The first class run that did not run to expectations

The first class run that did not run to expectations

I was taking this ride through a complete twist of fate that should not have happened under normal circumstances.  I had first attempted to book the Wednesday train to Voi and saw that it was fully booked as per the online booking system.  The system only showed one free first class seat in the whole train.  I was sure that this was an error.  This was because the trains on any other day, including Tuesday and Thursday, had many free seats in either of Economy or First class.  There was no way that only the Wednesday train could be full.  I had tried this initial attempt at booking on a Sunday, but could not manage due to this apparent error.

I called KR on Monday the first thing in the morning when I got to office.  One of the numbers provided on their website did not go through.  The other number went straight to the automatic answering system.
“For service in English, press 1, for Kiswahili press 2”.
I did.
“For booking go to the Madaraka Express website, to get a ticket go to the train station, to get any other service, press 2”.
I did.
“For services that you can do online, go to the website.  To continue press 3”.
I did.
“You can easily book by going to the Madaraka express website, to get instructions on how to book, press 1, for any other service press 4”.
I did.
I went through hoops and loops until about five minutes later when I got an option to speak to an agent, after which, “You are number three on the queue, please wait to speak to the next available agent.  The waiting time is (voice change) five hundred and twenty (voice back) seconds”

Anyway, I waited for those additional five or so minutes, then finally, “How can I help?”
“Is it true that there is no space on the Wednesday, September 11, 2024, train?”
“Is that what the website says?”
“Yes”
“Then it is true,” she stated, paused and disconnected.


I was not taking any more chances with this travel.  I went online, booked the one remaining seat in first class, paid the 3200 for the Nairobi-Voi travel and got this done with.  I searched for a train to Voi on Wednesday immediately after, and for sure it was now reading ‘fully booked’.  That online system was working for sure.  For Kenya Railways, I only had one thought – why not just add a 90-seater coach and book anyone who wants to get onto that full coast train?  Problem solved; case closed!  However, KR have a mind of their own.  When the current coaches are full, then it is full, cast in stone, case closed on their part.

And knowing how KR was now ‘problem solving’ things, I was not taking any other new chances.  I subsequently booked an economy class seat from Voi to Nairobi on Saturday, September 14 – this for sure is problem solved in advance in both our parts, mine and KRs.  I was now set, with two SMS confirmation of bookings, one an accidental first class, another a real economy class for 1050.


I was at the station early on Wednesday.  As early as 6.50am.  I went through luggage sniff by the dogs at the entrance yard.  This is where we lay everything on a long tray about twenty metres long, with passengers standing a metre behind the two luggage holds that are in parallel.  The luggage trays were full, if this was an indication on the expected number of travelers on this morning.  We would soon scan the luggage and off we went to the terminal building to the ticket office.  There was a large lobby.  One counter was marked ‘cancellations’.  Another, ‘;reschedules’.  These two were having a sizeable crowd, I counted a queue of six on either.  One end of the lobby was marked ‘printing of tickets’.  I went onto one machine that had only one person ahead.  There was a staffer on the next machine.  I remember seeing a third machine and not sure if there was a fourth one beyond that.

My attention was drawn to the going ons at the second machine where the staffer was standing.  A person who looked like a passenger was also next to that machine, seemingly distressed.  Soon I would hear the staffer call someone on phone, “Si ukimbie usort hii machine, ticket ya passenger imekwama ndani”
“Can I just print another on the next machine,” the passenger guy asked.
“No, not possible, once released it cannot reprint”

I keyed in my phone number and the account number as per the SMS message and soon enough good a ticket sticking out of the slot below the touchscreen.  I printed a second one for the return journey then left the machine for the person behind me even as the queue started to form on this machine and the one after the stalled one.  I examined my ticket and saw the booking details for the first time.  I was on seat 41 coach 3.  “Let it be window seat”, I told myself.  Mathematically, 41 is an odd number, hence was definitely a window seat. Precisely the eleventh row on a 4-seater plan.  Such odd numbers should only be at the window on one set of two seats, or on the isle on the other set of two.  In this case, window it is for 41.

