had been thrown some five metres away.  The umbrella that was initially on my right hand was equally thrown away some distance from the laptop bag.

I had just fallen from a motorbike at the new Nakuru matatu stage located next to the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.  The motorbike was just getting out of the stage compound as it headed to the exit gate when this mishap occurred.  The bike had been starting to speed up when this happened.  But this was bound to happen on this Sunday, August 22, as I travelled from Nairobi towards Eldoret.  That motorbike had ‘falling’ written all over it from the first time that I had seen it.

But how did I get to this stage where I was being helped up my feet by well-wishers at the matatu stage?  I had left Nairobi at a few minutes to eight by taking a Climax Destiny bus at the Uthiru highway stage.  The bus was not full, with a number of empty seats scattered all over.  I decided to take the back seat, with another passenger who had got in with me from the same Uthiru stage.  The bus would soon speed off on its way, but we did not even have time to settle down on our backseat before someone stood up next to the door and called us out.

“Nawasalimu wote wapendwa kwa Jina la Yesu,” he introduced himself.

“Niko hapa kuwaletea injili, Halleluya!?,” he asked.

“Amen!,” some few reluctant passengers responded, many still adjusting to the new person and the going ons.

“Hebu jibuni nyote kwa nguvu, Halleluya!?”

“Amen!,” the responses were now a bit strong.

“Wengine bado hawajibu.  Nyinyi watu wa back seat huko nyuma.  Wacheni kuangalia simu zenyu.  Simu ni vitu za dunia.  Hebu sote, tujibu kwa pamoja, Halleluya!?”

“Amen!,” that last response was forcefully loud.

We were hardly at Limuru and the animated preaching was already in full gear.  The preaching was intense.  Prophesy to some three passengers was unleashed to them loudly, and to our benefit.  Everybody in the bus would soon be raising their hands in prayer, in a ‘wapende wasipende’ style, having threatened bad tidings and unrecoverable curses for anyone who did not raise their hands.  All passengers had no choice but to go through the motions.  Things were thick on this Climax bus on this Sunday, even as the bus sped on.  The preaching continued.  The prophesy was unleashed.  The prayers were offered.  We all raised our hands.  No one dared not raise them.

Finally, it was time to give offerings to support the ministry.  It remained forceful.  It was targeted.

“Sasa nataka shilingi mia moja tu, kwa kazi ya injili.  Kila mtu inua mia moja yako tuombe ndipo nichue.”

There was some shuffling, as people looked around.  Few people raised one hundred shillings notes.  Most people remained unmoved so far.

“Nimesema kila mtu atoe mia moja yake ainua juu.  Hiyo hata si pesa yakufikiria.  Hata ukienda nayo utanunua tu chai na mandazi halafu uende kwa choo ikaisha hivyo.  Afadhali utolee injili.”

There was more action as more people reacted.

“Nyinyi watu wa back bench, mbona sioni mia moja zenu?”

We shuffled through our bags and pockets and extracted them.  He would soon collect them after prayers.

The passenger that I had got in with me, whom I now knew to be Frank, even offered to pay up by MPESA, as I saw the preacher typing his number onto Frank’s phone.  The preaching episode would come to an end at Soko Mjinga market located after Kinale, when the preacher thanked us all, blessed the givers and disembarked.

When Frank and I got into the bus, the conductor had asked us to pay the fare.  It is then that I had learnt that both of us were going to Nakuru.  While I had cash money, Frank seemed not to have cash, as he initially told the conductor that he would pay by MPESA at the Nakuru office, which I later learnt was more of the Kikopey stopover.  The conductor of course kept being distracted by the stopovers as he beckoned for passengers and hence it did take him quite some time to finally come for the fare.  By that time the preaching was on fire and “Amens” were the only pause you could hear in the bus.

It was while the conductor was gone before collecting the fares that Frank had asked me if I could give him cash and he sends me MPESA in lieu.  This would enable him clear with the conductor, instead of waiting until Nakuru.  I gave him my number and sure enough, I got the five hundred shillings by MPESA almost immediately.  I gave him the new crisp green note of the five-hundred shillings denomination and we started waiting for the conductor to finally pick the fares.  The preaching was still going on.

The conductor finally came to the back bench and each of us gave out a five-hundred shillings note.  Each of use reminded the conductor that the fare was four hundred shillings as per what we had been told as we go in at Uthiru.  The conductor took the money and just left.  He had already told us that there was no ticket for mid-point stations, hence we would just have to travel without tickets until Nakuru.

We kept waiting for our one-hundred shillings change each, while the preaching continued.  The conductor was in no hurry to give us our change, and did not make any move towards our direction, even when the preaching ended at Soko.  The conductor did not give us our change even after the washroom stopover at Kikopey.  He just kept saying that he was aware of our ‘little money’ and he would ‘sort us out’.

The bus was generally quiet after the preacher disembarked.  The engine kept roaring as we moved along the Nakuru highway, occasionally picking a passenger or two.  We eventually got to Nakuru where the bus stopped at the highway stage just before the railway flyover.  Opposite this stage was now a new Nakuru stage.  I could see a sign written ‘Gilgil’ on top of one of the matatus at that stage across the busy highway.  I had heard that the main stage in town had been relocated but was not sure whether this was it, as I gave it a casual observation, just opposite our bus.

The bus should have made another stopover somewhere in Nakuru for the Nakuru people to disembark.  I had assumed that this stop should be at some petrol station, but this is not what happened.  The bus started getting through Nakuru town and kept going, without any intention of stopping anywhere.  It is when we got to industrial area that I realized that this bus would not be stopping anywhere in Nakuru.  I asked Frank if he knew where the bus was supposed to stop in Nakuru, since he had also indicated that he was a Nakuru person, but he just shook his head and remained seated and unbothered.  Maybe he was heading to the outskirts of Nakuru.

I had to rush through the isle to the door area where the conductor was seated to ask him if we would be stopping in Nakuru and where that stage was to be.

“Ah!, Nakuru tulipita!  Mbona kuhushuka?,” he wondered casually, without a bother in the world, as the bus kept going.

“Simamisha basi!,” I instructed him, as I now headed back to the back seat to pick my two bags and an umbrella.

The bus came to a stop at some petrol station past the industrial area roundabout.  I alighted as I asked the conductor for my one-hundred shillings change.  He said that he had given all the money to the ‘mwenyewe’ and pointed to someone seated next to the driver.  I was now alighting, and the bus was rearing to go.  I was now out of the bus as I asked the person next to the driver, through the window, to give me back my change.

