Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The last 20 hours Nairobi – Kampala!
These days traveling to Nairobi without a major story is like watching a series of African movies without the famous “Ki- Nigeria” (Nigerian Movies). The last twenty hours of our trip were rather dramatic but minus the post election violence.
We spent the earlier part of Friday running errands in the bustling Nairobi; a thing that drove me into an internet café to punch-in to the home folks that Kenya was back on its feet. I was using this key board that was minus letter ‘U’, no wonder this was the only free computer in the stuffy room.
We shortly returned to the house we were staying to pick our bags and bid farewell , but like the biblical Abraham and the three visitors, our host could not let us go without having a meal, something she fixed in a dash though I would have gladly missed that part out.
My colleague Fred, made this prayer-of-the-year like he was going to ignite his own car back to Kampala, I still appreciate it because I might not need another one like it in a long time especially before meals. Just like I was ready to fly out of the house our host offered to give us lift to the main road for a taxi.
East African matatu drivers seem to be born of the same woman, eve or mama Cain. We literally “flew” over Langata road, accompanied with sound blast fit for any given discotheque, before coming to a sudden halt of a traffic jam. The driver was like he was aware of our fate; he somehow got us of the snakey mess but only to a more unfamiliar part of Nairobi jungle. Thirty minutes past our check-in-time, we were yet to figure out where our bus terminal was.
Thanks to my scanty Swahili coupled with some little English and body language we got our way out only to be told to pick a cab that would carry us to the central police for a final check before boarding the bus.
I could not wait to have a nap when I realized that now am out of Nairobi waking up intervals of police road blocks one after another, as we also went deeper into the rift valley like we were about to hit the devil’s mantle.
Coming out of the valley through the mother of potholes somewhere close to Kericho town we were woken to a rude stop together with 15 other buses; Thugs had blocked the way and went on rampage robbing passengers one bus after another of money, phones, anything loose, and also roughening them up.
It took me a little while to comprehend the whole situation, I wanted to make sure that I was not in a movie theater seeing the bold guy come to my seat and asking for pesa na simu (money and phone) I handed them to him like I had no use for them, he thanked me with a slap at-least before going to the next client. They left our bus having instilled fear in us that they would come back any moment a few minutes the plunder these guys sped off!
After the realization that these fellows had left, our bus drivers gathered guts and continued all the way to Busia and Kampala. Touching the Ugandan soil felt like jumping out of fire to freedom, more broke than ever, gladly I am recovering from the shock and slowly coming to terms with the whole adventure of the last 20 hours.
God bless!
We spent the earlier part of Friday running errands in the bustling Nairobi; a thing that drove me into an internet café to punch-in to the home folks that Kenya was back on its feet. I was using this key board that was minus letter ‘U’, no wonder this was the only free computer in the stuffy room.
We shortly returned to the house we were staying to pick our bags and bid farewell , but like the biblical Abraham and the three visitors, our host could not let us go without having a meal, something she fixed in a dash though I would have gladly missed that part out.
My colleague Fred, made this prayer-of-the-year like he was going to ignite his own car back to Kampala, I still appreciate it because I might not need another one like it in a long time especially before meals. Just like I was ready to fly out of the house our host offered to give us lift to the main road for a taxi.
East African matatu drivers seem to be born of the same woman, eve or mama Cain. We literally “flew” over Langata road, accompanied with sound blast fit for any given discotheque, before coming to a sudden halt of a traffic jam. The driver was like he was aware of our fate; he somehow got us of the snakey mess but only to a more unfamiliar part of Nairobi jungle. Thirty minutes past our check-in-time, we were yet to figure out where our bus terminal was.
Thanks to my scanty Swahili coupled with some little English and body language we got our way out only to be told to pick a cab that would carry us to the central police for a final check before boarding the bus.
I could not wait to have a nap when I realized that now am out of Nairobi waking up intervals of police road blocks one after another, as we also went deeper into the rift valley like we were about to hit the devil’s mantle.
Coming out of the valley through the mother of potholes somewhere close to Kericho town we were woken to a rude stop together with 15 other buses; Thugs had blocked the way and went on rampage robbing passengers one bus after another of money, phones, anything loose, and also roughening them up.
It took me a little while to comprehend the whole situation, I wanted to make sure that I was not in a movie theater seeing the bold guy come to my seat and asking for pesa na simu (money and phone) I handed them to him like I had no use for them, he thanked me with a slap at-least before going to the next client. They left our bus having instilled fear in us that they would come back any moment a few minutes the plunder these guys sped off!
After the realization that these fellows had left, our bus drivers gathered guts and continued all the way to Busia and Kampala. Touching the Ugandan soil felt like jumping out of fire to freedom, more broke than ever, gladly I am recovering from the shock and slowly coming to terms with the whole adventure of the last 20 hours.
God bless!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
wanderers!
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