I went past security check on the ground floor of the terminal building, then went upstairs to the waiting lounge.  I saw a segregated section on the large lobby written ‘First class waiting area’.  I could count the ten or so people seated there, mostly non-Africans.  I thought of this for a moment then matched in the direction of that waiting area.  I did not make two steps before I got a stop.
“Stop, where to?”
“To the waiting area”
“Ticket?”

I showed it to the lady staffer.  She looked at it with some disbelief.  I did not know why.  Maybe that class has some characteristics that I was missing, with my jeans and T-shirt.  She let me go, as I went to the large waiting area with hardly anyone.  I could see just across the glass partition to my left, the twice large economy waiting area already three quarters full and filling by the minute.  It was now just about 0710hrs.  I still had almost an hour of nothing before I would be out of here.  I just sat down and kept an eye open for the going ons.  I could see the now peeling paint on one of the wall structures next to the transparent roof.  And I got attracted to that roof due to the two large patches of discoloration.  I know the effects of lack of maintenance when I see them, and I was surely seeing them.  I wondered what it would take to fix such apparently minor defects.  Maybe the price of just three first class tickets?

I left for the washrooms at 07.40am and while there heard some muffled sound on the public address system.  Many passengers along the corridors next to the washrooms paused and strained to hear.  It was as unclear as a broken sound system.  It was something like, “inaudible unclear unclear passengers on first unclear unclear boarding unclear inaudible”

I just knew that it had something to do with first class, and so when I was walking back to the waiting area, I saw a stream of passengers from that waiting area start walking on the walkway over the platform towards boarding.  I passed by the economy waiting area, many of the eyes on that section chagrined with my walking past and marched towards the action.  I walked with the twenty or so other passengers towards the platform.  Last time I was here the gates to that overhead walkway were opened by a scan of the ticket.  Now they were permanently open for all to walk by.  I wondered whether it was yet another broken system, or if they had just done away with it due to its inconvenience to the mass transit system.


The coaches were clearly marked and therefore it did not take me any guess to know when I got to coach 3.  There was just one person ahead of me as we got into coach 3.  I showed my ticket to the attendant at the entrance to the coach and was let through.  I faced the first class for the first time ever.  I thought that my knees would buckle with excitement but none of that happened.  I was surprised that I was not wowed at all, or maybe not yet.  I even wondered what the hype was all about.  Not that I was not impressed, I was.  The coach was clean, very, with two seats on either side of the isle.  The seats were VIP red, Ok, burgundy.  Each seat had an arm rest.  They were in a fixed reclined position.  Each seat was accessible to a foldable tray fixed at the back of the front seat.  They were all facing one direction, the direction of travel towards Mombasa.  The coach was not crowded.  The overhead luggage racks were empty as the passengers started streaming in.  I was probably the sixth person in.

My mathematics would turn out to be incorrect, since no. 41 was an isle seat, with 42 as window seat.  How this came to be, do not ask me.  Anyway, ask me, since I figured it out sometime later in the journey.  The coach was a sixty-six seater.  A division by four indicates that there shall be 16 rows of four and an extra two seats.  So, the numbering must be starting with those 2 seats, then odd numbers now get switched, with those to be on the isle moving to window, and you guessed it, those on the window going to the isle.  Those damn two seats!  I was now on the isle.  But the coach was too spacious that I did not even see an effect of being isle or window.  It was just cozy.  I sat on my seat and started enjoying my good ambiance.  The seat was comfy.

It took less than five minutes for the coach to start filling up.  Finally, the person seating on 42 came though, cross by me and sat on his seat.  He peered out of the window, which was not very transparent due to some streaks of dirty and age, and exhaled with some satisfaction.  He unfolded this tray and placed something that looked like a novel onto the tray.  He placed his phone next to it, dialed it, and proceeded to start chating loudly in it.
“Hello, munene, niatia rewu, ha ha ha ha!,” he laughed animatedly and went on to talk, loudly.

I stayed put, relaxed, just letting my eyes do the roving.  The coach continued to fill up.  Now back to why I was not wowed.  There was nothing to wow me so far.  The seats and configuration were not any different from what I would get on a typical Easycoach to Western Kenya.  I could even recline the Easycoach seats further back.  These were fixed at that angle of recline.  At least they had these foldable trays, that would come in handy at some point for holding the laptop and stuff.

