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