Last week riding back in a matatu from Tumaini school, I sat beside Eddah, a third year Business student at the university in Kakamega. We struck up a conversation that became real with my candour.
At the time we talked about the the challenges of making a living, of everyday life, of transportation. For example, one of the security guys at the ACCES site, supports a wife and 2 or 3 children on what is a good job for Kenya, but he values any extra food and any empty bottles to return for the deposit money. Other people subsist on casual farm labour or selling vegetables or the crop from a small plot of land. This might make enough to feed a family for a day – porridge, ugali and greens and maybe tea. Eddah counted herself as one of the fortunate as one of her parents was a teacher and the other, a policewoman.
Everyday life. For me it meant adjusting to daily power failures and washing laundry by hand. In the rural countryside, some women still spend a good part of her day gathering firewood for cooking. Clothes dry on shrubs. Women and children walk down to the local stream for water. For Eddah, the new young educated generation, it means wondering if she will get a job or join the large ranks of the unemployed when she has her degree.
Transportation is a huge issue. The inadequate transportation system limits the distribution of goods and limits mobility. The “highway” in and out of Kakamega is basically a tarmac road with no dividing line. The majority of side roads are dirt, most of which became muddy and slow slogging when it rains (frequently). Our 18 km. trip to Rondo Retreat two weeks ago took 1.5 hours in the rain. Eddah muses if Kenyans should be more assertive.
It took our trip from Kakamega to the Masai Mara on October 29th to show me that the transportation system is not just inconvenient but bloody dangerous. Dumb luck and a cell phone literally “saved our bacon.”
Wanting to see the countyside, we’d been planning this road trip for months and checked on the feasibility with various travel agents and parties. I decided to provide a Kakamega taxi driver with the income from this trip. Our roommate introduced me to Hussein with his small red Toyota who became our reliable driver for our weekend trips preceding the long drive to the Mara. The point I want to make is that there was no apparent problem with the Mara trip.
Hussein checked with his taxi driver friends and figured it be a 4 to 5 hour drive. So he could return to Kakamega within the day, he proposed we leave at 7 am. We informed the Mara Siria Tented Camp to expect us for lunch on the 29th.
By noon on October 29th we arrived in Kilgoris, some 50 km from the Mara, on a quite beautiful paved road with two lanes. I assumed this road existed because the Mara is a prime tourist destination. Then the tarmac road simply -- stopped. Hussein’s friend in Kilgoris provided him with instructions and a sketch map. We left the town about noon, heading south on a dirt road.
After about 10 km. and about 45 minutes on a horrible rutted road, I thought we should phone the camp to tell them we wouldn’t make lunch. The camp manager told us we were on the wrong road, to back up and take another road. This cost us 1.5 hours. Then we began on another dirt road. Somewhat better, I was enjoying the geographical change from green rolling hills to flat grazing lands, the land of the fabled Masai, when the road started to get markedly worse and it began to rain. It was now about 2:30. Mud and treacherous pot holes. We took the wrong fork in the road and got stuck. Two men on a motorbike helped Michael push the car out of a trough. They gave us further directions.
The other fork in the road soon proved to be horrible, too. Thank heavens that Hussein was steadfast and skillful in the handling of his car. Soon Michael was forced to get out of the car in the rain to run ahead and check out road conditions. In the small Toyota, we were forced to leave the road to drive on an off road track to by pass impassable road sections. Twice.
Although we tried to keep in touch with the camp manager, we kept losing the signal and couldn’t complete calls. While Michael was out on another reconnaissance, Hussein decided to bypass a huge trough by driving along the steep left side of the road. It was a terrifying few minutes for us both; I fully expected that the car would roll and I would end my days in a ditch in SW Kenya.
Around 4 pm, now some 10 km. from destination, we had to stop, once and for all. In yet another set of calls to the camp, we asked for a rescue. Around 4:30, Joel told us that a 4 wheel drive camp vehicle would be coming. Michael and I were worried about Hussein. Could he and should he return to Kilgoris on that terrible road in the rain? It gets dark by 6:30. We wanted him to leave us by the side of the road and get going immediately; he was worried about leaving us in a strange place. Finally, at around 5 pm, the camp vehicle arrived for us, and Hussein, with a bottle of water, the couple of biscuits and bananas we had left set off back on that awful road.
10.5 hours to drive about 250 km. An ordeal for us and for Hussein. We don’t have to drive the Kenyan road system again. Hussein does.
One of 10 children raised in a mud hut in Siaya north of Kisumu, Hussein has self taught himself to speak English, read and write. Married with a 6 month old daughter, he runs a 2 vehicle taxi service. He is hard working, thoughtful and resilient. He and Eddah are but two of the remarkable next generation of Kenyans we have met so far on this remarkable journey.
(Yes, we are carefully monitoring the situations in Somalia and Nairobi.)
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