My eyes continued walking around the coach.  A white guy and someone who looked like a Kenyan girl sat on the seat across the isle.  They looked related, somehow, in an item of sort.  Behind me was also some guy and lady, who kept talking to these two across the isle.  Occasionally the lady from behind would come physically between me and the mzungu and tell the couple something.  To the lady, whom she always talked to in vernacular or Kiswahili, she reminded her to ‘chunga huyo mzee vizuru’.  To the guy, she said two words in English then proceeded in some other language, “Habend du eine gute reise.”

She went back to her seat behind me and sat next to the guy, whom they continued to speak in vernacular and occasionally shouted their words to the lady across my isle on the window seat.  She would answer in the same, with the guy next to him complaining occasionally, “You speak what me hear that not”

The three would laugh at him, as he laughed back, then the lady behind me would speak something in Deutsch and kind of assure him that all was OK, even as she reminded the lady besides the guy across the isle to ‘chunga mzee’.

At exactly 0800, the train started to move as slowly as it can and started gaining speed.  The coach was almost half empty as we started heading towards Athi River as the first station.  With the coach this empty, it was just natural that there shall be movements, both voluntary and involuntary.  The two couples who had been struggling to speak in Kiswahili, English, vernacular and Deutsch got a chance to group.  The two across the isle stood and moved back to join the two who were seated behind me.  They conversed as a group in four languages and decided to all move away to some seats much further behind, since their talk would soon disappear somewhere in the background into a muffle.  The only time I heard about them was when the trolley for drinks was passing by and they shouted at the lady to hurry to where they are to give them ‘kakitu’.

It was then all good as the inter-city rolled along the standard gauge railway.


Ruckus would start at Emali station, the next stop after Athi River station, when a group of passengers came into our coach and demanded for their seats.  By then the person in 42 by the window had already left.  In fact, he had left before we had even hit Athi River.  He had picked one person from the front seat and another from the front opposite seat.  These front two must have been seats 44 and 46, isle and window respectively.  My colleague on the window seat incited the action.  He first stood, then shoved his phone in his coat pocket.
“Tuthie tunyoe njohi mani,” he told his friends.
“Eh, tuthie rethuradi, tugore ka njohi”
They left.  They seem to be in need for an immediate drink that could not wait a second.

There followed lots of movements within the train coach.  There must have been about ten or so vacant seats, add to those for the likes of my colleague in 42 window seat who had picked his friends and went njohi at the restaurant.  Passengers rearranged and sat at will.  My own seat was now also about to be free.  The two seats across the isle were also free.  I now had the whole row of four seats to choose from.  I moved to the seat across and sat on the window seat 39.  It was the East side and the sun rays were seeping through the not-so-clear train window pane.  It was better than the window seat 42 which did not have any sun.  I savoured the rays as the train rolled towards Emali.  All was relaxed.  The coach was not as noisy.  The first trolley would soon roll by.  Alcoholic drinks would soon start being served, despite the stern warning that was announced to the effect that there would be no alcohol allowed until Mtito Andei.  That was the point when the trolley person was summoned loudly for ‘kakitu’ by the quad-lingual quadruple.

The coach started getting louder as the drinks started being passed through with that trolley.  That trolley was the source of all the noise.  We were hardly 50km out of the city but the noises were getting louder in this carefree seat-anywhere-you-want environment.


Our once-upon-a-time peace came to an end at Emali when a relatively large group of passengers got in, mostly foreigners, and demanded to have their seats.  This disturbed the once random seating arrangement, as now everybody was forced back to their seats.  But do not blame our lack of civility on this issue.  We had first attempted, or rather, some people behind my row of four empty seats had tried to negotiate with the newcomers.  The negotiation was more of telling them to ‘take any seat’, loudly, drunk accent.  However, the new group wanted to ‘sit together’ as a secondary need, but primarily because it was their booked seats.  The wazungus additionally expressed their fear about what would happen later on when other people came in and they get dislodged from this current ‘take any seat’ open plan arrangement.  They had even started to attempt to take the ‘take any seat’ option, only for there quest to sit together to fail to materialize.  People had to go back to their seats.

