Sometimes ignorance is surely bliss - Part 1

You are going on a long journey of some 700 kilometers or so so the logical thing is to start your journey early, know the weather prevailing where you are headed so as to carry the right attire and also plot a course where you can stop for refreshments and to stretch your legs and work of that benign deep vein thrombosis sitting just below the veins in your legs. Easier said then done............but think again!!

We set of at 7.00 a.m on our maiden journey to Uganda the Pearl of Africa in a hired minibus. We were 16 of us, three families inclduing adult kids and our luggage. We were 45 minutes late but so what? After all we were going a mere 700 kilometres or so from Nairobi to Kampala and at a sedate speed of 80 km/h we would be there in 9 hours.....10 hours tops, meaning that we would be greedily gulping in the fresh Kampala air by 5.00 p.m. The mood was euphoric and positive never mind the fact that some looked the worse for wear no doubt a reminder of their carousing the previous night. The route was decided upon as the longer Nairobi-Nakuru-Eldoret-Malaba one as the Mau Summit-Kericho-Kisumu-Busia route was said to be under construction and therefore very slow and difficult going. The weather in Kampala was focussed to be overcast with showers and thunder storms for the fours days we would be there.

Barely out of Nairobi, we encountered our first stop. The driver of the minbus had not been home for several days and as he was scheduled to be out of town over the Christmas period had planned to meet his daughter somewhere along the way to give her some money. This took but four minutes but should have been an ominous sign of what awaited us all day long. Soon after passing Uplands, one of us who suffered from motion sickness suffered an attack and we had to stop off at a petrol station for him to be sick and go to the toilet. Thankfully we had a doctor on board who presecribed some pills for him to take to control the motion sickness which were procured at a nearby pharmacy.

The driver having eaten his breakfast (it turns out he had arrived in Nairobi at 3.00 a.m), the patient somewhat cured, 30 minutes later we set off on our merry way, down into the escarpment and on into Naivasha where our first official toilet break awaited us at "Delamare" for15 minutes or so. On we ploughed thereafter - Mau Summit, Timboroa, Burnt Forest - and just as we approached Eldoret our first major hurdle, a massive traffic jam on the diversion where they are redoing the road caused by overlapping, impatient drivers in a hurry to get to their destinations. So there we were stuck for almost an hour and 15 minutes while the mess untangled itself. Our next stop was scheduled to be at Sirikwa Hotel Eldoret but just on the outskirts of Eldoret our sick friend unable to wait a moment longer decided he needed another toilet break so we stopped for another 15 minutes as he did his thing.

Finally we arrived in Eldoret, this one street town that has experienced phenomenal growth in the last few years but where no one seems to have thought to expand the road networks or even have a by-pass around the town for those with no business passing through the town centre. Traffic was at a crawling pace until Sirikwa Hotel, where after a well deserved toilet break and a light refreshment, chips and sausage for those really hungry we set off an hour later back into the crawling traffic that would take us another 45 minutes to get to the Kitale turnoff. It was now approaching 4 pm and we had another 130 kms to get to Malaba and then cross over into Uganda.

By now, a majority of us were in high spirits having partook of the drinks that inevitably accompany such a journey. The obvious downside to this is the need for a toilet break.....or two.....or three! Suffice is to say that we finally rolled into the outskirts of Malaba shortly before 6.30 p.m to find a 4 km long traffic jam of trucks waiting to cross the border which is not unusual since small vehicles, mini buses and passenger buses have right of way and merely overtake the line of waiting trucks and give way to any oncoming traffic. This was not the case on this particular evening because out of desperation, anxiety or whatever some of the large trucks had also decided to join the smaller vehicles leading to the inevitable overlapping and traffic snarl ups as the oncoming trucks now had no room to pass through the bedlam created by this effect. It took up almost an hour to get to Malaba, Kenya and get our documents stamped for us to discover that the driver had only his driving licence and log book for the vehicle but no travel documents!!

.............(To be continued)

Being ‘eaten’ by an animal:

I have a feeling that many Kenyans are more scared of being ‘eaten’ by an animal then of being run over by a motor vehicle. Let me explain.

How many times do you get to visit someone’s house in one of the leafy suburbs and the first thing that comes to your mind once you drive into their compound is if they have a dog? Next you ask the question if there is a dog in plain view, “is it kali”? Or while out walking or jogging you come across a strange dog on your path and the first thing you want to do is cross over to the other side or stop jogging altogether because we all know that a dog will ‘chase you if you are running’ as you fearfully cast your eyes over your shoulder should the dog take an unhealthy interest in you sniffing at your heels as a dog is wont to do.

Many times the size of the dog doesn’t matter and it could be the scrawniest, mangiest, scared looking mongrel but the inborn fear is still in us to fear a dog…………hell any animal. You even go off to the Masai Mara and the inevitable question when you get back is whether you were scared of being ‘eaten’ by an animal.

Seriously folks, I have seen people almost trampling each other when a horse rears up on its hind legs at the Ngong Racecourse or in the City Centre when the police are trying to quell a demonstration, or grown men almost breaking their legs running away from a snake, in all likelihood a non-venomous one at that, sunning itself 10 feet away and what of those of us who are scared of spiders, lizards, geckos and chameleons almost falling down in our haste to get away as far as possible from the offending creature…………….and possibly being run over by a vehicle for our troubles!!

We are taught and conditioned from a very early age that any animal, wild or domestic, has the potential to do serious harm to you, and past experiences are shared with wanton abandon by our parents, aunties and uncles of being mauled by a dog, kicked by a cow, chased by a bull, butted by a goat etc in their youthful day and this is the reality that we face each day. The fact that corpses in many societies in Kenya in days gone by were left in the forest to be devoured by wild animals does not in any way reduce the believability of being ‘eaten’ by animals. Further, recent stories of a baby being half devoured by dogs soon after birth, or lions attacking a Manyatta and eating the livestock and leopards stalking and killing goats, dogs and other domestic animals means that being 'eaten' by animals is the worst nightmare for many.

