Running with babu during the September international marathon

Running with babu during the September international marathon

The September international marathon was to be a merry-go-ground run, as we call it, within the workplace compound.  Runners were to go round and round the 1.3km circuit on a tarmac route that had been crafted by the MOE*.  It is a route we have run once before, during one of the monthly international runs of last year.  It is therefore familiar, but a nightmare to many runners.  Many avoid this run, as either boring or difficult.  It forces you to run through a half route section that is uphill followed by another half route section that is downhill.  The run has three stipulations that determines when it should end.  You can either drop out once you have had enough go-rounds or be forced to drop out when the clock hits 7pm, for a run that starts at 1630hrs.  The final option is that you can drop when you have achieved your desired run distance – 5k, 10k or 21k, provided this is done by or before 7pm.

*MOE - marathoners-of-expert, the committee that organizes marathons for the team

Like any other monthly international, this run was being held on the last Friday of September.  However, it was just three days to the run that a new development came up, forcing me to update the marathoners that I would be on an ‘early bird’ edition of the run, on a Thursday before the real Friday run.  I was therefore set to be on the same route a day prior, and was even ready for any early-birds that I had extended an invitation to.  I had already calculated that I needed to do 16 go rounds to achieve the 21k, actually, 17, since the 16 would fall slightly short of the 21k.

The weather was just perfect on this Thursday as I started my first circuit at 4.40pm.  There were no other early birds.  I would have to represent them all.  The sun was still high on the western side of the sky.  It was not that hot.  It had rained two nights before, and more rains were expected as per the weather forecast, hence the cloud cover kept the overhead heat contained.  I did a first ‘route survey’ run around the almost oval shape of the course, technical, hand shaped circuit.  The route was as expected – an initial half circuit of uphill run, then a final rolldown to the starting line.  The tarmac was as tough on the feet as was expected.  The sharp turns were a real test on the braking and turning systems of the body.  It was the route that I knew, no doubt, no changes.  With the survey done, I now proceeded to keep a count of the number of rounds done as I went round and round.

I needed 17, I desired 21, but I actually did 22, finishing just after the time stipulation.  After all, what was I to do, when the last circuit started just a few minutes to the finish time and I still had to finish it?  But why was I doing an early bird?....

I left the city on the timely Easy Coach bus to Busia on Friday morning.  I call it timely because it was a 6.45am bus and it did leave at 6.50am.  I am used to such a bus leaving about an hour after the scheduled time.  The fare had been hiked by almost 30%, from the usual 1400 to a new 1800.  However, seeing my people was a must, and I just had to do what I had to do, to make this happen.

I had deliberately booked an isle seat, somewhere mid-bus.  I did not want to suffer the sunshine that hits those seated by the windows.  Being positioned somehow near the exit was strategic, to enable me get out easily when I would alight somewhere midway between Kisumu and Busia.  The online booking system had anyway prevented me from booking a window seat, with the ‘reserved for ladies’ caveat affix on quite a number of seats that were therefore unbookable.  

“Discrimination,” I almost said as I hit the select seat button on the phone app and picked 4C instead.

I am known to be a loud-mouth in the corridors of marathoning, and I can easily be heard when over one kilometre away, should I be talking.  I enjoy a good talk, and I talk loud enough for the world to hear – that is what I am told, I do not know for sure, so let me tell it as I am told.  I therefore got into the bus just around 6.40am with this talkative spirit hovering around me.  The person sitting on 4D was already there, if anything, occupying both seats by spreading paraphernalia and stuff on both seats.

“Excuse me,” I said, as I pushed my bag into the overhead compartment and tried to take my seat.

“Oh,” she said shruggingly, and removed some clothing and stuff from my seat.

I took the seat, belted up and pushed two earphones into my ears.  I connected the wired earphones onto the phone and opened the music player app.  I was going classical today.  The app has the bad behaviour of arranging play files alphabetically, even if they are arranged otherwise on the storage system.  I was therefore going to start on Bach today.  Beethoven would be next.  I would have to really wait to reach Mozart, and probably not reach Wagner, but the journey was long.  That is why we left early anyway.  Going home is a full day event.

I proceeded to take a nap, more of a sleep, since I completely blacked out and did not even notice any landmark past Uthiru which just within Nairobi.  I would find myself jolted back to wakefulness at Gilgil weighbridge, some 120km out of Nairobi, where the imposing bumps must surely wake you up.  Additionally, the bus had to do a 360-turn to go to the other side of the road to be weighed, before returning to the road towards Nakuru.  I took advantage of the wakefulness to appreciate the environment briefly, as I glanced onto the phone screen.  It was just about nine.  I found myself taking another nap, this time a nap for sure, since I was in between sleep and sobriety, and could hazily notice the going-ons.