I was dislodged from 39 window, but my own pair of seats was empty, and hence I just moved across the isle to get the back to my two free seats.  I only suffered the burden of moving my laptop and unplugging the power from the wall socket just below the East window.  I had to replug the power on my initially assigned set of seats.  My friend initially on seat 42 was still gone to the restaurant since before Athi River.  He did not seem like he would was in a hurry to come back.

Across the isle were now seated the initial occupants who had sat there as we left Nairobi station at 0800hrs.  The African girl sat by the window.  The seatmate sat next to the isle, a seat from me, as I had now sat next to the window at 42.  It is next to 42 that I could access the powering point by the wall.  Brings me to another lack of wow – only those by the windows get to access power points, unless they allow you to pass a cable across or below their legs if you are on the isle side.  My laptop was back to the tray top.  The couple across the isle came back with their bottle after this incident of being chased away from wherever they had been chased away from.  They were of course not happy and had loudly voiced their discontent as much.  The onset of intoxication and carefreeness did not help much, “Sasa train ni empty na watu wengine wana demand viti!  Si wazikule!”
The guy seated next to the lady would ask, “What you said?”
“Nothing darling”
Nothing who?  I managed to gather that intelligence, thanks for loud talk.
“We are just talking, just talking to my uncle and auntie,” she said while looking at the seats just behind me, where the two other members of the party were now also back to, even as they also joined in the lamentation.

They continued to pour tumbler upon tumbler from the wine bottle and kept ordering for ‘one more’ bottle as the trolley passed by.  That trolley!

They kept talking, and loudly so.  The drinks had surely got to them.  
“We are now at Kaibaizi? Kibezi?”, the German across the isle asked, both to his darling next seat and also looked back behind my seat to auntie and uncle.
“Yes, Kibwezi”, the two ladies responded almost in unison.

I shook my head in disbelief.  It was clearly visible through the window that we were at Mtito Andei.  We had passed Kibwezi almost a half an hour ago, when the seat exchanging drama was still fresh.  The train had not yet even gained speed as that Mtito signage started moving back as we rolled by.  A smaller sign just below it read ‘Voi 98km’.  They did not even need the visuals, since the public address system had just announced the approach and departure to Mtito.  Those four were already deep in the bottle to hear and see anything else.

“Bring bottle”, the German stopped the trolley and pointed to the existing bottle on the front seat pocket, “Like this,” he pointed again.  The trolley, that trolley!
This was probably the third such a 750ml bottle of that red liquid.  Two girls and two guys were on it.  Two just across the isle to my left.  Two just behind my seat.  The couple, an item, to my left.  Uncle and Auntie behind me.  How four people can down bottle by bottle that fast hardly 100km into the journey still baffles me.


That 98km to Voi would be quite a long non-stop ride and it did not take long before people started moving about, some to washrooms, some to stretch, and for the four drinkers, they just wanted to ‘chokozana’.  So, auntie left her seat and came to the isle just next to my seat.  And ‘chokozana’ she did.
“This one”, she pointed at her watch, “It is Tony who bought me”.
“Ha ha ha”, the seated colleague by the window responded, “Jana alipo nibuyia hii phone ya iphone, imagine alisema kuwa lazima nitaitishi kitu ingine, as if he knew.  I am envious na sasa najua what else nataka kutoka kwa mzae.”
“Yes, hapo umesema ukweli, itisha hizi earrings”, she pointed them, “Hizi ni za gold.  Ni Tony pia aninunua”.
“Ich liebe deine Freunde, wunderbar!,” the standing lady leaned at the GE guy and said laughingly.
“Nime kucomplement”, she told her colleague by the window, amidst hearty laughter from the two girls.  The GE guy just looked around, even looking back behind my seat to see if ‘uncle’ would say anything, but uncle just extended a tumbler and asked for a fill.

After the tumbler was handed back, the window girl leaned over to her man.  She whispered something audibly in Bernhard’s left ear, “Babe, you will buy me those earrings, yes?”
“You, you know me I buy you all everything you say”
She wore a big smile and poured a full plastic of the red drink, Dostdy hof, I thought I read from afar.  
“Tigana na muthuri wakwa”, she turned back to tell her friend who had now returned to her seat, just behind me.
“Badala ya kunishukuru kwamba nimekuchanua, wewe unaniambia ati muthuri wakwa,” the lady behind my seat responded in a clean coastal accent, apart from the last two words that she had centralized.