He pretended not to hear what I was saying and started showing those hand gestures that mean ‘what are you saying, I am not getting you’, all this while as the bus started to drive away.  He looked back at me with the same hand gestures as the bus sped away on the Nakuru highway leaving me standing on the tarmac.  The crew had just conned me.  Anyway, bad things happen.  The day shall get better, nothing to worry.

My cellphone has this bad habit of exhausting battery power after very few hours of usage.  Due to this, I usually alternate between full power and airplane mode to just conserve power.  I was now planning to do a walk back to Nakuru town and I estimated the distance to be two kilometres.  Anyway, why estimate when I have the Runkeeper app?  I started the app, switched the phone to airplane mode and the app showed a map of Nakuru and displayed a dot to show my current position next to the highway.  I pressed the start button and the timer started and I took the first step of more than two thousand towards the town.

The walk was quite relaxing.  It enabled me to appreciate the town of Nakuru, which was my main town many years ago while still working at Gilgil town.  The town looked like the same old town that I had known, even the street names remained unchanged.  Towards the end of Kenyatta avenue is a Naivas supermarket that I have been to before.  I had decided to pass by that supermarket to get some soda in readiness for the next leg of the trip.  I also decided to pay up the cashier by MPESA to preserve the cash that I had, after all, cash is king, while MPESA is… well, MPESA is just MPESA.

Getting to MPESA meant getting my phone from airplane mode back to full network connectivity.  I was soon at the cashier with my two items and proceeded to pay by MPESA.  I left the store and was just heading to the left luggage section located out of the supermarket when I saw the MPESA payment confirmation and another message from REVERSAL.

I have never gotten a message from REVERSAL ever.  I was therefore too curious to know what this was all about.  I did not even pick my bags yet.  As sure as this day being a Sunday, there on my phone screen was a message that Frank had asked MPESA for a reversal of KShs.500.  And sure enough, I realized that my MPESA balance was five-hundred shillings short.  However, the same SMS from reversal informed me that I had to accept a call from Safaricom to either accept or cancel that transaction.

What is going on here?  Can it be true that the very Frank who was doing the loud ‘Amen’s with me in the bus was trying to scheme me off my money?  I was still wondering the course of action, but calling Frank turned out to be the most logical step.  However, as you can guess, his phone was off.  It dawned on me that I was surely being conned… yet again.  What a great Sunday I was having so far!

I sent an SMS to Frank cautioning him that trying to con me was not his best move and that he had exactly five minutes to return my money.  By now I was still on ‘threat’ level with no clear cause of action.  He could as well just call it bluff and take no action on his part.  I however feared that I had missed the confirmation call from Safaricom when my phone was on airplane mode and that it was too late to do anything.  After all, even my MPESA balance was already short.  I was sure that this was a done deal.  I had been conned.

I was just about to reclaim my luggage at the Naivas left luggage section when the phone rang.  It was the Safaricom official number, and I have saved it on the phone address book as such.  I answered on the second ring.  It was an automated message, just informing me that some number had requested for MPESA reversal of five hundred shillings.

“What a waste,” I thought, while listening to the monotone of the automated voice.  They were just calling to confirm my misery.  I kept listening.

“Press 1 to accept the reversal or Press 2 to decline the reversal”

That was music, I tell you.  I pressed a 2 on the phone dialer screen so fast and so hard that I almost punctured the phone screen.

The automated voice then confirmed that the reversal had been cancelled and that the funds would remain in a suspense account for another twenty-minutes before I get it back.

I was not sure if this voice was surely the real deal, or it had already been overtaken by events.  I was not holding my breath.  What shall happen shall happen.  I was already past denial.  I had now accepted this Sunday as it was, with all its unfolding.  I took my two bags from the luggage section, together with the umbrella that I had gone with to the supermarket, and started my walk towards where Nakuru matatu stage should have been, at the middle of the town.

I would be surprised to see no matatu at all at the supposed stage.  The stage must have been moved.  I however could not figure out where it had been moved to.  Even the vehicles to Eldoret that would usually park a bit out of the main stage, near the petrol station at the roundabout, were also not there at all.  I asked a motorbike person where to get the Eldoret matatus and he instructed me to go towards the highway next to the railway flyover.

That is a place that I was very familiar with.  It was about a five hundred metre walk from where I was.  I was at that stage in no time.  I looked around but did not seem to see any matatu that goes to Eldoret.  The signage on the matatus showed that most were going to Nyahururu, Naivasha or Gilgil.  Nothing for Eldoret.  I had to ask.

“Eldoret ni hapa, kuja ukate ticket.  Matatu za Eldy ni hapa,” the very aggressive matatu stage person said.  I was about to doubt him when I saw three other people going to Eldoret standing next to him and they were getting tickets.  I still did not see the matatu, but the person seemed genuine enough, even with a badge of one of the matatu operators.  He gave us tickets branded with the logo of one of the matatu companies in that stage.  Mine read six hundred shillings.  I told him that six hundred was too much, though I did not know what was the right fare.  For lack of a figure, I told him that it should be five hundred.

“Lete hiyo five hundred,” he extended his hand to pick the single green note.

Now, it is true that there was no Eldoret matatu at this stage, at all.  Soon the matatu person who had given us the tickets beckoned to a motorbike person.  He asked the motorbike person to carry some two pieces of luggage, belonging to the other passengers who were also going to Eldoret.  While these three passengers were being taken towards the main Nakuru highway to be led to the vehicle, I was instead asked to take a ride on the motorbike.  This was because I had my two bags, and it would easy the movement if I also took the motorbike.  I was also in time to hear him instruct the motorbike person to give the Eldoret matatu ‘four hundred kwa kila passenger’.

The motorbike seemed already packed, with the two gunny bags already tied on the seat of the motorbike.  I had to make several attempts at trying to jump astride the gunny bags to take a seat on what was now technically the driver’s seat, despite the rider trying to squeeze himself next to the handle bars as he controlled the bike.  Finally, I managed to seat astride, while keeping my backpack on my back, the laptop bag on my left hand, and the umbrella on my right hand.  The rider struggled with his balance as he started wobbling around the matatu stage with its uneven ground.

As expected, the people at the matatu stage kept making fun and games at the rider, some waving at him, others even blocking his way and laughing out loud as he maneuvered off towards the exit of the matatu stage.  The inevitable happened when someone jokingly blocked the motorbike just as it was about to get to the exit.  The dusty road and its potholes were the last straw, as the bike wobbled out of control and….

