Sometimes you just have to sink your teeth into it and get the work done. It doesn’t always have to be perfect. Just one word and soon the essay is done. Then afterwards can you deliver a critique or judge that which is there.
Latest Entries »
A while back, I watched a movie that talked about how everyone was either in or looking at a box. This idea was rather intriguing as it made me think that we as humans were always looking for ways to place limitations on ourselves or rather boundaries whether in a physical form such as the bus or more at a personal level such as the sitting space you have between you and another person.
Now the bus is one big box that strangers are placed against each other like tightly packed sardines in a box. Three seats are aligned together on the right in imperfect rows of twelve or more, whereas the more steady pairs link up onto the left which is scourged by the sun on hot sweaty palmy afternoons.
Beware of who you sit next to and where you sit as it can have far outreaching consequences on your persona. At your own peril sit in the three-sitter and you could very well find yourself squashed between two big women carrying big plastic shopping bags bearing the brands of the famous supermarkets in the town. These two women are probably mothers and have therefore taken it as their right to transport the food shopping and the miscelanious things that a brood needs for three days at most. They heft their big elbows into your body as they tightly squeeze their goods shut away from prying hands. Mind you, this is supposed to be you, yes you the minute figure receding into the basic space of seat and compressed air as your body is pushed in from both sides.
You probably opt to sit on the twin seats on the left and believe that the seat away from the window, might be your best bet. But you are mistaken as scores of passengers whack you with their hands and bags in their quest to get out. And, sometimes little kids push their bags into your face, as they scoot onto the back for their free rides standing up.
Chances are that as a lady passenger you may want to be very specific about where or rather who you sit with. Many times you may find a man boring his eyes into you as if your dark bottomless pit and all this occurs in the duration of an hour. In turn your reaction is to stare out of the window as obviously you did not intend to sit next to this specific specimen and hence they found you like lice find hair. Disturbed, you link your eyes with the tall boring buildings within the city centre, then move them onto people as you wish you were out there and not in here. But circumstances dictate you use the box as failure to do so, means you would not be able to travel the world or rather the Nairobi environs.
It is quite evident that there may be no freedom within this box. But little sparks of genius are born within a mind able to work within the rules or should I say cut corners? This comes from sitting either at the deliberate front on the two sitter next to a person of your first appraisal or siting three quarter way in the bus next to a lady friend who would rather look out the window or read a book, then see you. The classic example being that you are a non-existent entity. You may have orange dyed hair screaming look at me but they will not turn whatever the case.
But whatever suits you, realise that everyday you are in the bus you are a hero in an action packed and drama filled real live movie. One you are going against the law as you sit in the bus without a safety belt on. Two, you may find yourself heave a sigh of relief when the police man gets out of the bus after asking you to close your none-existent safety belt and lastly by not saying a thing about the dilapidated bus and its lack of safety regulations you are complacent with the abuse of road safety. The drama comes in with all the people read drunks who enter the bus incoherently demanding free rides, the crooks who try to steal your phones and the millions of passengers who speak out their whole life stories onto the phone. Wait! The disgusting men who spit phleum outside the window! Need I say more about the bus?
Well there is the fact to consider that you can miss the bus by a hair’s whisker, run for it then find it full or have to wait for it for fifty minutes as you try to figure out whether to get onto a matatu(a small van which probably was used for transporting goods in China that was shipped into the country to be sold as a new car where even the space between two sits is a sitting space. Your behind is supported on the sides, I must add that it is very good for exercising the leg muscles as you are just above a squat ) Let us say you have waited and finally got on, your next predicament comes in getting out. Should you be carrying a load, you will hope that the bus slows down to a final momentum of stationary. Yes, a complete stop for one minute, just enough to heave you out on two dandy legs; might I add the wide steps that the bus has.
Clearly, there is a lot to say about the bus and even areas such as noise, wind blowing into your face from the window infront of you have barely been touched. But at the heart of the matter is that you must use the bus and let it be your guide in the road to your salvation(destination ). All are equal in the bus whether in the clean ironed t-shirt or the smelly old suit. They must all pay the same fare and learn to live together just as in the Kingdom of Christ. And in the spirit, let us say Amen to Public Transport.
Welcome to the world of Kenya, where nothing is what it appears to be. Politics is the rage and the superstars are the big pot-bellied robust politicians on our screens and should I say, tv presenters to add on to the twist?
This blog will expound on anything and everything Kenyan, from the media onto the ordinary mwananchi (citizen) out on the street. But, there is always room for change as time goes by……..
