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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hebu lete fifty haraka, roadblock iko mbele.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Running…. until you are broke

Running…. until you are broke

“Are you happy?”

My eyes had been on that sign since I left the city.  The sign was affixed on the top panel above the two large windshields of the Easy Coach bus.  I was seated on 4B, the fourth-row seat, isle side.  Below the sign was a telephone number after the word ‘SMS’.  

I assumed that it was a ‘happiness’ number.  There seemed to be no ‘sadness’ number.  I had no happiness to report.  I had an ‘otherwise’ to report.  The fare had been hiked from the usual 1250/= to 1350/= despite my booking a month in advance.  The bus that was to leave the city at 8.30am was leaving at 11.00am.  

The closest we got to an apology was a megaphone announcement that, “Basi letu leo anachelewa sababu ya mbua.  Lakini yeye anakuja tu.  Apana choka.”

Why should our plans be disrupted by the rains that we have no control over?  The very rains that have been forecast over time, including that it would be raining over this weekend culminating into this Tuesday, the December 24?  What surprise was there that it was raining?  This is what we expected!

“Excuses!,” I found myself murmuring even as that announcement was repeated.  

The morning rains had flooded the bus station.  The additional showers around nine did not help matters.  The station was filthy.  Dirty!  Muddy!  Slippery!  An eyesore.  Unpaved.  Dirty, with specs of rubbish seen on the various water puddles, which dominated the available spaces.  

Every step around the station, as one walked around upto the boarding time, subjected us to a forced walk through the muddy filth.

“We deserve better!,” I cried out loud as I got into the bus with shoes full of mud.

The journey would thereafter be smooth, though slow due to the jam-packed roads.  We generally faced a queue of vehicles from Nairobi to Nakuru.  But I am assuming so, since I only witnessed the traffic jam from city centre towards Westlands, and was completely knocked out by the consistent persuasion of sleep from the warmth in the bus, made worse by the slow soothing vibrations of the movement.  I found myself in Nakuru at three.

“Four hours to Nakuru is a joke!,” I yawned as I disembarked at the Nakuru petrol station where the coaches stopover for a thirty-minute break.  Another three and a half hours of travel would bring me to Eldoret for my first stop of the journey.

Early morning

A taxi carried me through the short five-minute journey to Eldoret bus stage.  I immediately got into the 7-seater matatu as the fourth passenger at about five-ten.  I paid a fare of five hundred for the short 140-kilometer journey.  The vehicle would leave Eldoret stage immediately thereafter with three seats still empty. 

“No way!,” I made a mental observation.

But I would be vindicated as the matatu would make three stops along the way to pick up three passengers.  One near Eldoret airport, one at Mosoriot and a final person at Kapsabet.

The early morning travel was smooth, on roads that were virtually free of traffic.  But this would not last forever.  We soon got to the worst road in Kenya, the Kakamega road just near Migosi junction as you get to Kisumu town.  The road has been ‘destroyed’ for construction with no alternative road for vehicles!  Vehicles have to find their own way through the half kilometer of total chaos of no road and no rules!

“We deserve better,” I do another cry out loud as the matatu bumps us up and down so violently that I feel the pain with every hit onto the seat.  I alight at Kisumu stage just past seven.

I was heading to my rural home.  From Eldoret I had three options to get home.  Go to Bungoma, then Mumias, then Butere, then Manyulia my local market.  After that, a four-kilometer walk would get me home to Diriko village.  That route would mean a change of three vehicles, all unreliable in terms of availability and timeliness.  

The second option would be to travel first to Kakamega, then Butere, then Manyulia.  This alternative would also suffer the same uncertainty as the first option, probably worse due to relatively low number of travelers on the route.  And… and these matatus ‘insist’ on being full to capacity before departing from the station.  You can wait a whole day for the 14-seater to get fourteen passengers.  

The third option was what I was taking on this Friday morning.  Get to Kisumu, which is quite a busy route from Eldy, then use the Busia road from Kisumu, another busy road.  Alight at the local market of Dudi, walk the five kilometers and you are home!  I was soon home after paying another 250/= from Kisumu.