I kept looking out through the window.  I could occasionally glance to the couple just across the isle.  They kept their noisy sputa.
“Kawera, careful, muthe uyu ti mujinga”, the colleague from behind me told her as softly as those around could hear.

Occasionally, the Kenyan guy would chip it, mostly to encourage the girls on or to get a tumbler filled.
“Kawera, keep your man busy and stop looking behind”, he would interject, to the protest of Bernhard, who would then look back and struggle to protest.
“I not look back, just see corridor, and me sit with my girl,” he would look back while protesting.
“Bernhard, stop looking at me and my sister,” they guy behind me would warn him.  
By sister she meant the girl with the gold.  They were now permanently fixed behind me after that ‘sit anywhere’ bruhaha had ended prematurely, their voices increasing with every sip of the drink.  They were laughing so loudly behind my ear that it was now almost uncomfortable.  I minded my own business.  

“Kwanza hii njugu na drinki iko sawa sana”, the lady behind me said, loudly, if I may add, in the Coast kind-a accent.  She offered some nuts to the couple across the isle but they both refused to take the offer.  They probably did not want to know ‘iko sawa’ to what level.  They kept the drinks going.

“Tutalipa wine sita leo?  Leo ni leo!  Lakini mimi nitalipa mbili tu, Kawera na mzee wake walipe hizo zingine”, the coast accent said.
“Ni nne au ni tano?,” Kawera protested from the window.
“Hapana, ni saba?”, coast accent.
“Yani mumelewa?”, the guy behind me asked drunkardly, “The bottles we have taken are only six.  Can’t you count?”
“Me no care.  The wine is gut!,” Bernhard put a stop to the debate.  Then changed the topic, “You know today be nine-eleven?,” he looked back.

Oh, that is true, I said to myself, even as I started to put a wrap to my comfortable sojourn, by unplugging the power and showing the charger to the bag that I had already removed from overhead and place on seat 41.  It was a matter of time before that laptop was also closed and place inside that bad.

In less than thirty minutes I would be disembarking from the train.  The guy who had gone njohi in the restaurant since Athi river was yet to be back, even as I left both seats 41 and 42 empty and disembarked at Voi at exactly 12.02pm.

WWB, the Coach, Voi, Kenya, Sep. 11, 2024

Running to the polling station…. I should have walked

Running to the polling station…. I should have walked

If there is a time that I have ever enjoyed a voting experience, then that time was today.  The main reason being that I decided not to lose any sleep over the elections this year.  Literally, did not lose any sleep.  I have always gone to the polling station by six in the morning in all the previous elections that I have participated in… and they have been many, since the 90s.  Unfortunately, I have always left past eleven, despite reporting at the wee hours.  

This time it was different.  I slept through my morning, despite the loud vuvuzela noises that had started around four.  By five they had gone too loud that sleep was almost impossible, but I still did sleep.  I did not care about the morning rush.  I almost did not care whether I voted or not.  Voting has caused me so much discomfort on those long queues.  Shouldn’t voting be enjoyable?

It finally become enjoyable when I strolled to the polling station at the primary school next to Uthiru roundabout at two-ten in the light of day.  I had actually just gone to this centre to gauge the numbers, with a view of even coming back at a later time.  My initial plan was to vote at around five in the evening, when they are just about to close the station.  I was even ready to be thrown out in case they decided to, in case they deemed me to have been time barred.

However, my observation at that afternoon time at 2.10pm was that the polling centre at the primary school grounds was deserted!  This was strange!  I expected a chaotic ground with lots of people confused, moving around and unsure.  I have even experienced stampedes or two during such.  But this was not to be.  The polling centre was to have 12 stations.  The classrooms were well marked with the labels for ‘Polling station no. 1’, sequentially, all the way to the ‘station no. 12’.  I had already confirmed my details on SMS confirmation by sending my national ID number and DOB to short code 70000.  A message had confirmed that I was registered at this station, and I was on polling station no. 1.

