NIGHT BUS

NIGHT BUS



“What are you looking for, young lady?”

“My phone is missing.”

“Eh, when did you realize?”

“ Just after Kisumu.  I used it after Nakuru.  Now it is missing.  We have tried to call the number but it is on ‘mteja’ (mobile subscriber cannot be found).  Some one has already switched it off!”

“Conduct a search, Madame.  Where is your seat?  Check all those people around there. Search them…. even the women.  Women are bad these days.  They put things in bikers.  You know bikers are very tight.  They can hold things…”

And so began another adventure on the night bus from Nairobi to Siaya.  We had left Nairobi at 9.45 p.m. only fifteen minutes later than it said on the ticket.  A big improvement from the last time.  The ticket said reporting time 10.00, departure 10.30.  As it turned out the bus did not arrive until midnight!

I fell asleep almost as soon as we set off.  This despite a 2-hour nap that afternoon.  I just can’t seem to catch up on my sleep!  Travelling overnight wasn’t going to help either, because you cannot get a full measure of sleep sitting upright in a vehicle moving over roads as rough as we get in this country.  Worse still you may have a  neighbour who in his drunken stupor keeps falling on you, or one who snores, or worse still, one who cannot keep his hands to himself!  If you are really unlucky a window somewhere will not close properly so your anti-cold arsenal will not work – it assumed all openings would be closed.

At the start it was an uneventful journey.  I felt the stop at Naivasha, it must have been.  Slowing down, lights on, then the driver saying

“ Wale wanataka kujisaidia…”  (those who wish to use the toilet…”

Then people streaming out…coming back in, the bus starting off again.  I heard or sensed all this but did not stir.  I have mastered the art of ‘sleeping’ through. After all that is what I normally do at night.

I heard a few comments about how well the driver was handling the bus.  The guys behind me were definitely not in sleep arrears.  They kept up non-stop banter.  It was quite interesting.  I gathered they were either retirees or retrenchees.  One of them had landed a ‘well paying job’ with a road contractor, ‘because I had a god father’.

“But those Germans (the company was headquartered in Germany) are looking for experience. Sio hawa vijana vijana wanakuja kuharibu kazi” (not young people who don’t handle the job well.)

So with the deadly combination of experience, Godfather and papers, he was rich enough to travel up country this weekend to start the process of building a stone house. 

They lamented the insensitivity of roadside hawkers. 

“Now that man has lost his mother, and some one wants him to buy a shirt.  1000/=.  Is he thinking about shirts or coffin, sugar….’wageni’ (visitors)?”

“Yes, came the rejoinder.  They try to interest you in all sorts of things. If you are not careful, you will not accomplish what you set out to do, because of spending money on the way.”

They then talked about kept women.  I did not get to hear which ethnic grouping they were referring to, but I understood they were talking about a certain area in the country, ‘where there is hunger.’ If a man could guarantee a woman regular meals, she was his for the keeping.
Then they went back to the ‘life after job’ discussion.  One of them began to recite his CV, wondering whether he might get as lucky as his companion. 

“You just send it.  You may send it through me and I will see what I can.  I believe the company is looking for people in your area of specialization.  I marveled at their energy and wondered whether they knew each other before or had just met on the bus…

Another stop.  This time the driver said

“Dakika kumi tu” (ten minutes stop). 

I continued to ‘sleep’, taking the opportunity of a still bus to lean against the window.  This gave some support to my neck.  If you do that while the bus is moving you risk damaging your neck.  The rough roads make a rough ride. If that doesn’t get you, the cold will.  The curtains, though a step in the right direction, hardly keep out the chill.

I must have really slept then, because the next thing I knew, the bus had stopped at Luanda, and this girl was looking for her phone. I hear the buses need to stop here so as to avoid driving through a dangerous part of the district.  I wonder why they do not elongate the stops at more ‘happening’  places… or drive slower.

“Maybe it fell out of your pocket.  Have you checked under the seat?” someone ventured.

I think the girl made a motion to do just that, but obviously it did not satisfy someone else.

“Go on your knees girl.  You must be prepared to get dirty.  Do you want your phone back or not?  What make is it?”

“Nokia”

“That is money.  It is a lot of money. Mobile phones are no longer luxuries.  You can be somewhere and really need it”, ventured the man behind me.

“Look under all the seats.  Even the ones in front.  The phone might have fallen and slid forward.”

“No, it cannot slide forward.  It is not possible.  Kwani this bus is driving at what gradient?”, said an obvious JJ (Jaluo Jeuri, but do I say?).

