The Woes Of Long Distance Traveler

Every time I am travelling long distance, which of course is anywhere I can’t get in under three hours by walking, I often rue my forgetfulness. Like how can a sane man forget to pick his car from the show room? Of course I can’t go there now because parking fees have accumulated over time, and now I have to part with millions. This should serve as a polite reminder to people out there: GO GET YOUR CARS BEFORE YOU FACE THE SAME PREDICAMENT AS ME.  In the mean time let me get dirty water splashed in me whenever the angels above squirt incessantly up there. It is a deserved punishment, on top of others that I am about to tell.

From experience passed on by our elders, you may attract unspecified curse if you don board a matatu with RIFT in its name, although people with healthy imaginations have tried to give reasons for our affinity to anything rift. One of them is that other matatu Sacco’s will leave you in the bush. For that matter every time I am travelling I either board Great Rift Shuttle, or North Rift depending on the price of fare. On this particular day, I am in Great Rift Shuttle offices very early. It turns out that there were others who were earlier than me and had occupied all seats except 1x (for those who picked their cars before parking fees skyrocketed, it is the seat between the driver and the other passenger).

Well, for the uninitiated, that seat has rules which no one bothers to tell you.

1.       That seat is not very friendly for tall people.
2.        Better avoid that seat if you had too much nocturnal business
3.        It is advisable to inquire if the driver has a boil on his right buttock, which will force him to sit at an angle close tot you.
4.       The seat is EXTREMELY OUT OF BOUNDS if 1, 2 and 3 applies to you

And because no one had warned me about the rules which I have generously stated above, I found myself climbing a matatu that had that seat as if it had been reserved for me. Previously I had used that seat without any problems. But not on this journey. I am tall. I am sleepy. The driver seemed to have a boil on his buttock, so he sat way too close to me leaving too much space on the other end. One could get the impression that he was ferrying a ghost on that side. Every time he changed the gear, and he did it way too much, he would knock me in a very unpleasant way. In fact it could be considered illegal. He would knock me back and forth, until we reached somewhere I do not care to remember. The mat gets stopped by cops and all of us are ordered to get out. Apparently the driver had been over speeding. He checked the speed governor like a thousand times with a grimace on his face.

We got out and I had the chance to stretch my tall lanky legs that should have been competition with Rudisha, and not merely talking my brain to the library or other equally useless places. By useless I mean places that people get paid to get there first. I could get the library or class faster than anyone. I am talented in that. No one can beat me in that. My fastness seems to be rewarded in reverse. One time I got to class at six in the morning, only for my laptop to be stolen.

The cops do what they are renowned for. The driver haggles with one who seemed to be the boss. He did not have blue uniform. They both settle for 2k which the driver did not have. He asks me to give him so that he could refund when we got to Nairobi. I flatly refused, not because I did not have but because I wanted to punish him for having a boil on his buttock. Of course we cannot rule out the fact that I did not have the money. Another passenger gave him the money, killing my prayers. I wanted us to be sold to another matatu so that I could take another seat. Prayers are not my thing, I guess that was what god was trying to convey to me.

We proceed with the journey. Thank god I did not lose a body party, although I almost lost my mind.