East African Highway (Thursday)

The return journey begins:  Moonset over the Rift, we pile into our loaded truck at 5:55 a.m..  The road climbs to the ridge then dips to the valley, skirting Lakes Naivasha, Elementitia, and Nakuru.  Frigid air, long-haul lorries barreling downhill then straining upwards belching black smoke, donkeys (we count 111 by the roadside over the course of the morning, something to keep the kids interested) slung with bags of cabbages or coal shuffle towards market.

Donkeys aren't the only roadside animals:  we also pass zebra, impala, antelope, warthogs, and baboons.

 

The corridor of violence:  our route takes us through the heart of the troubles which shook Kenya earlier this year.  We stop and buy a newspaper from enterprising hawkers who position themselves at the ubiquitous speed humps. Today the Waki Comission has released their report on the post-election violence, in which 1,133 people died, 405 of those at the hands of the police, a fairly equal mixture of Luos, Kikuyus, Luhyas and Kalenjins, though each of those tribes carries a sense of being victimized disproportionately.  The report concludes first that almost two decades of failure to prosecute perpetrators of violence in Kenya led to a "culture of impunity" in which politicians and thugs alike were emboldened to use force for personal gain.  Secondly, that the "personalization of power" around the Presidency led to undue pressure from certain ethnic groups to ensure success for their candidate (necessary to the survival of their tribe), and also compromised oversight from other branches of government.  The commission has made recommendations to improve the conduct of the police force, and turned over names of 10 key politicians for international prosecution.  Both Kibaki and Odinga have endorsed this step, Odinga using a Biblical reference to "let the truth set us free".  Meanwhile we still drive past a handful of IDP camps, the tell-tale UN tarps like clusters of alien igloos around the false security of various police posts.

 

The landscape in western Kenya:  weathered board shacks and fences, with a pioneer feel, small herds of cows and sheep, paddocks of corn and grass, open endless sky, muted grassy yellows and browns.  Then a splash of garish pink and kelly green.  The two main competing cell phone companies ply this trail with their stocks of paint, claiming shops for their advertising.  Zain seems to be outstripping Safaricom if building color is any measure.

 

Milk transport:  Roadside cans, picked up by trucks or hauled on bikes, the pipeline of protein from pasture to plant.

 

 

Creative advertising:  All the pictures here were snapped out my window in transit, so quality and selection suffer a bit at 60 km/hr.  I missed "Cockroach Promoters".  But how would you like to put your money in the inspiring "Skam Investments"?  Or survive the police while getting your clothes spiffed at the "Roadblock Cleaners"?  Or learn to drive into objects from the "Ding Wall Driving School?"

Eldoret:  The one sizable city on the trip, humming with traffic and people.  A country town that received its own international airport and university during the decades of Moi rule, the fruits of point 2 above, personalization of power around the presidency.

 

The road:  Whole stretches are fantastic new asphalt.  But plenty of worn patches slow down the pace, lumpy filled and not-so-filled potholed spans where traffic weaves from side to side searching for a level spot.  The entire 13 hour trip is on a two-lane road, meaning that Scott has to pass poky tractor-trailer trucks about a hundred times.  And that more than once we are run off the road by careless drivers overtaking in the opposite direction.  And that we share the tarmac with pedestrians and bicycles.  Road trauma remains the leading cause of death for expatriates in Africa.  We are sober about the task of arriving alive.

 

A result of the aforesaid bad road:  we stop to change a puncture.  Scott, with help from Caleb, can do this in minutes.  We always carry two spares.

 

 

Contrast:  These mud-walled thatch-roofed huts abut this 21st-century cell tower.  Africa quantum-leaps forward, investing in communication rather than suburbia.

 

The trucks:  The East African Community has noticed that the over-filled lorries are ruining their precious-few tarmac road surfaces.  So they made an agreement to ban the largest trailers, those with four axels in the rear.  The enterprising truck drivers have merely removed one of the four rear sets of wheels, probably without a decrement on load, meaning the same weight is now distributed on less surface area, which from S1 physics we know equals higher pressure and more road damage.  

 

The border:  Approaching the border we crept around trucks lined up for about two kilometers.  Jack counted 221.  I can only imagine they must wait for days to pass.  We, on the other hand, have found a very speedy "clearing agent".  The system of changing countries is an obscure series of steps and paperwork and kick-back designed to ensure that illegal cargo is not smuggled under the tax radar, or that stolen cars do not jump from one country to the next.  But in effect the bureaucracy provides income for the young men who scramble to help the unwary traveler, and the hawkers who capitalize on the hours of delay by selling drinks and samosas.  We call our agent an hour ahead of time as we drive, and he meets us at the gates to the border zone.  He takes our car registration and log book, our passports and departure declarations, and he and Scott divide and conquer the many offices to be visited.  I write ten times on ten different colored cards our names, passport numbers, birthdays, reasons for travel.  The actual border is a river, and there is a stretch of narrow fenced road over a bridge between the two guarded posts.  Since we are officially Uganda residents, departing can take up to two hours, but our return was accomplished in 23 minutes.  

 

Back in Uganda:  The day is slipping away.  The landscape greens, lush, colorful, vibrant, the harsh dusty highlands of Kenya giving way to the jungle of Uganda.  School children cluster home over the Nile River Dam, which provides electricity for the country.  

The End of the Journey:  The sun blazes directly into our eyes as we head west into the city of Kampala, reaching our destination just as darkness overtakes us.