I found myself down on the ground.  I do not even remember how I got down.  The bike had fallen on my left foot.  All my baggage was scattered around.  My specs had gone wherever they had gone.  I was still processing what was going on.  I knew this day would come, but not in this manner!  Not at the Nakuru stage!  Soon the many people at the stage were coming to our rescue, getting the bike off my foot while someone brought me my specs, with one of the glasses dislodged having detached itself from the frame, but luckily not broken.  

I managed to fix back the dislodged glass of the left eye and put the specs back on.  They seemed to be working fine, no cracks, no bends.  I also picked my two bags and my umbrella.  I tried to dust myself off.  It is then that I started feeling the pain on my left ankle.  It was a sharp pain, though I did not see a bruise or a cut.  It was just painful internally. The bones on that foot seemed to have been squashed flat.  I could still manage a walk without difficulty.  That seemed to assure me that my leg was probably not broken.

The bike was brought back upright.  The two gunny bags that were still intact having been tried onto the bike frame were now removed and taken back to where we had booked our tickets for an alternative arrangement.  And… and I still managed to sit on the same bike, with my same three luggage items and took the ride to the unknown place where I was meant to get the Eldoret vehicle that I had already paid for.  

We joined the highway then went into Nakuru town, past the former central matatu stage, and kept going for another kilometre or so.  I was about to wonder if I was being conned again and taken to some unknown place.  This is because we seem to have been going forever and not reaching our destination.  I was just about to ask about where we were going, when we reached this other matatu stage that have vehicles to Eldoret and Molo.

It is with a slight limp that I got into the Eldoret matatu, now carrying full capacity after the corona mitigation social-distancing rules on public vehicles were revoked the previous week.  Most of the people at the stage and in the matatu did not have their facemasks.  Those that had them had hanged them on their chins.  This corona thing had been totally left to its own devices and we were now on our own.  My left foot kept painting as the matatu finally left Nakuru at almost one-thirty, for the three hour journey to Eldoret.  It is during the travel that I had checked on my MPESA balance and confirmed that no money had been reversed from my account.

WWB, the Coach, Eldoret, Kenya, August 23, 2021

Running out of Mombasa with a drink

Running out of Mombasa with a drink

There are two reasons why I was taking this train on this Tuesday.  The first was that I was short of project funds.  I was now on the last one-thousand shillings, that could only afford a train ride.  The alternative would have been a flight back to the capital, but I would have to top up the 4,100 difference from my own pocket with no possibility of refund.  This did not seem possible at the moment.  The second reason was that I needed to experience a train ride after an over three-year hiatus.  I wanted to confirm if the train was still the same good old train.

One contributor to my broke status was that I had underestimated the Mombasa experience.  My plan A was to adhere strictly to my schedule and be out of there as per my schedule.  However, I was now being forced to run back to the city after I had already exhausted a two-day extension from the initial plan, and even that extension had not resolved my pending work.  I was just realizing that Mombasa hakuna haraka.  A task that I would have done upto late night back in Nairobi was being split into a three-day thing in this city.

“Sasa tumalizie hapo.  Leo imetosha.  Rudi kesho tafadhali,” were the many breaks that I encountered on my road to the research data that I was collecting, yet I was just getting started.

So, I left my residence at noon on this Tuesday, August 10 ready to get out of Mombasa.  I had just booked my seat on the train using the online platform.  I had initially intended to just buy a ticket at the station, but I had observed how the free seats were progressively getting fewer by the minute on the online system and I had started to worry that I would not get a ticket at the station.  Missing that ticket would have meant digging deeper into my pockets to facilitate an extra night stay or be spend more for a flight out of here.  I was not chancing on these options.  I was already on a shoestring as it was.  That is why I had booked my seat online just before I left the residence.

The taxi that I got through the hailing app was at my door hardly five minutes after I had confirmed.  The app showed a cost of 890.00 from Bamburi to the Miritini train station.  Apart from the traffic jam at ‘lights’, caused by the matatus that were obstructing the road by stopping in the middle of the road, with impunity, the rest of the travel was quite fast.  I loaned the taxi driver one-hundred shillings to pay for the parking at the train station.  He had said that he did not have any cash, since all his money was on MPESA.

“App yasema kwamba yatakiwa nilipe eight-ninety, kwa hivyo nitakulipa seven-ninety tu, sivyo?,” I asked him when we got to the parking and I was getting ready to alight from my backseat seating position.

“Hapana, lipa tu hiyo eight-ninety yote.”

“Lakini nililipa ile mia moja tayari?  Pale kwa gate sababu ya parking?”

“Hapana, hiyo ya parking ni kando.  App huwa haina pahali pa kuongeza parking.  Abiria ndio hulipa parking”

I did not have to make a scene over one-hundred shillings and therefore I paid the full amount by MPESA.  I asked him to confirm receipt which he did.  He was just in time to tell me that not so long ago he had dropped someone at the very same station.  The passenger had paid by MPESA and then had reversed the payment after that passenger had passed through the train station security.

“Sasa ulifanyaje?,” I asked him.

“Ah, mimi, uende na pesa zangu?  Nilifukuza huyu jamaa mbio.  Nilipita hapo kwa security mbio.  Niliwambia ninafukuza jamaa ambaye ameniibia pesa wakanikubalia nipite.  Nilipata jamaa tuu hapo mbele.  Aka anza kuniambia ati ilikuwa tu error ya simu.  He!, ali lipa hiyo pesa yangu mbio!”

I was still smiling over this story even as I went to the security check area, where you lay your luggage on the long luggage stand, and the security personnel then let two dogs sniff through the luggage.  After that check, the luggage goes through scanning and you are then allowed through to the ticket check area before getting to the terminal waiting area.  

The process is usually that simple and I expected it to be that simple, until I was now passing through the luggage scan with my bottle of water at hand.

“Hebu songa huku,” I heard a voice beckon in my direction, just as I was about to pick my two bags from the scanner.

“Oh, mimi?”

“Ndio, wewe,” the security person said now coming towards me and joining me in a second.

“Hi nini umebeba?”

I was not even thinking.  I was completely taken aback.  I just had with me a bottle of water.  This was a transparent plastic soda bottle of one-litre capacity.  I had just filled it with the remnant of club soda and bottled water that had remained in my fridge as I checked out.  I did not want to discard those remnants which had cost me money.  I had already sipped a few mouthfuls on my way here while in that taxi.  I was not thinking anything about it.  And it meant nothing to me.

