5:15 AM: Shower, and recheck bag. Straighten room. Lock valuables away, double check everything.
6:00 AM Leave to meet Maurice. I had told Maurice that I would walk to the place to meet him, but he was very concerned and advised against walking at that hour. He said I should take a Mattatu. I was surprised because this was the first time he had been at all reluctant, but he told me people might be interested in my bag and I would be safer on the van. I took his advice.
I picked up the 111 going into town thinking it would go to the train station, but I don’t have the kinks of the system worked out. Instead it dropped me on the North side of town and the bus depot is on the south side. I ended up walking only about half the distance I would have walked, but through waiting for the bus ended up at the same time if I had walked originally.
6:30 AM Panic. I went to the place where I thought Maurice told me to meet and I was 1 minute early. He was not there. I got out my phone, when he came running up to me. He said we had to hurry that he had tickets for the bus we were supposed to take, but that it might leave early. We started running. It was several blocks away through crowded streets in the dark. Not my favorite moment.
We got to the bus at 6:42. It was there, his stuff still in the seat, but there were only a few seats left.
The Bus
This is the biggest bus I’ve ever seen (strike that, from the outside it is the same sizes as a bus in the US, it just seats more). There were 70 seats on this bus--Two on one side, three on the other. Think tiny seats squeezed tightly together.
It did have TV monitors. They were showing traditional African dances to contemporary African singers. We saw the same tape over and over again. I thought at one point I might really go crazy. I was on the window side with Maurice next to me. There was stuff beneath his feet, so he could not get out, there was stuff in the aisle, so even he could get out you could not stand in the aisle, if the aisle had been clear there was no restroom at the back, so there was no where to go. If you even have mild claustrophobia this is not the bus for you.
The ticket cost 800 shillings. Which works out to about $13.35.
The Bus Journey
First Hour (7-8 AM). The first hour is spent driving through Nairobi and heading toward the Rift Valley. A city of 3 million goes on for a long time. There are beautiful buildings. They could stand proudly in any city in the world. There are tragic areas of poverty the likes I have only seen here in Africa. There is the multitude of people swarming through the streets. People everywhere on foot trying to get somewhere.
Right before the bus left pedlers came to the bus windows selling cokes, water, snakcs, and fruit. I bought a newspaper. Once we were on the road and there was not much to see, I started to scan the paper. The headline story caught my attention. Downtown Nairobi had been the shut down by riots on Friday because of a police shooting on Thursday. The road I would have walked down was the site of conflict and demonstrations that had to be broken up with teargas, arrests, and violence. Cars and pedestrians had been attacked, windshields were smashed by stones and individuals it said, “who dared walk down the street” were pelted by the protestors.
On Thursday a student at the technical college in downtown had been near the school when someone called for help. He and several others chased a man down who had robbed a woman. They caught the man and a crowd gathered. The police arrived to break up the crowd. One of the officers pulled out his gun. He said was going to shoot into the air “to drive the crowd away.” He fired into the air, but the bullet struck and killed the “Good Samaritan” instantly.
I was glad I had gone on the bus and that it had taken me to the other side of town so I could approach the bus terminal away from all the trouble.
Second Hour (8-9 AM). Right at 8 we arrived at the edge of the Rift Valley. This is a tremendous tear in the earth’s crust that extends north from Africa to Israel. The road comes right to the edge of this great canyon and then plunges over the edge. As we approach the edge the huge “great plains” of Africa the Massi Marra extended to the horizon. It is an overwhelming vista. I wish that we could stop and take pictures. The road descends and curves while clinging to the side of the canyon. After about 25 minutes we are in a different world. Nariobi was selected as the train center thus solidifying its location today because it had the best temperature for the English that were running the place at the time. It his high and therefore has a more moderate temperature.
The Massi Marra is low, flat, desolate, and looks like Northern New Mexico between Clayton and Raton. It is like the same environment. The area is obviously volcanic. It is dry. Life holds on tenaciously and just barely. We begin to see some wildlife. Small groups of antelope hurry away from the bus. Several groups of zebra interrupt the browns and yellows with their brilliant black and white attire. Most of the people on the bus are sleeping. The dancing music is blaring, and I can’t find one person who even seems to be smiling with what we are seeing. I imagine it would be like watching us pass a herd of cows just north of town. We wouldn’t even notice.
I also start seeing tons of birds. We are hauling down this road and I keep seeing dazzling birds. They come in all the colors of the rainbow, but I don’t know what they are called, I don’t have a bird book with me, I don’t have binoculars, and the bus will not slow down. This is how you torture a bird watcher. I got a piece of paper and started writing all of the birds I was seeing as if they were birds I knew: Lazuli Bunting, Red-winged blackbird, yellow warbler, white headed blackbird, starling, crane, crows, magpies, sparrows, doves, kingbirds, long thin tailed birds we don’t have, multi-colored birds with no reference points, orioles, weaver birds. I was miserable.
