Kenyan Road Trip
1st October 2006
I've been working pretty hard on the grassrootsuganda.com website and
needed a break. My good friends Sporty
Spice, Hippy Chick and
Mimi were all heading off on road trips
of various lengths. I decided to join them for the Kenyan leg.
Getting
there
Some things just work well together. Whoever thought of
combining chocolate and bananas needs a pat on the back.
Ditto for the peach and the apple that combine so scrumptiously to
create a nectarine. The less obvious vegemite and pancakes also
gets a nod.
Some things seem as if they should work together,
but do not. A car made completely of plastic is stupid.
Frozen popcorn, a Sylvester Stallone comedy and William Shatner's
version of Mr. Tambourine Man are all ill-fated.
An overnight bus trip I took from Kenya to Uganda
should of been a winning combination. The bus was in great condition. It
had leg room, decent seats and didn't rattle itself to death on the
dodgy roads. A marked contrast from this bus
and its associated journey. Sleeping in a comfortable chair while traveling
seems like a great combination. Unfortunately, it combination fell
into the same category as government and actors.
Most of the problem stems from the bus driver
we had. Every internal light would be flicked on given half an
excuse. Sometimes there was good reason - like the bus being
searched by machinegun totting guards - sometimes there was not - like
the driver experiencing fungal itch. Fungal itch is not a good
reason for waking everyone on the bus.
His judder bar (or speed bump for my North
American friends) technique is just vindictive. Once the front
axle has gently bounced over the judder bar - heaven forbid the driver
experiences any discomfort - the driver accelerates madly away so that
the rear axle and judder bar maliciously collide and everyone in the
back is bounced from both their seat and sleep.
Waiting for recently boarded passengers to find
their seat before taking of at breakneck speed must seem like some sort
of joke to the bus driver.
Why would he do such tosser things?
Because he - and other bus drivers - are on a power trip methinks.
Yeah. That's right. I'm the bus
driver. I'm the man. I have the power and there's nothing
you can do about it. You don't like it? Tough.
The border clerks are just as bad. They
know you have to be nice to them or else they won't give you your
visa/passport stamp. Mimi, Sporty Spice, Hippy Chick and I all had
similar stories. Mimi and Sporty paid $US20 at the Uganda-Kenya
border, Hippy Chick and I paid $US40. We were all the mercy of the
power-hungry border clerk.
It reminds me of minimum-wage retail workers in
New Zealand who insist on following the rules to the nth degree.
Them:
I'm thory thir. You haff to provide proof of method
of payment before we can ithue you a ticket
Me: But you acknowledge that I
paid for it, what does it matter how I paid for it?
Why does that prevent me from getting my plane ticket?
Them: I'm thory thir. You
haff to provide proof of method of payment before we can ithue you
ticket.
Me: ...
(True story. I ended up paying for a second ticket and my
lovely mother spent the next six months trying to get a refund
back for the pointless second ticket.) |
Many Adventures
The girls and I had many adventures in Kenya including:
Heading Back
As I have noted on several occasions, I love meeting
new interesting people on this perpetual volunteer stint, but I hate
saying goodbye to them.
Before heading back to Uganda I had to say
goodbye to Mimi - a lovely
person and a good friend who I shall miss. Sporty
Spice (Ciarra to her mother) and Hippy
Chick (Lee to hers) are heading off on their own road trip to South
Africa and back. So I will see both of them again - which is nice
as they are both cool people whom I will miss when they finally leave
Africa.
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me.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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