If only we were also told of the dangers of dicing with death while walking on the road verge and not on the shoulder, crossing a road while the pedestrian lights are red, dashing across Thika Road or any other major highway with scores of hulking metal vehicles hurtling past at breakneck speeds inches from you so as to avoid a 50 meter walk to the pedestrian overpass and its relative safety we would surely be a saner, less suicidal society! Maybe it’s time we thought of policing our roads and highways with animals that would scare the living daylights out of us lest we get ‘eaten’.

Thank you for the year gone by......!

I have now been blogging for just over a year because it was on 7^th December 2011 that ‘Wondering Allowed’ was born..............371 days ago to be precise!!

The infrastructure has featured in my blogs mainly about Thika Road along where I live, so has the game of golf which I have too little time to play and enjoy in my limited free time, as have issues regarding my family and my friends, stories that touched me and which I shared and those that I culled from my C: drive written some time back but now adapted and updated to reflect the current situation. Politics, being the staple diet of the average Kenyan out there and being prone to cause disagreements based on biases, innuendos and insinuations took a back seat but got a toe in comment somewhere along the blogway (is there a word like that?) inspite of my decision even before I started the blog that politics would have no airtime on it!

I can now imagine what the editors of the ‘Nairobi Star’, that erstwhile precursor of ‘The Star’ must have felt when they initially decided to forego politics (or so I heard) when it was launched  only to change their editorial policy to include limited political commentary after realizing that politics is what sold newspapers in Kenya.

As I celebrate this anniversary let me mention that I have enjoyed the ride and the thrill of blogging because it has been an opportunity to write about things close to my heart, things that bothered and angered me, my feelings and instincts, my political grouses, my disappointments and anguish at promises made and not met, of incidents and accidents and issues of a general nature.

I have relished writing the articles despite occasional writers block (the bane of many writers and which I had no idea about before) and sharing them on my Facebook wall and the number of hits tells me that there are those out there who appreciate my blog and come back for more.  My target in 2013 is to get at least 50 followers and your recommendations and sharing of my posts and articles to those on your social network sites as well as your friends would be appreciated. Thank you for being a part of this blog in 2012.

 As we come to end the end of the year and the start of the New Year with all its drama, intrigues and political machinations, let us remember that we are all one nation of a Kenyan brotherhood (and sisterhood………gender sensitivity you know!) and we should treat each other with decorum, respect and admiration for each one of us shapes Kenya in our own unique way and without each other we would not be the same!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR as I continue to wonder allowed in the coming year!!

How to tackle the Thika super highway:

As I live somewhere in the vicinity of Thika Road, I always take it for granted that it is easy for anyone else unfamiliar with the road to make sense of how to get to your ultimate destination anywhere along that superhighway! After all it is well marked with various road signages, numbered exits and off ramps and other assorted road furniture and basically everything to make the savvy person get to where they need to be. How wrong I was!

It was while talking to a colleague recently that it dawned on me that it is not as easy as it seems to the uninitiated to get by on Thika Road and it is apparently now one of the most feared of roads to those unfamiliar with its since “you could easily find yourself in Thika” as was exclaimed to me by my colleague.

Let us just take an example of getting to and getting out of Safari Park Hotel which was easy in the days gone by since you just turned left off Thika Road on the Thika bound side of the dual carriageway when you got to the hotel signpost. When leaving the hotel  you exited onto Thika Road drove a few meters and then turned right onto the city bound side of the dual carriageway to find yourself safely homeward bound. Not anymore because now if you miss your exit you will have to spend a great deal of time getting back to the hotel.

For starters, the multi-lane highway and service roads for much of the Thika Road development is a one way system. No oncoming vehicles are allowed to hamper the flow of traffic though boda bodas and some psychotic motorists often do so very foolishly and obviously without due regard to their safety and that of other road users. All the exits are now indicated well in advance clearly showing which destination each exit will take you to and with arrows to show those unable to understand what to do. I suppose the developers of this road in all their wisdom assumed that all the motorists using the road are literate enough to read signs and have been to a driving school and understand the basic Highway Code and what all road signs mean though this may be a little far-fetched given the zig zag maneuvers of many drivers caught on the wrong outside lane and desperate to get to the inside correct lane for them to exit the highway safely !

Back to how you get to Safari Park Hotel. You are required to leave the highway on Exit 7 (any of the earlier exits will get you there along the service road), well-marked with the various places it takes you to including Safari Park Hotel. Follow the service road until the top of the Broadways overpass then make a left turn towards Uchumi ‘Jipange’ following the roundabout that takes you onto the service road leading all the way to Safari Park Hotel. If you miss Exit 7 to Safari Park, the next one is Exit 8 which goes to Kasarani area and Kamiti Road. You will be forced to use this exit double back under the Kasarani underpass get back onto Thika Road then go all the way back to Exit 7 and then right onto the Broadways overpass to use the service road past Uchumi ‘Jipange’ to ultimately get you to Safari Park, almost 5 kilometres longer than using the correct exit.

The above scenario is replicated for much of the length of the (super) highway and one will need to be keenly aware of what the road signs are telling you and what you are expected to do given that the developers recognized the challenges they would face if they made it easy for motorists (read PSV drivers) to just drive over the road divide (where possible) if you bypassed your exit and therefore erected huge curb stones and road dividers  that even the most determined  and foolhardy PSV driver would think twice before trying to tackle.