On and on, advise from all corners.

Not everybody was being helpful though.

The lady on my right said, under her breath

“I doubt she had a phone.”

Another lady doubted the information about using it after Nakuru.

“That phone was stolen in Nairobi.  I don’t think she got onto the bus with it.  This bus company is serious.  It cannot allow thieves onto their buses”.

“How would they know?  Ventured JJ.  Thieves look like ordinary people.”

“I have known their own staff to steal from each other”, said my neighbour, more loudly this time.

Then, out of the blue

“Where is the one who has lost a phone?  Why are you so quiet?  You are not dot com.  Ati wanataka 70% kwa bunge ijayo (they (women) want 70% (no matter that it is actually 30% ) representation in the next parliament ).  You must speak up; otherwise you (women) will go to parliament and say ‘yes, yes’ to everything. 

“They won’t get it.  Si Kilifi imefutiliambali kila kitu.  Wanjiku hana mdomo”. (Has Kilifi not reversed everything?  Wanjiku has no say).

And so the discussion moved to the constitution. A lot of misrepresentation of facts, in my view.  But who was checking at 4.00am on a cold dark rainy July night?  Just listening to the discussion on the bus, it was clear ‘wanainchi’ were not for the Kilifi draft.  But who’s to say?  After all, this busload represented one ethnic grouping only.  Their views certainly did not represent the national view.

In the mean time the search for the missing phone continued.  Someone offered to help the girl search. 

“And I will search everyone, including women” 

Some protests at this, but support as well. 

“Yes, women these days steal as well.  In fact they are ringleaders and master mind huge operations”.

Some movement from the back of the bus, some loud protests, then, quietly, a voice says

“I suspect that woman with a baby.  Why is she so hostile?”

More movement, more words. Back and forth.  But no ‘eureka’.

After what seems like a very long time, but is in fact about an hour, the bus begins to move.  A short distance away there is a police roadblock.  Some one tells the police that a phone has been stolen, and they troop in, raincoats dripping, guns in hand.  I shudder at the thought of a gun firing ‘by mistake’.  I envision a commotion, and the need to keep order by firing in the air.  I know that the limited space in the bus means not much air to fire into, so I imagine bullets (it is never just one shot), bouncing off the sides of the bus and hitting people.  I see the following day’s headlines ‘suspected thieves shot on Kampala bound bus’.  I know, it is not headed to Kampala, but isn’t it a the case that the facts are never correct.  At the point I rouse myself into wakefulness.  I am alert, considering my chances for escaping the mayhem that is likely to erupt.

But nothing of the sort happens.  The police just ask if anyone has already alighted.  They ask everyone to move out, one by one.  They will search as we go out.  They even say they cannot search women.  That it should be done by a woman.  I am surprised because we just don’t associate any kind of sensitivity with our police force.  I feel that this is a good omen. The operation will go well.

Someone suggests that the victim, a woman, search the women.  And so we begin to troop out: one by one, babies as well, into the cold rainy dark night.  We open our purses and the inexperienced lady touches our pockets (top layer only, we all have at least two layers of clothing to keep out the cold). I think to myself that I could hide a phone on me and she would never find it, the way she is conducting this search.  My turn comes to an end and I move to the veranda of a bank.  It is pitch black.  Nothing like the well lit bank premises in the capital city.  It hits me then that the only lights in sight at that moment are the interior bus lights, and the two torches being used for the search.  I smile wryly at the stark difference between the capital and this small rural town.  Then I notice through the windows that the police are searching the bags left inside the bus. 

“Should we not be present?” I ask no one in particular.

I mentally go through the contents of my bag.  I have two items that might interest a third party: a camcorder and a torch.  I keep my eyes fixed on the team searching bags inside the bus.  Thankfully they stop before they get to my bag. 

“ Watu waingie” (get back in), a voice says. 

Slowly we head back in.  One of the policemen is looking for his torch.  I panic briefly, thinking if he does not get it things may not be good.  But he does. 

Another night bus passes by, and a few heads stick out of windows, wondering, no doubt, why our bus has been stopped at the roadblock.  Perhaps someone on that bus says a quick prayer, thankful it is not his bus that has been stopped. If his luggage were to be searched… He could always deny it was his.  It happened once, on another bus ride.  No one laid claim to a sack full of ‘beans’.  The police took it away.  I still wonder what really was in the sack.

Soon we are on our way.  In half an hour we will arrive at the final destination.  The phone has not been found.