A Return to Sanity....
SO I am back in Nairobi…. Not that anyone missed me (running a blog no one views is so much hard work), but I have been on leave for almost a month. To places far and wide (a la Aladdin) … Actually not that far and certainly not that wide!
First I spent a couple of weeks in my house. There is nothing as lousy as discovering, whilst on leave, that you are much happier working than spending all day watching telly and all night…. watching even more telly. All acquaintances are working, all your best ex girlfriends are married, home gets so boring you end up calling your WORKMATES to find out what’s happening in the office… Eventually you spend all day waiting for the evening when you can meet up with the same workmates for a drink and update on the latest office gossip. Net result, you feel like you are in office and back to work and you are happy!
Next I take a quick dash to Kigali and come back through Kampala by bus. I wont regale anybody (oh, I remember no one reads this anyway so there really is nobody) with my adventures a la Kigali or Kampala but let me just mention to all who might ever get this bad idea to travel with a perfumed handkerchief on the busses that ply that route. I explain;
The return journey sets off early morning from Kigali… It sets off well. People dozing off; probably because they had to wake up so early to be on the bus, children suckling on the supple breast casually exposed to all who wish to view (We wish! We view! - I need to learn Latin, this would read much better in that noble language)
Katuna: There is the usual bureaucracy at the borders, the puzzle of immigration officers overly checking foreigners leaving their country! Makes you wonder whether there are some people they don’t let OUT!
First Stop: Kabale; Some hawkers hawk everything from milk, sodas and cakes to ripe bananas. It seems reasonable enough for people to buy since its morning so I get me a soda and other buy all sorts of goodies then we set off….
Next Stop: Mbarara; I guess since this could be early tea break time, its ok for people to go ahead and buy some more of those bananas, meat on skewers, sodas, bottled water, cakes, biscuits…..
Third stop: Road side market at who knows where… More meat, chicken as well, fried bananas, soda, heavens!!! By now this is no road trip to savor. I don’t need a sixth sense to know that the effect of all these different “delicacies” on my neighbors. It is unflattering to say the least. My third sense is beginning to get overwhelmed by the small breezes in the bus. I smell something that can only be chicken with milk and a few minutes later I get a whiff of what might be soda with fired bananas and roasted liver. Eish!!!! At this point my second sense seems to be dull and inactive coz no sounds warn a brother of the incoming “scents”. I bear the 3 hours of crying babies peeing all over their helpless mothers, skewers and polythene flying through the windows and tooth picking to Kampala.
The next day (The story of my night in Kampala is rated PG 13)…. I set off for Nairobi. Different bus, different crowd but same behavoir. Again first stop is in a forest and lo! there is another market here and the whole feast begins again….
The realization I had on this trip is that the East African Community will certainly survive because: -
i) All East Africans devour chicken and meat to the bone or stick
ii) They all can’t smell each others farts. No one but me seemed to notice that the air was foul. And I mean the Sultan of Foulness here.
At least I am back in safe old Nairobi. My cousin is in town from Lagos so it will be nice to know what the latest scandal back there is (and no, it isn’t home). Also I have a wedding to attend today. To me, attending a wedding means going for the reception and not the church ceremony….
Opps… I can see from the time that the church service must be over and its time for the wedding. So off I go!
Salyut!
First I spent a couple of weeks in my house. There is nothing as lousy as discovering, whilst on leave, that you are much happier working than spending all day watching telly and all night…. watching even more telly. All acquaintances are working, all your best ex girlfriends are married, home gets so boring you end up calling your WORKMATES to find out what’s happening in the office… Eventually you spend all day waiting for the evening when you can meet up with the same workmates for a drink and update on the latest office gossip. Net result, you feel like you are in office and back to work and you are happy!
Next I take a quick dash to Kigali and come back through Kampala by bus. I wont regale anybody (oh, I remember no one reads this anyway so there really is nobody) with my adventures a la Kigali or Kampala but let me just mention to all who might ever get this bad idea to travel with a perfumed handkerchief on the busses that ply that route. I explain;
The return journey sets off early morning from Kigali… It sets off well. People dozing off; probably because they had to wake up so early to be on the bus, children suckling on the supple breast casually exposed to all who wish to view (We wish! We view! - I need to learn Latin, this would read much better in that noble language)
Katuna: There is the usual bureaucracy at the borders, the puzzle of immigration officers overly checking foreigners leaving their country! Makes you wonder whether there are some people they don’t let OUT!
First Stop: Kabale; Some hawkers hawk everything from milk, sodas and cakes to ripe bananas. It seems reasonable enough for people to buy since its morning so I get me a soda and other buy all sorts of goodies then we set off….
Next Stop: Mbarara; I guess since this could be early tea break time, its ok for people to go ahead and buy some more of those bananas, meat on skewers, sodas, bottled water, cakes, biscuits…..
Third stop: Road side market at who knows where… More meat, chicken as well, fried bananas, soda, heavens!!! By now this is no road trip to savor. I don’t need a sixth sense to know that the effect of all these different “delicacies” on my neighbors. It is unflattering to say the least. My third sense is beginning to get overwhelmed by the small breezes in the bus. I smell something that can only be chicken with milk and a few minutes later I get a whiff of what might be soda with fired bananas and roasted liver. Eish!!!! At this point my second sense seems to be dull and inactive coz no sounds warn a brother of the incoming “scents”. I bear the 3 hours of crying babies peeing all over their helpless mothers, skewers and polythene flying through the windows and tooth picking to Kampala.
The next day (The story of my night in Kampala is rated PG 13)…. I set off for Nairobi. Different bus, different crowd but same behavoir. Again first stop is in a forest and lo! there is another market here and the whole feast begins again….
The realization I had on this trip is that the East African Community will certainly survive because: -
i) All East Africans devour chicken and meat to the bone or stick
ii) They all can’t smell each others farts. No one but me seemed to notice that the air was foul. And I mean the Sultan of Foulness here.
At least I am back in safe old Nairobi. My cousin is in town from Lagos so it will be nice to know what the latest scandal back there is (and no, it isn’t home). Also I have a wedding to attend today. To me, attending a wedding means going for the reception and not the church ceremony….
Opps… I can see from the time that the church service must be over and its time for the wedding. So off I go!
Salyut!
posted by Ahimbi @ 4:38 pm
3 comments