Third hour. (9-10 AM). We stopped in the middle of the wasteland. The road had gone from tarmac to marra (dirt). They have been working on the road for 3 years. At a random old ruin we stopped. People poured off the bus. Women went right, men went left. There we no facilities just opportunity and I did not know when another might appear. The bus revved its engine and people started scrambling to get back on. It is the fastest bathroom break I have ever been on with 70 people.
Maurice told me that they used to stop at this place because it had some trinket shops and sometimes people would buy things. The shops had been owned by a tribe not native to the area. They had moved there, which is considered Massi land. The shops were destroyed in the conflict just four months ago. These ruins were fresh, but showed the extent of the violence that erupted. It was my first encounter with the trouble we had watched on the news.
Four –Five- Six –Seven.
Pray, Stretch in my seat, try not to think of fidgeting. Try to sleep. Lurch awake on the unpaved road. Stop at police checkpoints, show ticket, listen to the music, try not to listen to the music. Sweat. Crack the window get nostrils filled with dust, close the window, sweat. Drive through villages and pass Massi herdsmen with flocks of goats and cattle. Pass tea fields that go on for acres.
Slowly the land begins to change as we drive out of the rift valley and enter a new more lush world. Drive thorugh Narok, Bomet, Kisii, Magori.
Finally, get out of the bus. I hurt all over. My back and neck are tight. My nose is filled with dust, and I don’t mind my own smell any longer.
Magori
We arrive at the edge of Kenya only miles from the Tanzania border and Lake Victoria. This is not a tourist town. I am an event. I am assuming from the looks that this might only happen when Maurice brings a friend from the program each year.
People are genuinely shocked seeing me. I keeping wondering if I have something sticking to my face that I don’t know about, but finally decided that it is in fact my skin color that sets me apart. Most people are friendly and almost all say the same thing, “Hello, How are you?” They say it in the beautiful tones that English is spoken with in Great Britain. Maurice tells me they are taught some English in school and this is the standard greeting.
We get off the bus at 2:30 PM. I am thirsty and hungry. I had decided not to eat or drink anything while on the bus for fear of not being able to get to a bathroom. We headed to a place to eat. At this point no description can even come close to the reality of Magori. I do not have even a place I can compare it to. I imagine that it is like one of the boomtowns that formed during the gold rush days on the edge of civilization. There is huge amount of people and they are all in the streets. The streets are lined with shops. The shops vary between tin buildings, brick buildings, wooden buildings and plastic tarps. Some people set up shop in the alleyways. Trash covers the streets. Animals wander about without any apparent owner. People are dressed in the whole range of options. There are people dressed in business suits and people in tattered rags. It is loud, it smells. It is exciting. It is overwhelming.
The shop he chooses for us to eat in is run by people from the Sudan. Pictures of Barak Obama cover the walls. They offer us Chicken, goat or beef. I went for the fried goat. I wanted to live on the edge. It arrived shortly with a cold bottle of Coke. The meat was great. It was served with some sauce and hominy ground up into a paste and pressed together like a wheel of cheese. It is firm and doughy. The proper way to eat it is to pull off a piece roll it into a ball and dip in the sauce, our even better make it into a hollowed out olive shape and dip in into the sauce like a little bowl.
Maurice’s Daughter
Maurice tells me that he has a daughter in Magori who attends boarding school. She is in the sixth grade. I suggest that we go see her. He seems happy with that and since the bus has made good time he agrees that we might have just enough time if we hurry. We go shopping in the streets to take her some fruits and food. We get citrus, some bread, and some bananas.
It is about a ten minute walk to her school. It is a private school (all of his kids go to private schools because he says it is the only chance they have of getting an education). A school official goes and gets her out of class (they study 6.5 days a week taking off only Sunday morning), and she comes running. It’s a moment when I know we are in two different worlds. I think I would be an emotional wreck not seeing my kids for a month at a time at best.
I walked away to give them some privacy. They speak for a few minutes and then we have to get on our way if we are going to arrive at his home before dark. I walk out of that school hurting so desperately for these people. Scattered apart by poverty and need, they seem content and happy in ways that I can only imagine.
The Meat Market
We are supposed to bring home meat for supper. So we stop at the butcher. It is truly beyond comprehension. The meat is hanging on hooks. Flies fill the air and a light on the meat. The entrails sit on the front counter. I’m sure it is the most “over the top” meat market that I have ever seen. No one seems a bit concerned. I buy the meat for the meal, it is packed in newspaper, put in a plastic bag and we head off to travel the next 40 kilometers to his home.