With the grounds this empty, and hardly any queue at any of the classroom entrances that marked the polling station entries, then I surely could still just cast the ballot now, than at five.  I therefore joined the queue of twenty-five other voters that was next to the very first classroom on the train of classrooms.  This was actually the longest queue at the centre.  I could observe that the second classroom door had about five people on queue.  Class three had no one on queue.  The subsequent classrooms had less than ten people queuing.

Twenty-five people ahead was manageable on this sunny day.  I enjoyed the warmth of the sun as I moved slowly towards the entrance of that station no. 1.  I had my earphones on, but was also listening to the chatter going on around.

“Hi ni laini ya letter gani?,” someone behind the person behind me asked.

“Hata sijui, nafikiri ni ‘A’ na ‘B’,” she told the guy.

Of course, that was not true, nor was there an official to guide on who-should-go-where.  The truth was that each polling station had the fully mix of names from A to Z, somehow randomly distributed from the total pool of over 7,000 voter names.  I was letter ‘W’ and on station no. 1 for crying out loud!

Anyway, I got into that station no. 1 at 2.40pm, hardly thirty-minutes since I got to the polling centre.  Five or so other voters were ahead at various stages of the voting process.  I presented my national ID card, then presented my left hand thumb to be scanned onto the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kit, a tablet computer that should read the fingerprint and display your details.  These KIEMS kits were already a full debate since morning while I was still asleep and half-listening to the news.  The kits had failed in several stations within the country, with some polling stations reporting almost full failure of all kits.  The numbers were small, but the effects were massive.  

Imagine locking down a whole primary school of 12 stations due to failure of the 12 gadgets assigned to that centre!  Such events had already led to delays in voting in these stations, with some voters even leaving due to apathy.  The officials called it ‘minor and insignificant’, but as a voter, who has queued for hours in past elections and even witnessed people collapse due to long waits, I can tell you that being kept waiting cannot be just brushed off as ‘minor’.

In my case the kit did read my fingerprint and did display my details.  I had to recall when I took that youngish passport photo when they kits were being introduced about six years ago.  This confirmation then enabled me to move to the positions of the next three officials who provided me with six different ballot papers for the different electoral positions of the day.  

The presidential ballot was white, the rest was a mix of colours.  The presidential ballot had only four rows, for the four candidates.  The rest of the positions were long ballot papers with many names!  The worst affected was the member of country assembly (MCA) position that in my view had more than twenty faces – none of which I knew.  The women rep ballot was equally busy, same to that of the senator, governor, and member of parliament.

I was very familiar with the four faces, actually eight, since the presidential candidates were photo’d along with their running mates.  That was the only easy choice of the six ballots.  The other five were a real struggle, going through the many rows of names and pictures and party symbols... then making a choice.

I finally dropped my choices onto the different colour-coded covers of the clear see-through ballot box.  Six drops of ballots to those six boxes on the table at the middle of the classroom marked the end of this big vote.  I got the fingernail of my left pinky marked with indelible ink and then the national ID was handed back.  I had finally voted, in a vote whose campaigns had started in 2017, just after the last election had been done and the presidential results nullified and redone.  It had been a long 5-year of electioneering.  We have seen things in that period.  We had seen friends becomes foes and foes become friends.  We have seen names called and name-calling done.  I was just glad that it was over.

I was out of the polling station no. 1 at exactly 2.45pm and out of the primary school polling centre a minute later.  It was however not all joy through the republic.  Those who had the KIEMS frustration had their delays, but the big story was the cancellation of county gubernatorial elections for Mombasa (641,913 voters) and Kakamega (844,551 voters).  These close to 1.4M voters would only be given 5 ballot papers, since the governors ballot would be missing.  MP elections in Nakuru Rongai had also been postponed due to ballot paper misprints.  

These cancelled electoral positions would now have to be voted for on August 23, two weeks from today.  Was the voter turnout just low, or were voters waiting for five o’clock as I was initially?  My estimation was just 50% turnout, based on the queues that I was seeing!  That would mean 22M registered voters would only show up to the 11M mark.  What is going on here?

I am just glad that I did not queue for so long this time round.  I was however cognizant that some places in Kenya were experiencing long queues due to failed kits.  So, when the election officials say that “200 failed kits out of 46,229 is not significant”, then I just wish that they could spend a full day on the queue and know that it is significant when you are affected by a delay due to a failed kit.

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, August 9, 2022

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