“Hi ni maji and soda,” I said and made to start picking my bags.

“Hapana, hebu angalie ile sign,” he pointed to some A4 size white sign that was affixed at the walls of the luggage check area.  It was a bit unclear from my location about twenty metres from that sign.  I could see the top line, “No alcohol allowed”, but I could not see the fine print thereafter.

“Lakini hii ni soda na maji, hata angalia,” I handed the litre bottle.  He took it and shook it.  It released the fizzy effect of a typical soda.

“Yes, nilijua!  Hii ni pombe.  Hakuna soda utoa povu!”

Is this guy even for real?  Isn’t soda the very thing that is supposed to fizz?  That is how you know that a soda is a soda for crying out loud!

“Hii ni soda, hata ukitaka kujaribu, fungua ujaribu.”

“Hapana, hii ni pombe, hakuna soda utoa povu.  Unafikiri sisi ni wajinga!”

We were getting into a singing game now.  I was just about being agitated.

“Sasa lazima urudi kwa parking, ukunywe pombe yote alafu ndio urudi,” he told me.

“No way, hii ni soda, na siwezi rudi, kama siwezi kuenda nayo, basi baki nayo.  Siwezi rudi.”

“Sisi tuwezi baki nayo, lazima urudi kwa parking.”

“Sirudi, baki nayo basi!”

I was just about to leave it with them when they told me that the only way out was that I should throw it away myself in the bin.  I was thinking about this last move later on at the terminal as I waited for the boarding time.  Was this action a way of getting them out of a potential legal situation?  I was wondering what would happen in case a passenger like me instituted harassment and false accusation charges.  They would just say that it was the passenger who threw away their own drink!  However, that contemplation of taking it legal still stayed with me some time.  We should have proved our cases before a judge and the soda should have been subjected to chemical analysis.  I believe that citizens deserve a hearing and they need to be treated innocent until proven otherwise.

I was still just shaking my head over the happenings of the last few minutes, while seated at the terminal building, when the waiters at the restaurants on that first floor location approached my seat.

“Tunauza chakula, menu ndio hi,” the lady handed the menu, which I declined.

She was not giving up, and continued, “Lakini hata soda tunauna.  Hata ukitaka pombe, Tusker, Gin zote ziko.  Nikuletee gani?”

What is going on here?  I have just been denied my soda in the guise that no alcohol was allowed.  Now I was being offered hard drinks hardly five minutes later on?  What a contradiction!

It did not take long before the we boarded and the 3pm express train left the platform.  I was seated on the 3-facing-3 section of the train isle.  The train was surely full.  I could not see any vacant seat on this 106-seater coach no. 4.  We were three wagons from the engine, with the cafeteria and the two first-class coaches being just in front of our own.  Six other economy class coaches followed ours.  I was seated on the isle side, next to two other gentlemen.  

Opposite my seating position were three guys in their mid-thirties.  The first thing that they did when the train started to make its way out of the station was to get out their tumblers and pour themselves three stiff drinks from the bottle labelled ‘Gilbeys’.  I heard about how they had bought just one, instead of two at the station, and that it had set them back only eighteen reds.  Their loud mouths as the drinks took them over and the boredom overtook them, enabled me to hear all their secrets, including their bedroom habits – thanks to that Gily!  They proceeded to buy more drinks on offer in the course of the travel.  What a drinking train we were having on this day!

While I spent those five hours on the express train just seated, standing occasionally, taking washroom breaks, or even taking a nap, those three fellows seated opposite spent that time being high and playing cards.  I have never known that a card game can take that long.  They played and played until we finally got to Athi River just before eight, when they played ‘the last game’.  How they had survived those hard seats without getting sore still remains a mystery.  Maybe Gily works after all?  Nonetheless, next time I am paying triple and enjoying a ride in the first class.

The train finally got to Nairobi at about 8.02pm and slammed on the brakes.  The scheduled arrival time was 8.08pm.  We started travelling at about 5km per hour, with even people walking outside the train on the platform walking faster than the train.  The train was buying time to get to a stop at the scheduled time.  However, despite stepping on the brakes and trying to slow it down to the limit, the train ‘refused’ to be tamed any further and it was forced to stop at 8.06pm, with no more platform space available, hence it just had to stop.  Why was the driver hitting those 110km/h speeds only to here early to now force us to encounter the slow down to a walking pace towards the platform?

We disembarked from the express in time to be beckoned to the train to city centre on the metre gauge rail system.  I had already made arrangements for private taxi and hence skipped the offer for the train to the city centre.  I had also had a last minute disappointment the last time such an offer was made in similar circumstances.  On that last time, I had actually even got into the city train and settled in, only to be informed by the train crew that the train service had been cancelled and it was not going to the city after all.  It was a disappointing experience that meant starting to make plan B when that was not on the cards.  That experience had made me skeptical about this Syokimau to city centre train, but maybe next time I would still try it out and see if lightning can strike twice, however, not today.

I reached the parking yard in time to see an SMS reminder on my phone, ‘This is day 8 since you arrived in Kenya.  You have not reported on your symptoms.  Kindly do so via Jitenge MOH Kenya App or by dialing *299# MOH’

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Aug. 21, 2021

Where did the waters run to?

Where did the waters run to?

I was expecting that knock on the door for over thirty minutes on this Thursday.  I was not surprised when the knock came at about 10.30am.

“Nikekuja kuten-neza rumu,” the lady said after I had opened the outer metallic door.  The inner wooden door had been open since morning, so were the two windows in the one-room residence.  Full ventilation is the only way to survive the coast, though the temperatures are not that bad for the first time in a long time.  The windows have nonetheless remained open from the day I stepped into the room on Tuesday.  They stay open even in the night.  I felt cold for the first time yesterday and I almost woke up at night to close them up, but I did not.

I was seated by a small square table just next to the door, when this knock came.  Behind me was a window on one of the walls running along the bed.  To my right was the door.  To my left was the bed, then the TV just next to the headboard.  Straight ahead was the kitchen sink with a fridge standing next to it.  Beyond the wall of the kitchen sink was the washroom.

The lady made two steps into the house and stopped just next to where my small table was.  I had not resumed my seat, but instead had decided to stand next to the TV, now facing the door.

“Sawa, nipe dakika tano hivi, niondoke,” I responded.