The Car
At 3:30 PM we get into a car. I would describe it as a four-door hatchback about the size of a Honda Civic. It is made to sit 5 small people. Four people would be preferable. There are twelve people in the car by the time it pulls out of Magori. The front seats are bucket seats. The driver shares his with another person. The hatch-back area carries four men. Maurice and I both pour our shoulders out of the windows of the back seat. With a man and his mother wedged between us.
At first I am nervous about this arrangement. Then I realize that the car is so hopelessly overloaded and the roads are so bad that we barely are able to beat the people walking on the same roads. Occasionally on a particularly flat sections we get going a little faster, but mostly we crawl. We travel this way for about 2 hours. The window does not roll all of the way down so my arm keeps going to sleep, but I can’t move my shoulders so I just try to ignore the situation.
Maurice’s place
For the last 20 minutes only 7 of us are in the car. The back is filled with stuff we are transporting for someone, the four of us remain in the second seat and the driver has is own seat. The car is riding a little better and our speed has increased.
Suddenly, in the middle of the bush we stop. Maurice bails out and so do I. The car rushes away down the path. “OK, we are here.”
“Here” is a long way from anywhere. I would describe the area as looking like sections of central Texas with small rolling hills covered by mesquite trees. Civilization has yet to claim this area of the world. There is no electricity. These people live almost the same as people have lived here for hundreds of years. With one exception, cell phones. I have four bars standing in this dirt rut of a road. Lots of people have cell phones. With no electricity I wonder how they keep them charged, but get no answer to this question.
We walk off of the path between the trees and into a clearing where we find the Maurice’s house. It is a traditional African house that we have been seeing scattered through the whole region. It is made of mud walls about 5 feet tall. He tells me it has been modernized because the thatch roof has been replaced by tin sheets. It has a door, and window shutters, but no glass. The floor is hard packed and smooth. A few pieces of wooden furniture line the walls. The walls have been painted with a leaf design. It is obvious that termites are attacking the walls and building tunnels on the surface.
We walk into the home and come face to face with his wife and 18 month old baby. “These are my people,” he says. Not the introduction I am used to. Later I learn the baby’s name is Joseph. Maurice’s wife’s name is never spoken. She is always referred to as “Maurice’s wife” or “my wife.”
During my first field interview I learn that a woman once she is married is almost always referred to this way until she has children. Then she is often called “the mother of _____.” If you have multiple children you become known as the mother of the most notable child, frequently the first born, but sometimes it could be another child who has accomplished something great.
After the long journey we are both tired, but I know they have not seen each other in over a month, so I excuse my self and start walking around. I get my camera and take some pictures. Birds of every different variety surround the place. I walk around for about an hour and then come back to the house.
Interview
I have to do three hour-long interviews, that is one of the reasons we have come, so I start with Maurice’s wife. My paper is on reconciliation practices. She is from the Kisii tribe and she is the first Kisii that I have interviewed. She speaks excellent English and Maurice goes to visit his parents who live just up the hill. After this interview I go to meet Maurice’s parents and the rest of the family that has gathered for the evening.
His elder brother shows up and he is to be interview #2. We are all in Maurice’s house. They light the lantern at 7:12 PM. It is pitch black outside.
The Meal
During the middle of the evening another daughter arrives. She is wearing pants! I don’t know until the following day (Maurice’s wife tells me the situation) what the problem is, but I know instantly that I am in the middle of a family argument. The traditional side of the family is shocked. Even her father, who bought her the pants, says, don’t you at least have a skirt you can put on?
Every so often Maurice will translate something that is being said as they are all commenting and answering my questions. Near the end it is time to eat. Food is brought out. A big bowl is brought around and water poured on our hands. Then the hominy paste, some rice, and the meat we brought are put on the table.
We laugh and eat until everything is gone, our fingers and wrists are greasy, and it is late and we are exhausted.
I am lead to another hut across the clearing that his been set up for the boys. They have taken the only bed, a cot like frame and inch foam mattress, and set it up inside and they have hooked up a mosquito net over the whole thing for me. I know I’m being treated in an extraordinary manner and it is humbling.
I fall asleep in a hut so utterly dark that I could have been at the bottom of a cave. It was overcast so there were no stars, no moon, no lights in any direction. Just me and my breathing to keep me company. I remember that I left my flashlight sitting on the desk at Flora. I use my cell phone, but turn it off to save the battery. I woke up later and heard others coming into the hut, but I never could see them.
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