Unmarked roads, for one. It is much easier to find your way INTO a city than out of it. We made one wrong turn in Mombasa and within a minute were on a road that ended in a pile of trash and then the bay. Whoops. Near Nairobi there is NO SIGN coming from the east to find the international airport. You have to notice the streetlights (which are rare) and then make a U turn over the median of the divided highway to get there.
Curious police. We were only stopped once yesterday. I expected the fake radar gun and a charge of "overspeeding" which happened to us some years ago in about the same place (the police then tell you that you have to appear the next week in court which of course no one driving from Mombasa to Nairobi can conveniently do out in the boonies, so they hope you'll offer cash). This time the policeman didn't even say hello. As soon as Scott pulled over he said "American or Britain?". Uhhh, American, Scott said. "Oh, Obama!" The policeman smiled, looked in our windows to break the boredom of his day, and waved us on. One of the few times it pays to be an American and not a former colonial.
The ferry. In the middle of the old city of Mombasa, a channel, a finger of the bay, divides the road. It is not a huge distance, a reasonable bridge would suffice. But there is no bridge. There are a handful of old chugging ferries. Long lines of cars. Hordes of pedestrians. Vendors selling trinkets and ground nuts. A roadside fish market. Beggars. A steep ramp onto a flat steel boat. A glance at the pontoon-like safety devices hanging up on the rails. Keep the windows rolled down in case we have to swim out. We are inches away from the matatu beside us, and a smiling German girl whom we had seen passing something out to locals on the ramp now hands us a stack of evangelistic tracts in Swahili, through our window, which feature a verse about lust. She has determined we are missionaries and tells us to hand them out to others ourselves.
The trucks. As we near the edge of the city, we stop behind a congested line of trucks, the two-lane road at a standstill in our direction, though vehicles come in the other. We think there must be an accident. We wait. We wait longer. Inches of progress only. All the non-truck drivers are pulling out onto the sandy, dusty shoulder on the wrong side of the road, driving against oncoming traffic. If you can't beat 'em join 'em. We finally abandon all traffic etiquette scruples and jolt over the road margins. There is no accident. There are hundreds of trucks, lined for a mile or more, inching along through the congestion of the port.
Rest stops. There are none. We pull off into the scrub. Not much shade from the unlikely portly baobob trees. The only bathroom in hours is to hide in the bushes. We pull out the pb sandwiches I made that morning, and eat them with tepid water and cold apples and salty chips. Yum.
Sightings: elephants ambling away from the road, zebra, baboons. Near the end we see a small herd of wildebeest, stamping and restless. We reach the Masso's (Michael's parents) as dusk deepens to dark. Thankful for a place to get out of the car, stretch, eat, sleep briefly.
Goodbyes: up at 3 am for the final hour into Nairobi to the airport by 4. We left the warmth of the coast and didn't unpack in our few hours at the Massos, so we're chilled by Nairobi night-time coolness. And at Jomo Kenyatta Airport, non-passengers stand OUTSIDE. So our kids wrap up in the Maasai blankets we had for camping. Jack doesn't even have shoes. We watch Luke through the glass, as he goes to the check-in counter alone. Beside us thin young Somalis stack the ubiquitous cheap plaid plastic zip bags stuffed with who-knows-what for the flight to Mogadishu. I remember the time I flew to America after evacuating from war, and my checked bag was a cardboard box tied with string. Really. With used clothes that were donated to me out of pity. That seemed worth checking on an international flight. Luke comes to the window and says goodbye through the glass, and we linger until he disappears. Until Christmas. Sadness.
Efficiency. 3 am is a painful time to start the day. But it has its rewards. We hit the center of Nairobi just before 5. It is quiet, the streets are uncrowded, and the original massive Nakumatt Mega is open 24 hours. So Julia, Scott, and I all push a cart and we load them with a couple months' worth of shopping. We're like war-scared refugees, we can't quite believe that we live an hour out of Nairobi instead of Bundibugyo, so we still shop as if we won't see civilization for the near future. Peanut butter and toothpaste and dish soap and butter enough to outfit several families. By 7 am we have crossed the city and are emerging out the other side just as traffic starts to snarl. And just as Java House opens, so we stop for a hot breakfast, hungry 4 hours into our day.
Home. It does feel like home, now, particularly after being away. Star. Kijabe is cool, greener than we left it, damp. It takes most of the day to unpack, sort, clean, wash. But in Bundi it would take me most of the week. It is good to be back, to cook and wash dishes, to answer the phone, to be still. This is Africa, and home is not to be taken for granted. We are missing Luke terribly, we are missing the dear friends we just retreated with, we are missing Bundibugyo. But we embrace this place and time. Which is a lot easier to do with a washing machine.
1 comments:
nice use of the "Obama" - I like that :) and the German anti-lust evangelist - hilarious! Watch out for us smiling Germans - never know what's behind that grin!
Post a Comment