The lady remained standing, a crumbled bedsheet at hand.  I was not sure if this was the replacement she was bringing along, or if this was among the sheets she was removing from rooms.  I had already been informed that the room would be cleaned every other day.  Having arrived on a Tuesday, I knew that Thursday would be the cleaning day.  The lady was however not going away for the ‘dakika tano’.  Maybe cleaning time was surely a strict cleaning time with no bargain and no negotiation.  It is good that I had already put on my Tshirt and trousers since morning.  I just pulled my shoes from next to the TV cabinet and put them on.  I wondered what would have happened if I had to do a full dressing, with madam standing on that door.

I would be out of the room in a flash.

“Niende na kifunguo, au nikuachie?”

“Nenda tu nayo.  Nitawacha mlango wazi,” she responded as I left the corner room and started my walk towards the front of the block, then out of the compound.

I had intended to take a walk to Naivas Bamburi, then decide whether to try out a walk towards Bamburi Cement, Mitamboni.  If I made it there, then I would be going to the public beach.  There was no fixed plan for the morning, apart from getting to Naivas first.  When I got out of the compound and in my absent mindedness, I took a right turn on the T-junction just next to my residence.  I knew that Naivas should have been about a four minutes’ walk, but this was not to be.  I soon realized that the road did not look familiar at all.  I had walked for over five minutes and there was no Naivas yet.  If anything, the road was getting narrower as if heading towards homesteads.  It did not take long to know that I was lost.  How could I have missed my route to the simplest of places?

I decided to make a U-turn after about ten minutes of walking.  I would not have minded getting lost on any other day, but not today.  I was not in the mood to walk about aimlessly.  I wanted to decide on whether I am making it to the beach or not, that was the day’s agenda and that is what I would have to pursue.  I walked back to my starting point in another ten minutes and continued straight ahead past the junction next to my residence.  The very T-junction where I had turned right instead of left.

I was at Naivas in less than ten minutes and went straight ahead to the T-junction next to that superstore.  I knew that I had to turn right onto that Old Malindi road and keep walking to a road bend.  From that bend I would have to make another right turn and keep going until I get tired, give up or get to the factory.  That is what I did.  I was soon at the junction where Bamburi matatus do their U-turn.  I kept going and could have given up my walk had it not been the seeing of the unmistakable Bamburi cement factory just ahead with its massive structures.

I walked along past the ‘Mitamboni’ and got to the main New Malindi road.  This road is familiar as it goes to Mtwapa.  It runs next to the ocean and hence has many hotels lined up along it.  I have been to several of these hotels in the course of business.  I could even see Milele Beach hotel with Milele church standing next to it as I approached that main road.  Matatus were beckoning passengers on that junction, with Haller park running the length of the road just next to the Bamburi factory.

I turned left and did not even walk for five minutes before I saw the entry to the public beach.  However, something had changed.  It was cleaner than usual with very few people walking thereabout.  I saw a few traders with their wares laid out.  The road was immaculate with hardly anyone walking on it.  The traders were neatly sitting off the road on either banks.

“This is not the public beach!,” I self-talked as I kept walking towards where the waters should be.  I had reduced my pace since the ‘reception’ so far had been strange.

I got to the end of the road and saw a sign pointing to my left reading ‘Pirates’.  There was a barricading tape just ahead of the road that I was using.  The tape was running the full length of the approach, for about four hundred metres of blockage.  I would soon be hitting that tape and either cutting it through to go over or I would have to come to a stop.  I decided to come to a stop.  The road had reached the end.  

Usually there would be no tape, and I would just be crossing over the open grounds to access the big pool that I could even see some four hundred metres ahead.  The vast waters were also not very visible since I could see a boundary of ironsheets lined up along the beach and blocking large parts of the coastal waters.  The presence of policemen sitting next to those sheets was the clincher – the beach had been closed!

Who comes to Mombasa and does not go to the beach?  Why even come to Mombasa is you cannot step into the waters?  What a disappointment.  I made an excuse like answering the phone and made my U-turn.

“Sh! Sh! Shhhh!,” I heard a chant on my back.

I pretended not to hear and kept walking back, phone on ear, talking to no one.

“Heyi, Bwana we!  Ni itie huyo jamaa!  Sh! Sh! Shhhhh!,” I heard once more.

And coast people before the social being that they are, soon someone next to me on the road would be tagging me and asking me to look back since I was being called.

I forced myself to look back just in time to see some guy in shorts coming to my direction.  He looked like a trader or an idler of sorts.  I stopped and waited for him.  My phone was still on my ear, talking to no one.

“Wauza simu au kamera.  Tumekuona ukiwa nazo tu, na unatembea.  Twaweza kukupa mnunuzi.”

“La hasha, siuzi chochote,” I responded and turned back to resume my walk towards Malindi road.

I was not myself after that disappointment of not accessing the beach for the first time in forever.  It must be this corona thing.  The very virus causing this COVID19 disease that had now affected* 207,148,607 caused 4,362,027 deaths worldwide.  Kenyan numbers were now at 218,713 infections and 4,302 deaths.

*Source: worldometers website

I walked through the motions of tracing my four kilometre walk back to my residence.  The matatus from New Malindi roads asked me to get in to be taken to Kiembeni as they headed to the Old road past Mitamboni, but I refused.  I was burning the calories of disappointment on this one.  Soon I would observe that the Old Malindi road remained as narrow as expected, with shop entrances being literally on the road edges.  Occasionally a matatu would make a stop in the middle of the road, where else?, and cause a traffic jam as vehicles behind the stopped matatus would honk on for long.

But that is not all, I even saw some trader sweep her stuff straight into the road and did not seem to give any damn about this.  I could not fail to notice some interesting names along my way as I headed back.  There is this building labelled ‘House of mzinga – shots bar’.  I was just shaking my head before I saw the ‘Sipper reloaded’ bar… and all these were touching the road.  I would at some point get to ‘Stage ya paka’.  Now, this stage?  And the way a cat has many lives?  Life could have not been complete before seeing how graffiti was already cropping up on walls and surfaces with 2022 campaign slogans, with calls for people to vote for someone as the MP for Nyali or MCA of Kiembeni.

I thereafter spent a relaxed Thursday and just prepared my data items in readiness for a meeting with the data person on Friday.  The free internet was quite unstable on this Thursday causing me lots of downtime, but things happen.  My computer kept going off forcing those long power presses for it to revive, but life continues.  The Friday was uneventful, apart from getting to town in a matatu that was arrested just as we reached town.  The charge… having no seat belts.  Who puts on seat belts in the city in a public vehicle?

