Of corona fatigue and greetings at every stop – my Western Kenya dilemma

Of corona fatigue and greetings at every stop – my Western Kenya dilemma

I have now done three runs since that incident in Nakuru, where I almost broke a leg through a motorbike incident.  The last of those being today, where I did the five circuits around Eldy on that half-marathon route near Pioneer estate.  Those three runs in the last two weeks have proved to me that the left foot may take longer that I thought before it gets back to full recovery.  I can run alright, but I feel a pain that lasts for over three hours after such a run.  The foot still looks swollen, compared to my right.  I however remain hopeful that the foot shall be back to perfection by the time I am doing the StanChart Nairobi International marathon to be done virtually from Oct. 29 to 31.

I have travelled to Bungoma, then Malakisi and back to Eldoret in the same two-week time.  The travel from Eldoret to Bungoma took about two hours, since I left Eldoret at about 7.30am and was at Kanduyi Bungoma minutes past 9.40am.  This matatus to Bungoma did not fail to disappoint.  It was the seven-seater ‘nguruwe’ type.  Even before the boredom overtook us and we began to talk, the luggage from the boot had already fallen on the road twice.  Each fall was brought to the driver’s attention by other vehicles that hooted ceaselessly, forcing the driver to stop and then walk back to pick the fallen gunny bags.

However, the Sunday religious programme on the loud radio was the tiebreaker on the boredom.  The topic of discussion on the radio was some preaching, followed by callers asking a range of questions.  One of the questions was what the pastor could do to help a girl child rejected by both parents, who have separated and remarried.  The pastor had advised that the girl should approach one of the parents for help.

“Sasa sikia,” the passenger in the middle of our back seat hit me with a nudge to get my attention.

“Eh, ati?,” I forced myself to say something.  I am not usually the talking type on public service vehicles.  I even feel shame-on-myself to answer a phone in public vehicles.  So, I was a bit reluctant to engage.

“Sasa badala pastor akubali kusaidia mtoto, hata na sadaka au kumpaka makazi, yeye anamrudisha kwa wazazi wenye wamemkataa!”

This issue would become a subject discussed by mainly the next passenger, and another who volunteered to join in, just seated on the front row.  They said that pastors were more interested in offerings than helping others.  They even reminded all and sundry in the 7-seater the reason why they themselves do not even go to church, saying that the church is for the women, who seem to like pastors.  I do know if I was hearing right, but coincidentally it was a men-only matatu on this travel to Bungoma.

From Kanduyi, which is the highway centre, before one diverts to Bungoma town that is some three of so kilometres away, I was to head to Malakisi town.  However, there is still no public service vehicle that can take you from Bungoma to Malakisi.  You have to take a Malaba vehicle and alight at the Kimaeti centre, which is about a 20-minutes drive.  That short drive costs you one-hundred shillings, instead of one-fifty, the conductor reminded me.

We had gotten to a Police road block just before Kimaeti stage.  The matatu just slowed down and passed that blockage without the customary stop expected of such a matatu at such a place.  The driver just hooted and passed by.  He later told the conductor that the Police wanted to check on their masks, yet they were not Nairobi people.

“Sisi ni watu wa mashambani.  Hatuvai mask sisi.  Masks ni za watu wa Nairobi.”

I was seated just next to the driver, with my mask on.  The driver and all the rest of the people in the matatus did not have their facemasks.  I was the only odd one out.  How his statement had turned to be correct?  From Kimaeti I had the option of walking the ten kilometres to Malakisi, or getting a motorbike for one hundred shillings.  I was carrying a load and hence opted for a motorbike.  It rode me through the dry weather road all the way to a river crossing that was now closed for the construction of a bridge.  A vehicle would not be able to pass by.

We diverted onto a temporary crossing just next to the closed road.  This temp crossing consisted of just three thin wooden planks laid across the river waters down there.  The planks had gaps between them that a motorbike tyre could easily slip through.  We somehow crossed that section and rejoined the dry weather road, and would soon enough be in Malakisi.  

I however noted that the motorbike did not make the usual turn to the town on the road that I had known before.  He instead went ahead for over four hundred metres, before turning left to somehow emerge at Malakisi centre.  I later learnt that a bridge on the original road to Malakisi had collapsed and it was yet to be replaced.  I believe that Malakisi is the only divisional headquarters in Kenya that does not have public service vehicle access.

