WHAT A RIDE!
By Charity Kuria
They are the last places to have peace of mind. The salon and the inside of a matatu. Let me take on these mabasi aka manyanga. There is everything you know! That random guy who will enter and start preaching loudly struggling to be heard over the noise, that hawker who has everything from dawa ya panya, mende and viroboto, sweets and torch etc. Then, there is that other one selling stronger than strong mukobero.
Now, there are two things involved, if you miss the loud preacher then there is loud music with DJ Demakufu on the decks. Thiiiitima! And there is WI-FI too. The makanga will then decide that the music isn’t loud enough and will request the driver to turn it up. The driver is one obedient person!
The
passenger on your right is eating roast maize and is talking loudly on
the phone. The one on the left has a mouth emitting raw sewer and
insists on striking a conversation with you. As if that is not enough
torture the damn windows won't open. So you are stuck in the middle
wishing for the driver to step on the brakes harder while the heaven
keeps you safe.
Normally for some reason the conductor is never alone but has this gang standing by the unclosed door having a leisure talk, whose strong stench of sweat when combined with other undefined odours in the bus hits hard that it feels like been electrocuted.
You have no choice than try to lock out everything and everyone around you and instead concentrate on your phone. At least the Wi-Fi is working and soon you are lost in another world save for that occasion when you are almost tossed out of your seat thanks to emergency brakes when the driver comes close to hitting another vehicle or when jumping the road bumps.
You are so much engrossed on that heated conversation and smiling at that joke on your WhatsApp group that you hardly realise that your battery charge is dying up until when that warning message pops up. Damn! You curse as your phone goes goodbye.
By this time the traffic is hardly moving. Have you ever realised how the inside of an unmoving bus can get unbearably hot not to mention stuffy? Now everybody is practically bored with some of them dozing with their mouths wide open. Even the guy with the roast maize has slipped on to another world. The maize cob held limply in his hands drops and rolls all the way down and stops right by the conductor’s feet who then kicks it out through the open door.
With that gone you start admiring the graffiti and posters that has been used to ‘pimp’ the manyanga. Stickers that indicate the rules of the bus. ‘NO PREACHING, EATING OR HAWKING IN THE BUS’ another will read ‘NO STANDING ON THE SEATS’ ‘ My business is protected by the blood of Jesus’ ‘Are you tired of BEDBUGS? Call this and this number’ beneath the stickers Rick Ross is biting hard onto his necklace. Mentally you sing his lyrics
You are shaken out of your reverie when the conductor bangs loudly on
the door reciting ‘shukisha’ the bus swerves dangerously as he makes a
stopover and a few people alight. Together with other passengers you
scramble to the vacated seats. I don’t know why people do this. Moving
to the newly vacated seat in front of you. Lol! You are next to alight!
Normally for some reason the conductor is never alone but has this gang standing by the unclosed door having a leisure talk, whose strong stench of sweat when combined with other undefined odours in the bus hits hard that it feels like been electrocuted.
You have no choice than try to lock out everything and everyone around you and instead concentrate on your phone. At least the Wi-Fi is working and soon you are lost in another world save for that occasion when you are almost tossed out of your seat thanks to emergency brakes when the driver comes close to hitting another vehicle or when jumping the road bumps.
You are so much engrossed on that heated conversation and smiling at that joke on your WhatsApp group that you hardly realise that your battery charge is dying up until when that warning message pops up. Damn! You curse as your phone goes goodbye.
By this time the traffic is hardly moving. Have you ever realised how the inside of an unmoving bus can get unbearably hot not to mention stuffy? Now everybody is practically bored with some of them dozing with their mouths wide open. Even the guy with the roast maize has slipped on to another world. The maize cob held limply in his hands drops and rolls all the way down and stops right by the conductor’s feet who then kicks it out through the open door.
With that gone you start admiring the graffiti and posters that has been used to ‘pimp’ the manyanga. Stickers that indicate the rules of the bus. ‘NO PREACHING, EATING OR HAWKING IN THE BUS’ another will read ‘NO STANDING ON THE SEATS’ ‘ My business is protected by the blood of Jesus’ ‘Are you tired of BEDBUGS? Call this and this number’ beneath the stickers Rick Ross is biting hard onto his necklace. Mentally you sing his lyrics
…Collar on my Polo, kisses on my necklace,
All my diamonds watching, now my watches getting jealous
Smoking on a bomb in my autograph…
All my diamonds watching, now my watches getting jealous
Smoking on a bomb in my autograph…
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