Sandman, the other member of our small household from the town in the valley sitting next to a caldera. He is always away from us, executing duties in a desert area that is war prone. Every once a while though he enthralls us with tales of his past his present and his ideas of the future. I will be publishing some of his work here under the Creative Writing section, here is his latest piece.
Akamba used to be my horse carriage when travelling to the land of Matoke as the late Whispers ued to put it. It was a reliable horse sometimes and other times it used to be damned. The experience gave me many memories good and bad. But one of the best was a trip in the more expensive Royal Coach. This unique service was one which in my books of a higher reliability than KQ is today. It somehow managed to beat traffic in Nairobi to make it to the Flamingo County at 1000 or on a good day 0930. The seating arrangement was 2-1 which mean the lucky ones would get to seat on one without having the burden of trying to establish a conversation or share the other horrors of public transportation such as enhanced armpit scents and a wagging tongue that grows moulds.
I sacrificed a few pennies since my Old Man does not encourage extravagance (paid for the kawaida bus) to enjoy the experience plus I wanted to get to Kampala in the evening instead of the morning hours on the night bus schedule. Feeling so important I bought myself two papers a Nation and the Standard (no its not what you think) and as I boarded the bus, I was fortunate to get the one seat that was just behind the driver. The second driver of the bus quickly gave us bottle of water and some breakfast packet which consisted of a boiled egg and a pair of FC sausages.
We then rolled out onto the main artery that serves the region from the Coast to the Congo. Back then in the pre Kibaki era the main highway was a one way road. THe usual mishaps where some overzealous truck driver swinging his beast would be a catastrophic smash into an innocent road user. Anyway we rolled out and bade farewell to the urban Nakuru, we slowly eased into the less chaotic parts of the Flamingo county which unfortunately has been infected by urbanization lately. As soon as we hit the roads less copped, the sweet whine of the 330 hp engine turbo charged kicked in. We began sweeping the trees and bullying whoever felt they were greater than us.
The driver was quite a character. He would talk to other road users as if they could hear him. “Unaenda wapi, mbala mbala imeisha hiyo upande”. And everytime he engaged a gear, he would look around to see if we apporved of his driving techniques. I was. The speedometer needle kept tapping the red 120 km/h threshold the maximum set by the manufacturer which my guess was had been breached by the big fellow. Such theatrics of course don’t go un-noticed by the white headed boys in blue who in dispensing their duties flagged us down somewhere before we got to Eldoret. What followed has got to be one of the most courageous moves ever witnessed in the “Kenyan” highway code. Here is the dialogue, “Habari ya Pilot”…….. reply, “Wewe sema kile unataka, sisi tumeyelewa sana”…… “Naona unakimbia sana”………. “Sindio, hii ngali imebeba ndimplomats”……….. (Waves us on)
Now normally when you have been left of the hook of swift justice, many drive off like an AA student, but no this fellow raved the engine up, gave the yellow beast a suitbale gear and left the poor guys broke, angry and blinded by black exhaust smoke and dust. Of course there was the look for approval which was acknowledged by an appropriate thumbs up. “Alifikili mimi nitampa pesa, haaaaaahahahahaha hii ngali imebeba wakubwa”. And on we went.
As we inched closer to the border which was the Busia one, we were hurriedly directed to the appropriate immigration counters to get our passports stamped. Amazingly the bus did not get held on for too long unlike another adventure bus called Busscar (another story another day). Soon the impatient raves of the “Pilot” called in all parties to converge inside the yellow beast to undertake the final journey to the city of Kampala. We made it there in good time minus the stop at the famous Mabira Chicken Festival which was always the one thing that ruined a good relationship between a driver and his passengers. But this time I was alone as the other folks in the bus seemed to eager to get home.
As we alighted at the Akamba terminal, the vehicles waiting to collect the passengers did prove we were “Ndiplomats” minus the Sandman who now had to take a walk to the chaotic Kampala traffic to get a ride in the famous “Taxi” to his final destination in Entebbe.
Sponsored by memories of the Yellow bus.
Sandman.
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The view from the Out of Africa lookout point
By the time we wound down for the second part of the workshop, how to process the photos, time was not on our side as it was already dark at the gorge, Osborne was kind enough to give us a quick run through on the post process using Lightroom. As always it would be great to see some feedback/comments on the images.
The Hobbyist Photographer 