Matatu Matata

Matatu Matata
(Matatu Troubles)

Outside Nairobi, the Kenyan matatus are the main form of public transport. Despite attempts to regulate them, they continue to be overcrowded, unsafe and plagued by corruption. It seems to be the only way to keep their use affordable by the general population. The Matatu Matata stories give an idea of the discomfort of matatu travel ... but also reveal the camaraderie one experiences on one of these tiny buses meant to carry sixteen passengers.

A TRIP ON MATATUS FROM UGANDA TO KENYA

On January 1, 2003, both Sarah and I were suffering from diarrhea, caused, we suspect, by the copious quantities of White Nile water we had consumed while attempting to roll our kayaks. The previous night we had gone to bed dosed with Cipro and Immodium while others celebrated New Year's Eve with more conventional poisons. It stormed all night and in the morning the area was hit with a second storm that continued to pour water onto the red roads, flooding tents, roiling up the water, uprooting trees, and flattening bandas. When I opened my eyes around 8 a.m., Timothy said quietly from his bunk down by the door, "I don't think you will be able to get out of here on boda bodas (bicycle taxis) at ten, Barbara. The roads will all be washed out and the boda bodas will be unable to navigate them." Great.

I took another Cipro and walked through the rain to the toilet area. Water streamed down my face as I brushed my teeth with bottled water, and I suffered through a cold shower hoping it would make me feel better. It didn't.

At the bar the word was that everyone was still recovering from the night before and we would never get out today. Couldn't I hire the truck to get us to Jinja, I asked. No. It would not be available. Our only hope was to make our way up to the high road with our packs in the pouring rain and hope that we could flag down a vehicle of some kind.

I ordered dry toast and bottled water and told Sarah the news. She wondered if we should stay. Then Nick arrived, saying he too wanted to go to Kenya today. Sarah looked very white as she went back to the banda she had slept in when the storm destroyed her tent, and Nick went off to salvage his drenched tent and sleeping bag for the journey. I sat on one of the few dry chairs crunching dry toast between chattering teeth. Timothy came in and made some enquiries. A few minutes later he announced that LesGo would drop us in Jinja on his way to Kampala. I collected Sarah and Nick and we headed out with LesGo.

In Jinja we clambered onto the only matatu going to Malaba, and then we sat ... and sat ... and sat ... for three hours. Sarah and I endured ... and drank water ... a little nervously since we had no idea how long we would be on the road and although we had plugged up the diarrhea with Immodium, our kidneys were still functioning and our bladders had limits.

At 1 p.m. the matatu had twelve people on board and finally pulled out of the car park onto the street and then sat awhile longer waiting for two Muslim girls who had disembarked earlier. At last we were ready to go and we set off for the border. Along the route there were a few stops ... to buy roasted corn ... and bananas ... and soft drinks ... and once to take photos of a baboon who begged for roasted corn remnants. Meanwhile the rain that had begun the night before continued to fall.

At Malaba my first stop was the ladies' loo ... where I discovered a naked young man showering ... I told my bladder to hang on and went to get my passport stamped. A little boy with sad eyes tried to con us into buying bananas from him for triple the going rate. Several people asked me to play the bowl lyre I was carrying and several Kenyans exulted over the election results. The Kenyan policeman at the gate was suffering from too much New Year's cheer and couldn't even see the passports. He tried to give me Nick's British passport and argued when I said it was Nick's. All this with a show of authority that became ludicrous in his sodden state. His friends laughed at his drunkenness.

And then we got onto the next matatu. Nick's first experience with a Kenyan matatu. This one carried about twenty passengers and had some sort of engine trouble which forced the driver to re-start at every pause along the way before we were able to lurch forward once more in first gear.

At one stop a drunk leaned in to breathe New Year's wishes and to expound on the election results. Nick looked nonplussed. I felt okay. It felt like I was home in Western Province where political discussion is the norm.

At Bungoma we were accosted by a gang of shouting touts trying to get us to take this matatu or that. Finally I shouted that I wasn't going anywhere as long as they kept yelling at me. We got onto a matatu whose driver promised that he was going immediately. Half an hour later I teased him about his idea of immediately and we bantered a bit. Once we had twenty-five people on board with three touts and other guys hanging out the doorway we got underway with a great deal of fanfare. The door hangers were not quite sober.

We stopped to let out one person and three more got on. A little boy with a chicken, a babe in arms and their mother. She was the largest woman I have ever seen and she squashed herself and the baby in beside me. As the matatu careened around a corner the baby began to cry and she pulled a basketball-sized breast out into the open to feed him. She hauled him into a sitting position and stuck the plumlike nipple into his mouth. He sucked lustily and watched my every move with shiny black eyes.

Suddenly we were off the road and in a yard. The police had demanded we come in for a check. Perhaps because we were carrying almost double the number of passengers the vehicle could hold? I never did find out. Half an hour later we were again on the road but the numbers had decreased and the touts were not hanging out the open doorway. I began to fear for the safety of the woman and her baby and I put my arm around her shoulders to hold her on. I have absolutely no idea whether I could have been of any use if she had actually started to fall out. Would I have been about to hold a weight of three or four hundred pounds if it had begun to slip out? Before I could worry too much about the felicity of helping her, the matatu stopped and we were told to board a second matatu.

This time I moved to the back where I would not be squashed between the mother and Sarah. Instead five of us squeezed ourselves into a seat that would comfortably hold three and I spent the next hour or so with an iron support bar denting my upper arm.

As it began to grow dark I realized that we would have to put Nick up for the night and I thought of how we would get ourselves from the gas station home in the dark ... taxi? ... walking? We decided to walk along the main road to Kefinco despite the dark and the possibly hazardous condition of the road or the other pedestrians about. We were fine, and when the door swung open to reveal an anxious Julius, I felt awfully glad to be home. Marie burst out as soon as she heard the clatter and enveloped us in great motherly hugs making us feel doubly welcome.

What have I learned? Do not travel on public holidays. Never leave for home the day before you must arrive. Despite the matatus, Kenya ... and especially Kakamega ... feels like home.