Thursday, 6 November 2014

Guest Blog: ALL IN 24 HOURS- PART 1

Sometimes my Matatu Chronicles are non-existent and the blog goes silent. Then come guest bloggers such as Esther Neema who help me save face. She sent me this piece, which I have decided will be in two parts. Too hilarious! Wait till you read Part 2 tomorrow. 


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A friend of mine asked me to write my matatu chronicle and I wondered how would write this article without sounding bitter and troubled with life. However I still said, why not. After all, I have been reading, with pleasure her eventful chronicles.

I have had the most dramatic ones too though never imagined it possible that I could ever again experience any worse than route 48 where your feet get to experience an unwanted breeze from ground. Actually a ride in them could comprise your feet dangling outside the vehicle since the floor is sometimes broken, or is it torn. Anyway I am trying to mean there is a hole where your feet are supposed to be placed. So you must believe me when I say I never thought I could experience any worse.

I have moved cities, now living in Mombasa. I have been here for only a week (at the time of writing this). The first day I rode to town, I could have sworn for a minute I thought I was in Nairobi until I was asked for fare. Aki I promise I have never paid my 200 shillings to go to any destination, not even to Rongai. The most I have paid is probably 80 and I fumed the whole way, thinking about injustices in the world.

I was shocked though, no one caused Drama. You know I am used to my gangster route 46 where WE, the passengers, decide. WE just wait for one passenger to say “Ai,si fare inakuanga fifty hatuwezi lipa seventy, we fare ni mbao” and the rest of the bus we would echo those words. It is called people power. And somehow we manage to piss off the the kange as much as he had pissed us off. “Kama hamtalipa mshuke'.. only you cannot chase a whole matatu when we are in traffic and already half way in to our destination. So we would pay the team fare, the one that we the common wanacnhi had unanimously agreed..

Illustration by Steve Mchoraji
Now the 200 bob affair had nothing on this day I am about to tell you. Which I promise I thought we had been hijacked.

My mum and I left for Mombasa from Kilifi at about 10.00 am, in the hope that at least by 11.30 am we should have reached. Oi! That didn't happen. It took quite a while before the matatu filled up. Then we left. However, on our way we met more passengers who got in to an already full matatu with the hope to sit on us. Now you know when you have paid 200 shillings, my friend, the last thing you want is someone sitting on you, but we kept quiet and moved just abit for them to sit, WITHOUT COMPLAINING.

I was not that surprised when in the next stop the matatu picked more people to get in; after all I was born in the PRE- MICHUKI era where bus rides were the most uncomfortable rides ever. As in you could feel peoples privates. Now all you feel is shoulders, thank heavens. But still, really there was nowhere else anyone extra could sit in this matatu for sure, so they had to stand.

Now here people made noise “watakaa wapi hao, huku basi hakuna nafasi” Directed to the conducor and then indirectly to the passengers, ladies, “Na sasa we mwenyewe ukiingia matatu ambayo imejaa hivi huwa umefikiria vipi..” ha ha ha, I would hate to be the one who has gotten it to such. But with the ladies, got in one know it all male who was much more proud of his actions and said “Kama una shida bwana unune yako, hii ni gari ya abiria bana.


AND THAT IS WHERE THE TROUBLE BEGUN.

To be continued...

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