So my job sometimes has me travelling a bit...this particular mission saw me going to homabay and kipkelion...im not particularly a big fan of road trips (esp long ones) but push came to shove and there was no way i was getting out of this particular situation so off i went..
on the plus side...we used the narok road which is shweeeeeeee...so pass thru masaaini, kaleoland, kwa wakisii and finally kwa ancestors of obama....aside from the winding hilly roads of kisii, the barabara like i said is ...shweeeeeeeee...until u reach the outskirts of homabay town...do you know the meaning of barabara imeisha? iliisha! right as you get to the outskirts of the town...so im thinking...hmmm...in other towns its the roads in the towns that are good and the ones outside the town that are well, not roads really. On the plus side the fish was great!! fressss!
haya, twende kipkelion...tunarudi vizuri hadi kericho..theres a junction somewhere there with a road heading to kisumu...tunaingia huko...ile part hatukuambiwa ni china wu yi wamekuwa wakifanya construction on a strech of road there...barabara nayo? terrible! and apparently its a shortcut, most of the buses and mololines use that route..wah!
then we finally get to kipkelion...we are here to see a boy named amos...he was kind enough to inform us that he'd gotten another scholarship and so we needed to pick up all the stuff we had bought for him. anaishi place inaitwa 'fort tenan'. to get to fort tenan, u first need to go to muhoroni then branch into kipkelion...wacha tuanze kuuliza wakenya hiyo place ni wapi
"haiitwi fort tenan...ni fatena"...and i think they got it all wrong when they said kaoz "noovaa" means we are not even close to the destination..."fatena ni hapa tu" tulishindwa tukiambiwa...that was 3 hrs ago!
tulifika fatena...pahali masign board ziko hakuna barabara...wah! thankfully we needed not get into the town...just to amos' home. network nayo? coming and going. half an hour later tunaongea na grandpa...hajui kiswahili sana...just kinandi...so cant help us much...headteacher comes to the rescue...we are in business! so where is this amos' home? "u see that hut up there? its over there", the headteacher tells us.
up there is on top of a hill...ok. so now we are hiking up a hill...niko na open shoes...wah! tukikaribia...watu wanatoroka from all directions...ok, wild animal maybe? whats goiing on? and who will save us?
kinandi inakorogwa between headie and grandpa...headie tells us this is the home but grandpa does not want us to come in..he points us to sit on some stones a few meters away...weird...strange even. me im just like, lets get this over with. wheres amos? oh, hes somewhere hearding the cattle...someone is sent to get him. we are told to wait...as i sit i get this whiff of a very strong smell...im thinking to myself maybe ni shags smell...u know the cowshed, fertilizer in the shamba etc smell?
i want to ask but im not sure if it will be taken kindly...ninanyamaza. finally the cats let out of the bag...headie tells us, the villagers thought u were from the DC's office, thats why they ran away? oooh! ok, why would they think that? "coz the grandpa here brews an illegal brew and any authorities are big trouble for him". eureka! thats the smell ive been whiffing! its a changaa den...wah! poor amos, what a way to grow up! we assure him we are not interested in the changaa, just the boy.
amos shows up 20 minutes later and we get our stuff and head out...but before leaving a few guys want us to buy them a drink (and i mean that changaa brewing at the moment). we politely decline, who wants to be responsible for five guys going blind afta drinking that stuff?
as we head out, im thinking about amos, how does he grow up in such a place and manage 370 marks in kcpe? the education is so bad, theres no stima, he's an orphan and his grandpa is brewing some strange booz kwa nyumba. its afta such scenes that i begin to understand why ministry of education would give such boys a chance at national schools...if u can manage such marks in such a dysfunctional society...then u have what it takes to make it in life.
we take the rest of that bad stretch of road until londiani (as we enviously look at the china wu yi's at work) then the driver asks if the chinese are doing damage with the women here as they have been doing with the women at thika road? classic 105 had a topic about a man leaving his wife after she gave birth to a chinese baby.
our next stop is nakuru where we meet a girl from the ogiek community...its mind blowing that this girl could escape the traditions and manage a 380 in kcpe. i want to do more reserch on the ogieks, all i know is that they are meant to be either going extinct or very marginalised.
now im tending to my back which can no more take the stress from the journey...but it was quite the eyeopener.