“Robbers!,” I lament over the fare for this 50km distance.

Now I had landed at the locality.  I was at the hood – and the hood does not come cheap!

“Brother!,” someone draws my attention from across the road, as I alight and cross the tarmac to get to the market side of the road, ready for my walk home.

“Eh!, Hi there yourself!?,” I respond, trying to figure out this relative.

“I must take you home.  I am happy that you have brought skuku,” he zooms his bike to my direction, where I have now already crossed the road.  

He has just beaten another three or so bike people, who were drawing my attention.

“But I intended to walk!,” I think of saying that to him.  I find myself being polite instead, “Eh!, Ok.  Lets go!”

It hardly takes ten minutes on the motorbike to traverse the five kilometers.

“How much?”

“Brother!  You have brought skuku.  Just pay me anything!”

Now, how do you pay someone whom you have brought ‘skuku’ to?  The normal fare, which is already too inflated in my view, for the 5k distance, is one hundred shillings.  Now you see why I had wanted to just walk this short forty-five-minute walk?  As I see the greenery and admire the good scenery?

I end up paying two hundred shillings.

I am seated under the mango tree, my favourite spot in the homestead, savouring the refreshing air on the very tranquil environment.  The place is so green, that this is the only colour that you see all the way to the horizon.  Civilization has hardly hit.  No tall structures.  No big houses.  No big roads.  No vehicular traffic – just an occasional disturbance of the stillness by the sound of a motorbike, which is still few and far between.

“My dad has come!,” I hear an exclamation coming from the direction of the main gate to the compound.  The homestead is generally on the upper part of a hilly terrain.  I am able to observe, and be observed, by anyone coming from the lower side of the compound, while seated at the shade of the mango tree.

The person gets to the mango tree.  We exchange greetings.  He pulls a seat and we are soon in conversation.  I know him from childhood.  He is a distant relation.  Our association must be in the great-great-great grandfather level.

“Now dad, I have to leave,” he finally declares after ten minutes or so.

“That soon?.  Ok, I am just around.  See you soon.”

“Yes, but, dad, I need skuku.  You just know how home is.  I am happy that you have brought skuku.”

I part with a red.

“You mean my brother is here!”

We are both interrupted by this call that comes from behind the main house, in a compound that has nine houses.  Someone has accessed the compound from the fence behind the main house that faces directly towards the main gate.  He has just managed to see what has just happened.

“My brother!,” he shouts animatedly upon his approach.  

I am still seated, while ‘my son’ is standing, bank note in hand ready to depart.

“Oh, brother!  You cannot leave me without skuku!  Thank God you came.  Just ka fegi tu is all I need.”

I end up with another one hundred gone, as the two leave me and walk together down towards the gate.  They are on top of the world.  Father and son walk off.  My brother and his son walk off.  They are of course not related in the nuclear setting – maybe six generations is what you need to dig through before you can connect.

I have soon had enough rest and decide to check out the neighbourhood.  I do not walk more than five minutes before I meet a random person on the road.

“Fadhe you know me!?  Karibu nyumbani!  Eh, fadhe, good to see you at shags.”

I am still processing this stranger.  I cannot place him.

“Of course, my nephew!,” I extend a hand.  I have no recollection.  I cannot force memory.

We stop in the middle of the deserted footpath.

“Fadhe, uwezi niacha hivo.  Ka skuku hivi.  Ka mozo tu!”

I part with one hundred as we say our goodbyes.

I am back home one hour later.  I ask the young ones to get me some sugarcane.  This is the fun part of being in the hood – the natural delicacies.  The young ones have not even had a chance to start their walk towards the gate, when they are stopped on their tracks.

“Uncle, did you say you want sugarcane?  Why did you not just say so?”

I am taken aback.  I see the new person who has just emerged from the next compound having crossed over the fence.

We exchange greetings.  He soon arranges for some two sticks of sugarcane that are delivered in record time, just from the next compound.