WWB, the Coach, Mombasa, Kenya, August 14, 2021

Running across the coast – and surviving it

Running across the coast – and surviving it

I approached that junction with lots of apprehension.  I could see it just ahead, about two hundred meters of so.  I would be at junction in less than two minutes.  I could see the dumpsite that was a sure eyesore.  It was directly ahead.  Had the road not been making a T at that section, then I would have gone straight into that dumpsite.  I could see four ruffians in that huge dumpsite as I approached the T-junction.  I was now less than one hundred metres to that junction.  The road to that section was deserted.  An occasional vehicle or Tuktuk would pass by in either direction, slowing doing as they approached that junction.  Most of them would approach from my left or head to the left.  That left turning was the side that seemed to be busy.

One person was sitting next to the huge mound of waste items, mostly paper.  One other ruffian seemed to carry a huge dirty sack and head to the left side, while a third one was kicking about garbage while walking aimlessly on the dumpsite.  However, it was the fourth ruffian that got me worried.  I momentarily shifted the laptop bag from my right hand and shoved the bag to my back through the shoulder strap.  It was just a natural reaction of imminent danger from something that may be a threat to that bag.  I seemed ready for action, now with two free hands and two free feet.  

The person approached.  We would have to face each other in less than twenty steps.  He had put on some dirty slippers.  His trousers looked old, dirty, and torn.  He had put on something that used to be a Tshirt long time ago.  It was now something like strips of clothing clinging together.  He had nothing on either hand.  His hair was shaggy, almost dreadlocked.  We would be meeting in a second.

If anything was to happen, then it would have to happen now.  If anything was happening, it would have to happen to me in the next few seconds and it would find me while already in a flight.  The attacker would rather be good at a sprint if the happening was an attack.  The first two-hundred metres of the sprint would be the make-or-break phase of dealing with an attack.  Any conquest on the part of the attacker would have to be within that distance.  If I won a run over that distance, then no one was going to get to me thereafter, thanks to my marathoning.  I have the endurance to then keep running for over three hours non-stop if it comes to that.  I hate sprints and I hated the thought of even doing a sprint over as short a distance as one hundred metres, leave alone two-hundred.  However, I would do it if my life depended on it.

A vehicle would soon come from the left side of the junction and make a turn towards my approach.  The approaching ruffian looked back at the sound of the car, while at that time I also met and passed him by.  He did not seem to bother with me, or maybe he had been distracted.  He would soon be behind me, same direction to the vehicle that was also speedily retreating behind my back.  I sighed with relief.  I had feared for nothing.  However, I still had to get to the T-junction and find out what laid ahead, which just seemed to the be ocean of dumpsite straight ahead.

And… my left turn did not disappoint.  It remained true to my fears.  The roadside was strewn with all manner of garbage.  There was a wall that marked the left boundary edge of the left-heading road, with the vast dump running on the right side of the road.  The roadside was narrow while the rubbish, mainly old polythene bags making a mess of the whole walkway that hardly had any pedestrian.  

I would have easily turned back at this point since it was still deserted and looked intimidating.  Many other men walked within the rubbish field on my right.  I could however see some small roadside kiosks about two hundred metres ahead, just past the wall.  That sign of life encouraged me on.  I quickened my pace to be through this place that seemed unsafe and was soon at the main highway that I had been looking for.  The very road that I did not know how to get to, but the road that I was finally relieved to get to.  I was finally at the Mombasa-Malindi road.

Phew!

My heartbeat!

I was soon back to normal as I crossed the busy road, with matatus doing all manner of gymnastics, and got to the other side of the road.  From there I had the default option of getting into a Bamburi-Mitamboni matatu, or even a Mtwapa one, and make it to Bamburi.  A ride past Bamburi to Mitamboni would be an added advantage.  Even further to Naivas Bamburi would be the ultimate price.  However, that is not what happened, even as I remembered how my taxi driver had explained the mitamboni thing just yesterday, Tuesday….

The driver who had picked me from Mombasa international airport was the usual jovial coasterian type.  Someone who talks a lot, speaks in Swahili and updates you with or without prodding.  He had taken the first initiative to call me while I still in Nairobi.  It was hardly five when he had called.  My flight would be departing at 1745.  I was still fully a Nairobian when I got his call telling me that he was already waiting for me some 500km away at that time.

By that time my laptop had already died on me at the same JKIA as it had done hardly two months ago, when I was heading for Kisumu under the same circumstances.  History was just repeating itself, though with ‘protection’ on my side this time round.  Our ICT had already ‘prescribed’ a long power-button press as the solution to a hanging laptop.  I had preferred the ‘change the laptop’ prescription that I had proposed to them, but the ICT gurus decided on the alternative remedy.  

I hated this long press and it was causing me a sore index finger already.  Pressing that button for over one-minute is a big deal, believe me.  It usurps all your finger energy.  And it is not a one-time press.  You press it for about four of five times before the machine finally comes back to life.  And any unexpected shutdown takes your unsaved data with it.  I had already lost data at the airport on this day, but the long press would save the day in terms of getting the laptop to charge my phone despite already losing data that I had been working on and there was no need to cry over it.

I had also noted that the JKIA had many power sockets that did not work.  I had to really walk around the gates 1 to 3 at that terminal 1D to finally get to the charging station that worked that was located just next to the washrooms.  That section seemed to be the only place where the power worked.  It was already having at least three phones and a WIFI adapter connected to the various socket points on the table top.  Despite this being like the only station for all, some USB and power sockets still did not work on that table.  

I had received that Abbas phone call while standing next to that charging station.  By that time I had redone the filling in of the Ministry of Health port health data, necessitated by the current COVID19 surveillance requirement.  In June the system was not working end-to-end when I filled it in Kisumu on the way to Nairobi.  I remember arriving at JKIA and we, self and airport staff, were looking at each other wondering where the ‘system’ had taken the data.  Of course, that story has a conclusion, being that the system finally sent the confirmation message two weeks after the trip, just for my troubles.

I had now repeated that data entry on the port health portal and it seemed to work.  I even managed to get a QR code by email.  This was the code that we had to present on arrival at Mombasa.  The system assumes that everyone had a smart phone while on travel, but maybe that is the current true assumption of life.  I was now waiting for the 1745 departure time, which we had already been warned would likely be delayed due to the weather.  And do not imagine that it was because the weather would be bad for the flight, nope, it was because the rains would prevent us from walking from the terminal to the airplane!

