Of being a doctor and the mathematics that did not add up – the Lakeside story

Of being a doctor and the mathematics that did not add up – the Lakeside story

I was ready for anything on this Wednesday as I prepared to travel to Kisumu.  My travel time had already been changed, I had already sent MPESA to a wrong number and my accommodation bookings had already been cancelled… twice.  The flight on a Bombardier dash 8 Q400 branded Jambojet left Nairobi’s JKIA at 1857hrs, instead of 1745hrs.  It took exactly 40-minutes to touchdown at Kisumu International.  It was already dark.  

The COVID19 port health declaration forms that we had been compelled to fill-in on the MOH portal while still at Nairobi, and had even got a QR code to show at the port of arrival, had come to naught.  No one asked for this QR code nor was there the usual COVID19 hype that had accompanied such a previous arrival.  No temperature checks, no hand sanitization, no MOH declarations and even no masks on most people.  Corona was no longer an issue.  The very corona that had now infected 253,082,160 people and led to the death of 5,114,568 on planet earth, with our Kenyan numbers being 254,297 and 5,316 respectively.

I got out of the terminal building and checked the Bolt taxi hailing app on my phone to confirm the cost of travel to Mamboleo area where I was going.  The fare was 420 on regular and 480 on comfort variants of the cabs.  I had a waiting time of 10 and 2 minutes respectively.  I however thought of getting a better deal from the already parked taxis at the outside parking lot that were already beckoning the travelers to take them up.  

One person approached me and offered to take me, “Chukua taxi twende.”

“Kama ni kama bei ya Bolt, basi ni sawa,” I told him.

“Kwani Bolt ni ngapi yawa?”

“Four-eighty.”

“Ai! Iyo awesi yawa!  Si wewe nalipa tu twelf-handred naenda na wewe msuri mpaka Mamboleo,” he responded.

“Bolt ni four-eighty na unataka nilipe twelve-hundred?”

I saw him beckon another person next behind him, “Bi ilos gi ja Narobi ni.  Tinge gi eight-hundred udhi”

The new person took over the negotiations, “Wachana ni hiyo twelf-handred.  Wewe lete tu one-thao tuende Mamboleo.”

“Four-eighty, au niende na Bolt!”

“Yawa jo Narobi gi!,” he turned back to talk to his colleague momentarily, then back to me, “Sawa, toa mia saba, tumalize hi mambo, si we najua hata gate ya airport sisi nalipa so moja!”

“Sawa, six-hundred, na utasimama kwa supermarket ninunue kitu.”

“Eh, yawa, po! Twende!,” he led me to a white taxi cab.

It was almost eight as we left the airport.  The driver just waved at the gateman as we exited and was not charged a dime.  We would then get onto Kakamega road where he pointed to a supermarket and stopped the car at the roadside.  He allowed me to alight, cross the road and get to that former Kondele Ukwala/Choppies supermarket to pick some items.  I had taken the risk of trusting the car and driver with my valuable left luggage as I went to the supermarket.  I relied on the expected honesty of the lakeside people and Gor Mahia their ancestor.  It worked, since I found the vehicle waiting for me with all my luggage intact, some ten minutes later.  This is not a gamble I would have taken in the city.  

We left Kondele and kept going on the Kakamega road.  It was not long before we hit a dead end after the railway crossing.  The road under construction had been blocked on the side that we had attempted to use.  I was about four-hundred metres from where I should have alighted.  I agreed to take a walk while the taxi driver navigated his way back.  I did not ask, nor get partial refund for this incomplete journey.  If anything, I took the drivers telephone number for a pickup on Sunday when I travel back to the city.

I got to the residence at about eight-thirty.  The gate was locked, and the gateman was nowhere to be seen.  His phone went unanswered.  I had to call the house owner to report that I was unable to get in.  It took about another ten minutes of waiting before Wasike came by.  I thanked him once again for having agreed to send me back the MPESA that I had erroneously sent to him the previous day.  He was soon struggling himself to open his own gate.

“Sasa nani alifunga gate and kuenda na kifunguo?,” he asked me.

I had no answer.

He soon ran out in his gumboots to the darkness of the retreating road and disappeared in the background.  I did not know where he had gone or what he was planning to do, nor did he tell me anything before he left.  I remained stuck outside the imposing gate, with the apartment block visible just a few metres inside the compound.  I would wait another fifteen minutes before I heard the gumboots running on the ground emerging from the darkness to join me at the well-lit gate.

“Tungoje tu, mtu atakuja fungulia sisi,” he updated me.

Finally, he shouted at someone on one of the upper houses on one of the apartment blocks to come down and open.  I finally got into the house tired and ready to take a shower and sleep.  I had bought some bread and milk already.  I had forgotten to get some sugar or beverage.  The tea intended for dinner was now seeming quite unlikely, until I found some tea bags and sugar left at the kitchen.  That is not all that I found in the kitchen.  Those scary giant roaches had multiplied since the last time I was here in June.  I counted over five big ones running on the floor in different directions when the kitchen light illuminated the room.  I thought nothing of them and continued with my life.

It was the very next day, Thursday, November 11 when we started the two-day capacity building workshop on processing data of the African languages of Swahili, Luhya and Dholuo.  A continuation of what had brought me here in June.  We were holding the meeting at the same Kisumu hotel.  The sessions went well and uninterrupted.  Last June was different, since our seminar came to a forced halt a day later when the Kenyan government had imposed an immediately cessation of movement in Western Kenyan and halted all gatherings with immediate.  That was then.  We were not even back to a 24-hour economy.  

We continued with our workshop, some plenary, some group works.  The group works would eventually lead to group discussions.

“Daktari, as I was saying, our Swahili data needs to be broken down into text spans for the machine to process,” George address me, in the group of four.

We were discussing how to process Swahili text to a format that would make it ready for machine learning tasks.

“Thank you, George, but I had told you before that I am not yet Daktari.  I am still working towards that.  Just call me WB,” I corrected him.  

I was just being academically correct.  I did not want that envious lot to see me pretending to have joined their club when I was not yet in it.

“Sawa WB, sorry for that,” he resumed, “So as I was telling you, Daktari, this formatting is what we need for machine learning!”

I accepted the situation and lived with it.

We would eventually take an evening break just after the evening tea.  Their serving of boiled bananas was quite something.  I had to get a second helping of this.

“Nikubalie niendelee,” I added some more to my plate, as I updated the catering staff, who was now clearing the used-up utensils and clearing the tables.

“Sawa,” he said jovially, “juzi kuna mtu alisema ati mtu inatakiwa akule mpaka achoke!”

“Mpaka ashibe au mpaka achoke?,” I reconfirmed.

“Mpaka achoke!”

My stay at the apartment would be uneventful, with roaches, mosquitoes, small black dot-sized insects running all over the kitchen and the unsightly paintworks that was peeling off especially in the washroom and kitchen.  I would however still stay here in future if the booking frustrations I went through is anything to go by.  The internet speed and the quiet ambiance compensates for any shortcomings of this one-bedroom apartment.  

Anyway, it was soon a Sunday, and I was already set to travel back to the city.  My newfound taxi man of last time had already dropped me at the Kisumu airport.  The check in process was quite fast, since I was seated at the departure lounge hardly ten minutes since getting to the port.  The airline kept the departure time, though the cost of travelling on a Sunday was almost double that of my inbound travel last time.  And we blame matatus for hiking fares when it rains!?

WWB, the Coach, Kisumu, Kenya, Nov. 14, 2021