We finally took the first break at Nakuru at a petrol station at eleven.  Nakuru is a familiar town, sorry city, since it got its city status by charter just two-years ago, so let us be politically correct about Nakuru.  It was my major town when still working at Gilgil, being just 30km apart.  That was way back then in the past history.  It was now a stopover like any other.  I alighted and took the break like the rest of the passengers.  This was the first bus to get to this stopover station.  There was no other bus there, or did any bus stopover while we were there.  This place would have been full, if the bus was to arrived around one, when buses going both directs meet up during the break.

I should have resisted, but I did not.  I told myself that I was being polite.  This happened just as the bus left the stopover at about 11.30am.  Coincidentally, this was the second time such an offer was being made in a period of about a year, same bus company, different routes, despite ‘do not accept food from strangers’ warning slapped all over the waiting room.  On that first time, I was on the Nairobi-Malaba route, and ended up getting acquainted with a top seeded Kenyan tennis player.  I was on 4B on that occasion.  I ended up conversing from Nakuru to Eldy on that day.  Today was different.  I was on the Nairobi-Busia route and I was on 4C.

“Have a sandwich,” the lady at 4D unwrapped the cling film from some slices of bread with stuff in between and offered a bunch in my direction.

Instinct told me to decline, but being polite ruled the day, “Thanks,” I took a sandwich and returned the rest.

“I have already taken enough,” she protested, and kept her hand stretched in a manner of take-it-all-since-I-have-had-enough.

“Ok, but maybe for later,” I responded and put the remain ‘wich into a woven carrier bag and dipped it into the front seat pocket.

I had planned to re-nap, but now I had to deal with the sandwich first, then see if another sleep was possible.  It was also getting hotter, and my sleep deprivation had now waned after that long sleep from Nairobi to Nakuru.  I was likely going to remain sober for the rest of the trip.  

This was not meant to happen, but soon the stories just started.  How they started, I do not know exactly.

“Imagine mtoto wa colleague yangu died, just like that,” she started, sandwich munch going on.

“How comes?,” I wondered.

“Wakumbuka that see-ee-oh who was found dead?  Yule alikuwa killed by the girl?”

I started flashing through my Brain-GPT.  I soon remembered that entry, where the Finance Director, not CEO, of a famous Kenyan hospital had been found murdered, with footage showing some lady jumping out of his house compound through a fence.

We talked about that for some time, as the bus kept going.

“Ingekuwa coast, such thing hiwezi fanyika,” she volunteered.

“How so?,  Yani mambo ya coast ni tofauti?”

“N’me zalima na kuishi huko maisha yangu yote!,  Sisi twa respect culture sana.  Mtu kama huyo should have been married off by the traditions by now.  Hangeweza kuwa bado ana pick tu girls that he does not know”

“He was probably bewitched,” I put in a word in the FD’s defense.

“Mimi siamini hiyo mambo ya babu,” she stated, “Mimi ni mkristo.”

“But waganga are all over, they even advertise themselves.  Hujaona kibao cha mganga anayetibu vitu vilivyo potea?”

“I can tell you my friend, kuamini mambo ya babu ni imani potovu tu.  Kuna wakati mimi na mme wangu hatukuwa na kazi, tuka ambiwa twende kwa babu atusaidie.  Ng’o!  Nika kataa.  Lakini waona sasa, sisi sote wawili tuna kazi, hata watoto wetu wamepata kazi zao vizuri.  No need for such.”

“But people still go to them?,” I protested.

“True, watu wengi bado wana amini babu sana.  Hata huko pwani kuna wengi wanapenda kutembelea babu, lakini they suffer in the long run.”

She would go on to tell me real cases where blood sacrifices had led to the death of some of her close relatives who had engaged ‘babu’, and sacrificing family members was a requirement in order to attain the wealth that they needed.

“Kwanza watu wa bara ndio wengi huko pwani, wakija kuona babu.  Do not trust many of these land cases you see in Nairobi.  Nyingi zao zina saidiwa na babu, wa kule Mambasani.”

Time flew very fast, and we were soon done with the Kericho and Kisumu stopover breaks.  I knew that my destination was near the moment the bus crossed River Yala.  So, as I finally alighted at Dudi, informing her that her Ugunja stage would be about 30-minutes away, I slowly forced my tired legs across the tarmac and onto the market centre.  The tiredness being from those 29km of run round-and-round the September international marathon route.  The run was also still done in good time, achieving an average of 5.04min/km.  It was now just around 4.30pm and I knew that the real run should now be taking place back in Nairobi, some 450km away.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 7, 2023

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