I had left Uthiru at two-thirty on this day, though I intended to leave at two.  I had anticipated a traffic jam on Mombasa road due to the ongoing road construction of the decker on top of the 20km stretch of road from Mlolongo to ABC Westlands.  We were very aware that it would be a rainy day even at that time in early afternoon.  We had decided to use the longer but faster Southern bypass road that runs from Gitaru to Langata and to Mombasa road at Ole Sereni.  

I was using the same driver of two months ago, whom I had contacted off-Uber to take me back to JKIA.  He had turned out trustworthy having returned the headphones that I had left in his taxi last time.  He had also said that he was from Uthiru where I stayed hence had the closeness of a neighbour.  I knew that hiring him would also enable me to dictate the route, and at such a time as now, the route had to be the Southern bypass if I was to make it to the airport in time.

At Ole Serene we diverted to the ICD road once more, and it was not long before it started raining.  We got to Mombasa road from ICD road when the rain was already heavy and visibility was almost zero.  It was just about four by this time.  The airport was straight ahead and we just had to beat the snail pace jam heading to Mlolongo and we would be through.  We got to the airport when the rain had subsided.  The driver who had expected booming business due to the rain was not amused, though I reminded him that there seemed to be lots of rain towards Uthiru side from the observations of the definite rain on the horizon in that direction.

The end of the rain was also good news for the travelers, since our flight came back to be ‘on time’ and we would depart at 1755.  I was on a similar Bombardier as of last time.  The only difference was that I was allocated seat 12D, next to the window, but I found someone else already on 12D without a care in the world.  I ended up seating on 12C.  Not that I did mind, but who in this day and age still takes someone else’s seat and feels nothing about it?  Anyway, this was a short flight and I did not want to create a situation out of a seat.

The flight to Mombasa turned out to be shorter than I thought.  Just fifty-minutes and we were already on touchdown.  It was dark at Mombasa despite the time being just a few minutes to seven.  We walked through the tarmac once more to the arrival hall.  I remember the earlier tarmac walk in Nairobi while it drizzled.  The airport management did not seem to make any deal, big or small, out of a few drizzles on the paying passengers.  At least it was not raining at the coast upon arrival.  We showed the QR codes on our phones for scanning at the arrival door, followed by declaring of temperatures taken just next to that door.  From there it was straight to baggage claim and exit.  

There was nothing special in Mombasa on this Tuesday.  I just called Abbas the driver and he was there waiting.

“Wacha nikusaidie mzigo bana, we!,” he snatched a bag and headed to some car at the parking.  I followed along with my laptop bag.

“Mimi Abasi,” he opened his door and the one behind his seat for my bag.  He got into the car and opened the front passenger door for me.

“Wewe ndo Baraka, n’lye tumwa kumchukua.  Lo!, kumbe bado barobaro tu.  Kafikiria wewe mzee alo komaa!”

“Raisi Obama ndio huyu hapa mwenyewe,” I assured him as he eased out of the airport and started to fight the vehicle traffic towards Changamwe Police and then towards Mombasa city centre.

“Obama?,” he repeated and laughed out loudly.  

It was quite some time before we came to a bumpy ride.

“Sasa mambo ya kuten-neza mabar-bara hapa keshazidi bana we!,” he slowed down and started onto some dirt road.

We had now gotten to city centre and were just crossing the Nyali bridge when he came back to life, “Lakini wenda wapi bana we?”

“Nili ambiwa wapajua tayari,” I responded, “Najua tu ni mahali fulani kule Bamburi, lakini lazima tutumie Old Malindi road.”

“Lakini Bamburi ni nyingi bana, we.  Kuna Bamburi Mitamboni, Bamburi Kiembeni na Bamburi bamburi”

“Mitamboni?”

“Ndio, mitamboni, kule kwenye ile factory ya sitimi ile ndio yaitwa mitamboni.”

I had for sure studied the map and knew the general location of the accommodation that I had booked using the booking dot com app.  I had previously used Airbnb, but I did not like their payment-in-dollars model, which had caused the suspension of my credit card last time.  Booking charged in Kenya shillings and payment was after arrival.  Of course, I had also glimpsed at the offers on Air, but they did not match those on Booking this time round.  The reviews and pictures of the residence seemed good.  Though I am not a stickler to the small details, I still hoped that the place would not disappoint.  Even if it did, provided there was a semblance of a bed for the first night, then I was good to go.

As we got to the Old Malindi road, the driver asked the proprietors for directions, and they directed us.

“Twaenda Ajanta 3.  Hapo napajua vizuri sana.  Nna wateja hapo wengi mno,” Abbas updated me, now fully confident of his motions.  

It was just about eight when we got to the residence.  I had been offered a choice of a fourth-floor room, with no lift, or a ground floor room.  I opted for the ground floor, but cautioned them that I may decide on a change of room should mitigating circumstances arise.  So that if how I found myself at Ajanta checking in at a few minutes past eight.

I found the contact person whom I have been communicating to and she showed me the corner room on the ground floor.  Now, pictures can lie.  Descriptions can lie.  But reality cannot lie.  Not that there was something completely misrepresented, no.  The description had ‘stretched’ the truth a little bit.  They had mainly talked about one-bedroom apartments.  I was facing a one-room bedsitter.  They had described a sitting room with TV.  They had described a kitchen.  But that is not what I was seeing.  

I was facing a small sink slab and a three-door overhang cabinet to my right upon entry.  A four-burner cooker, a small one-door fridge and a microwave on top of the fridge formed the collection of space called the kitchen.  Straight ahead was a bed with a mosquito net hanging above it.  Next to the generously big bed, five inch I guessed, was a big TV to the right, with the left being the wall and window area.  And believe me when I tell you it was a big TV.  It must have been 62-inch.  It was almost disproportionate to the room size.  It occupied the whole top section of the TV cabinet, stealing all prominence from that cabinet.  The small DSTV decoder was like a small dot on that cabinet top.

I did not have much time to look around, since I would soon have to look for provisions.  I had been informed that there was a Naivas supermarket nearby.

“Panda Tuktuk au boda ikupeleke Naivas.  Iko mbali kidogo,” the housekeeper had updated me.

I knew otherwise, having studied the map of the area already.  I knew that there was a Naivas around there and it would not be further than a kilometre from where the residence was.  What is this obsession of Mombasa people and taking vehicles and bikes even over walking distances?  This was not the first time that I was facing a situation that apparently needed a vehicle.  Few years ago I was at Bombolulu and the short 2km walk to the public beach become a subject of a vehicle ride, which I refused to take.