I alighted at the small town of countable shops on either sides of the single dry weather road, and kept walking along.  I would in a moment pass the BAT factory that I have known for long, on my left, as I kept going on the main road to my hosts house about a kilometre away.  Then this tarmac road from nowhere just hit me from nowhere.  It just started from the middle of the dry weather road at a Y-junction, and it continued into my left.  

I would be going to my destination on the right side just next to the junction.  I was later informed that the tarmac road is in Busia county, who had decided to fund the tarmac in their county, while their counterparts from Bungoma who own Malakisi, had decided not to do such a project.  The tarmac therefore had to start/end at the boundary between the two counties.  Talk about one country, two counties!

I was already visiting Angurai market, about five kilometres away, by the evening of this same Sunday, August 29.  The market day on this Sunday remained the typical market scene that I had known ever since.  I had stayed in this region for about three months after my secondary school education and the region had remained largely unchanged.  By the time of this visit to the market, I had already been warned by my hosts not to try being a ‘Nairobian’ by putting on my facemask.  Such a show would make the ‘rural folks’ look bad.  I had therefore left my mask in the house even as I walked through the market.  And… true to the warning, there was nobody, repeat, nobody, repeat again, nobody was having a facemask.  Life was as usual as it should be.  Corona did not exist.  It was a Nairobi disease.

I took a day rest after that Sunday and was out of Malakisi on a Tuesday.  I travelled differently on this Tuesday.  Instead of a motorbike back to Kimaeti to get to the Malaba-Bungoma road, I got a motorbike for one-hundred and fifty shillings for about a fifteen-kilometre ride to Mayanja, located on the T-junction on the Chwele-Bungoma road.  I got there in less than thirty-minutes.  I was to get a matatu from Mayanja to Bungoma, but the matatus were taking their time to appear.  It was also a market day, so it seemed, judging by the number of people around Mayanja, and the type of wares that were laid out.  There was nobody with a facemask, apart from the Nairobian in me.

“You Nairobian,” a stranger approached my location at the side of the road, “Can I take you to Bungoma?  I have a bike!”

The roughly dressed person was a motorbike person looking out for business.

“I am waiting for a matatu, since they shall charge me seventy shillings”

“Ah, Nairobian, just promote me.  I shall take you to Bungoma with seventy.”

I found myself astride another bike, and was even joined by a second passenger on this trip to Kanduyi.  I would soon pass by KIbabii University, then Cardinal Otunga school.  This is a school that I had visited at least once during one of my past visits to Malakisi.  I remembered my niece Esther, who is now publishing books in droves, who was in this school and I attended one of those visiting days.  The motorbike rider would even joke that ‘those girls have been chased out of school due to lack of school fees’, while pointing to a group of five or so girls in their white blouses and light blue skirts walking besides the road past the school, as we rode along.  I reminded the rider that education was free, and he was like, ‘which Kenya do you live in?’

The ride from Mayanja to Kanduyi took about ten minutes.  I guessed that it must have been a distance that was less than ten kilometres.  It did not take any time to get the matatu to Eldoret that was just waiting for me to fill it up before it starts its journey towards Eldoret.  We left at 11.15am.  I sat next to the driver.  Most people in the matatu had their facemasks on alright, but mainly hanging by their chins, including the driver seated next to me.

It did not take long before he asked the conductor for money.

“Hebu lete fifty haraka, roadblock iko mbele.”

The conductor handed over a fifty just from behind my head.

We soon got to the roadblock and the cop came to the driver’s window.  He did not even look at anything.  No windscreen stickers, no driving license.  He just ‘greeted’ the driver, after which the driver took off.

“Umewazoesha vibaya,” the conductor told his driver after that stop, when the vehicle was gone for over a minute.

“Usipopeana fifty, utaenda kortini ulipe thao forty.  Sasa gani afadhali kati ya hizo?  Kazi ya matatu ni lazimu ulipie route, ukitaka kufanya biashara kwa hiyo route”

The same ‘greetings’ would be done two more times before we got to Eldoret at 1.30pm.  I was faced with a moral dilemma.  What should you do in the face of people not putting on their facemasks and drivers greeting the police at every stop?

WWB, the Coach, Eldoret, Kenya, Sept. 2, 2021