“Uncle,” he starts, as I break a piece from the long stave with my knee and start on my chewing, “Aki Uncle, thank God you came.  Sasa skuku ni aje!”

I appreciate the sugarcane and his efforts with two hundred shillings.

I sleep exhausted.

I am woken up at four when the exposed roof iron sheets start being hit by the rains.  It starts with single drumming that are far between, then intensifies as the drops hit the iron.  It is a complete drumming from the roof in less than five minutes.  The drumming gets louder as the rain intensifies.  Soon it is so loud from the roof that there is nothing to do but get back to sleep through the noise.  The noise is soon in the background of the sleep and I enjoy the last moments of sleep and wake up when the rain subsides at eight on this Saturday morning.

I get out of the house to find my uncle waiting.  I do not expect him to be seeing me, if anything, I should be visiting him.

“My nephew!”

“Oh! Uncle!,” I say while rubbing the morning sleep from the rainy night.

“I just had to see you when I was told you are around.  I have not seen you for a year!”

“Not intentional, just many things have been happening.”

“Have you really been in Kenya this year?”

How did he know?

“I have,” I economize the truth, and change the subject.

It is not long before he begs to leave.  I offer to escort him.  His place is less than three kilometres away.  We keep chatting.  He soon offers nuggets of reality.

“You still remember that I am your uncle, right?”

“Right, of course,” I respond in truth.  I used to pass by my grandmother’s place almost daily during my primary school days, many years ago.  Her homestead was located on my way from school.  That woman loved me to the core.  She had lost her daughter when I was still eight.  She told me that I was the closest thing to her daughter and that she wanted to keep her memory.  Fond memories passed through, but I was back to the moment.

“If my sister had killed my mother at childbirth, then I could not have been born.  You know that, right?”

“I know,” I respond as we keep walking.

“And you know that you remind me my sister, who left you while you were still young, right?”

“Sure uncle,” I say as we keep walking.

What is this turning into?  Twenty-one questions?

“So never forget me, even at this skuku time!”

I find myself handing over a wad of notes.

Being a Saturday, there is nothing much to do as most of the folks are gone to church and normalcy would return past one when church ends.  I seat in my house listening to the iron-sheets make that clang sound as they expanded slowly with the burning sun.  The clang would go on for over an hour as the iron adjusts to its new size.  The sound is just magical.  This clang would be repeated in the evening when the sun goes down and the sheets have to contract back to their restful size.

I was observing the big gaping hole on the wall of one of the inner rooms.  This hole was caused by those damn termites.  The same nitwits whose mound I had just cleared the previous evening and had by now, one day later, created a similar big mound just overnight!  

It is not long before my neighbor from next compound joins me in the house to discuss this particular termite predicament.

“Imagine the termites have rebuilt!  Hata kama ndio bidii kama ya mchwa!,” I show him the fresh mound that is covering almost half of the hole on the wall.  This hole was created by the same wretched termites in the first place.  The very termites that ate through that very wall, with successive attempts to remove them resulting into the wall being cut through.

“Ah, hizo!  Usijali, we already killed the queen.  These are just the remnant soldiers trying to re-establish a colony, but they are useless,” he examines the insects at work, then continues, “Kesho nitamwaga dawa ukitoka.  The dawa is so pungent.  You cannot stay around when I pour in the mixture.”

“You killed the queen?”

“Of course!  We found the source to be somewhere in the farm and dug it out,” he pointed to the adjacent farmland, just past the house, “It sure was the queen.  Even Ken, your nephew, actually fried it and ate it!”

We would chat about this and that and he would finally take his leave.

“For that additional dawa, you shall part with some one-thao.  That should do it.  Alafu siunajua tu ni skuku!”

On Sunday I was at Dudi stage, hardly with any fare to get me back to Nairobi.  I would have to call someone to ‘beg’ for fare back!  I had just participated in one of the most expensive runs in the year!

WWB, the Coach, 30-Dec-2019