Today I was being asked to take a vehicle to Naivas, whose location I did not know and did not seem to even be able to figure out in this dark of the night.  However, I was not going to take a vehicle.  The worst that could happen would be that I get lost and struggle to find my way.  I walked out of the compound and started walking towards the direction where I thought Naivas should be.  It did not even take me six minutes to get to Naivas.  It was that near!  

“Surely?,” I cried out loud!  This place was so near that no one in their right minds should be even imagining to think of uttering the word ‘vehicle’ or ‘bike’!

I got my provision with that I-have-forgotten-to-buy-something thought lingering through my mind even as I paid and walked out.  That hindsight become true when I got to the apartment and just realized that I had not purchased any sugar!  That would mean that my next morning’s tea would be sugarless, just on my first day of business.  It was too late to get back to the supermarket with curfew hours fast approaching at ten.

It is when I carefully examined the room upon settling back from the supermarket that I took in what would be my home for the week.  The washroom was comparatively big, though it did not have hot water nor did the shower work.  Only the lower taps worked, and only cold water came out of them.  Hot showers would have to be more of ‘hot basin baths’.  And as if they knew that would be the case, there was a basin and a bucket on the floor of the bathroom ready and waiting.  

Then I looked at that kitchenette area.  Though it had utensils, they seemed to have been out of use for some time – at least there was a cooking stick, meaning that I had the option of at least taking ‘food’ while at the coast.  The small black insects moved around the sink area.  This seems to be a thing in Mombasa.  This is not the first time that I was seeing such during a stay at the coast.

It was bound to happen, and it did happen, since it did not take long before I saw roaches moving about the sink area, especially the drawers below the kitchen sink.  I can tell you that it did not surprise me to finally see a giant roach run behind the wall of the opened cover of the cooker.  I thought the Kisumu roach as big, but this was from a different world.  It was bigger than the biggest I had ever seen.  It looked scary and it soon ran to the main door that is just next to the cooker.  I let is run to the top of the door before I opened the door for it to run out of the door to the external world.  After all, you cannot afford to harm ‘anything’ while in Mombasa.  Things talk back at people – just believe me when I tell you.

It was now past nine on this Tuesday as I settled down at the now changed coast.  Changed due to the temperatures that seemed lower than I have known them to be.  I was even having my coat on.  I could even feel the chill.  The customary hot humid air was gone.  If Mombasa continues to be this ‘cool’, then I am seeing myself settling here for a longer period of time at some point, against my earlier assertion that Mombasa was as hot as hech.  

However, the internet in my residence was not connecting.  I had sent a message to the housekeeper who has asked me to switch on and off the WIFI adaptor, but the issue would still not be resolved.  We agreed that they have a look at it on the next day.  I would have to hotspot from my phone for now.  The giant TV did not seem attractive, compared to a working internet, and I do not remember watching it much.  The mosquitoes were as many as expected in Mombasa and they seemed to celebrate the arrival of mtu-wa-bara.  They bit the blood out of me while I was seated and only got a reprieve when I finally hit behind the bed net.

I set the alarm for nine, since I was to be out at nine-thirty for a ten-thirty appointment in town.  I still slept past midnight since my brain is now wired not to be able to go to sleep in the PMs.  I woke up even before the alarm.  It was about eight-thirty.  I canceled and removed the alarm since I was now already awake anyway.  I looked through the morning emails and SMSs and even caught on some cable news.  I decided to take a ‘short’ nap to 9.15am, since I was just to wake up, boil a cup of water in the name of a beverage and be out of the room.  I already had a 9.30am taxi booking with Abbas.

That nap would be the last time I would even imagine having my morning tea, since I jolted myself from the nap at 9.25am!

“Oh, this is messed!,” I cursed as I jumped out of bed.

I struggled into a shirt and a pair of trousers.  I was brushing my teeth while putting on my coat.  I put on my shoes as I locked the door.  I just made it to the parking yard at about 9.35pm to find Abbas waiting.

“Twende Swahili Centre iliyoko karibu na Mombasa hospital,” I instructed Abbas as he eased off the compound and started the drive towards Old Malindi road.  We would soon survive the morning jam on the very narrow Old Malindi road, with shops and stalls built so near the road that pedestrians and vehicles have resorted to sharing the main road.  I was at the National Museums of Kenya compound just past ten.  It would soon be business day one, and it exposed me to the challenges of a typical field work day, including respondents who did not want to be recorded despite them being sources of valuable information that was needed.  It even got worse.

“Hata usiandike!”

“Na andika tu notsi za kunikumbusa nitakacho kitafuta baadaye!”

“La, hata usiandike chochote, kwani mahojiano kamili na ruhusa ya uandisi itakuja ule wakate ujao tukikutana Kilifi”

We were in a persuasion session with a well established mashairi speaker, an elderly man, who insisted that he was not a malenga despite having many of his unpublished work on the very table where we were having our discussion.  From him we learnt that mashairi was also a form of argument and response in the early days, where a shairi would be directed to a particular person or group, which would in turn compose their own in response.  

The back and forth would sometimes last for months, with the shairis being distributed in the villages of the waring factions.  He even told of an incident where he composed a shairi to rebuke two warring factions but used a pen name.  This rebuke ended the feud while he remained anonymous for some time, until he offered to help a friend respond to a shairi rebuke, that his style of response was linked to the earlier style of the anonymous writer.  

It did not take long in the topic of mashairi, before we were informed that the Tanzanian president had given a kitendawili in a shairi, the very memo that I had missed.  The kitendawili, the mzee said, was that…

Kuna kijungu cha pwaga, bila ya moto jikoni

I can only tell you that mzee gave us a different nugget of wisdom on this, which I would later learn was quite contrary to popular belief*.  I would even soon see full PhD thesis written over this particular kitendawili.  Let me just say that he said that the kitendawili has ‘naked truth’.  

*See: https://news.un.org/sw/audio/2021/08/1124852

It was on my way back from the Museum that I had passed by Nyali to say hello to JC, unleashing a surprise that left her surprised, that I would then take this walk from Links road in Nyali towards Mombasa-Malindi road.  That walk was based on pure instinct, sense of direction by just keeping to the left turns, and pure determination to get to that road whatever it took.  However, when I started walking I just kept walking.  That is why I found myself walking from Nyali to Bamburi and surviving all the going ons.  And would you believe that it was only seven kilometres?  What’s the big deal?

WWB, the Coach, Mombasa, Kenya, August 11, 2021