04-01-13
Earlier in the week my home stay had mentioned she had a full day in town planned for Thursday, to prepare for her daughters return to boarding school the following Monday, and there was a lot to do plus she needed to visit the fruit markets.... so obviously I offered to help....
Wow, I certainly gained an even greater insight and respect for the role of women in Kenyan society, chores that would have taken a matter of just a couple of hours in my world, took an entire day here and left us both throughly exhausted.
We left home a little after nine, expecting to fold our bodies into an over crowded Matatu, (an ancient Japanese commercial van, the type with a sliding door on the side, but with four rows of bench seats installed)..... at best a Matatu will have the legal number of twelve passengers, but on any given day that number may vary depending on need, and its not uncommon to find 20+ people along with huge bags and parcels both inside and strapped to the roof, and don't be alarmed if you glance across and see a caged chicken perched on a fellow passengers lap.
Matatu's cruise along the long straight Pipeline highway frequently, as one walks they pull in and pick you up, the fare varies from driver to driver (and if you're a lone mazungu expect to pay more than the average local) but the 20 km trip to town usually costs in the region of 50-70 ks about a dollar in our money... But this morning there was not a Matatu in sight... A recent spate of tragic Matatu road accidents, 21 deaths in two days in two separate accidents had spurred Nakuru traffic police to put road blocks in place to check the safety of local Matatu, hence most Matatu had gone into "hiding"... After a long wait, one finally one pulls in beside us, only to tell is he will only travel 5km up the road to Pipeline Junction, obviously the checks are past The Junction, but 5kms is better than nothing in this heat, so 20ks later we are off loading at Pipeline Junction with literally dozens and dozens of other locals wanting to get into town for work or shopping...... The wait was long and the sun was already baking down on us, full Matatu's were arriving, but only taking the 12 passengers they could legally carry. After an hour or so we finally get a ride the rest of the way, what had started out as a 15/20 minute journey had stretched to an hour and half!
The last time I came to town was to visit the fruit and vege markets with my homestay, I saw sights like nothing in my world.. And today proved to be no different, the markets open early, and I'm told one must buy before lunch time if you want the good stuff, these are winding lanes and sprawling open air markets with every fruit, vegetable, grain you can imagine, coupled with many items that were unidentifiable to an untrained mazungu eye.
Sacks of beans, lentils, rice, corn, maize and grains spew their contents onto a sack on the dusty unsealed pavements. I just love the way they vendors display their wares in cans stacked atop fat sacks arranged in artistic little piles.. Ancient metal scales with heavy weights are shared by stalls to weigh out produce that isn't sold by the scoop.. Tomatoes and other fruit and vegetables are stacked in small carefully arranged pyramids, and the noise is deafening as each vendor via's eagerly for your custom. Dark winding paths, lead us up to the banana area, where small sheds that can only be described as stables, house tons and tons of very fragrant ripe bananas.
My home stay barters and negotiates every single purchase and finally we leave with in excess of
25kg of fresh fruit and vegetables, crammed into two enormous bags..
Young boys appear from nowhere all eagerly offering to carry your bags to your next destination (at a price of course) we take one up on his offer and then leave our purchases with an acquaintance of my homestay (at a price, of course) All this has taken over and hour, and as the hour creeps towards 12, the sun is really burning down on us, the volume of people, the pushing, the shoving, the calling, all has to be experienced to be fully understood and appreciated. I glance down at my dusty, dirty feet and wonder if they will ever
look clean again.
This really is a day of extremes... .....Throughout the morning I have been communicating with some people I've met via Facebook, there are a group of Germans in town who run an organisation called Hardcore Help Foundation - HHF. (The work these people have done is amazing and deserves a post to itself)
We had agreed to meet, as I have offered to assist them with a medical camp they were planning out at the Giotto garbage slum on Saturday. So as 21st century communication meets the dusty market place I duck out to meet them for an hour or so... We agree to meet at a local mazungu hotel, so I set off down the hot and dusty Kenyatta Avenue, all the time hounded by the now familiar but constant calls of stall holders and the incessant beeping from the horns Matatus, motorbikes and tuktuk's.
As I step into the cool air conditioned confines of the Merica hotel I'm transported back in time to different world, this I believe is what colonial Kenya may have looked like. The door is held open for me by a very tall gentleman in top hat and tails, sporting a walking stick and a very serious demeanour, personally I believe he who would have looked more at home in the majestic red robes of the Masai herdsman I pass most mornings. I find myself standing in a entrance of a classic hotel, albeit with a decidedly African theme, the gleaming marble floor, the sumptuous couches could have been anywhere in the world.
I'm guided through to a beautiful fern lined covered seated area, i find myself sitting next to a beautiful crystal clear pool... How does this cool oasis exist only meters from the dusty, noisy chaos I've just stepped in from?
As new friends, we chat and become acquainted, the three organisers discuss the plans for the
upcoming medical camp and also for Sunday, (we have made plans to share expenses and take a day safari and sightseeing at the Nakuru national park... This is my treat to myself whilst I'm here, and I won't lie to you, I'm pretty excited at the prospect of seeing wild zebras, rhino, flamingo and maybe even a lion up close and personal) and to be doing this with a new group of friends is much better than going alone or with a guided tour. We bid farewell and agree to meet early Saturday morning.....
I head back into the hustle and bustle of Kenyatta Avenue to meet up with my homestay..
as she needs to visit the bank, again this is not a quick process, everything here requires patience, so with a hot and hungry nine year old in tow, I volunteer to take her to sit under the leafy canopy at a small open air cafe, Rift Fries. So my tired nine year old companion and I sit and sip ice cold soft drinks and people watch whilst her mums does her personal banking, at an adults pace, not at the pace of a nine year old with tired feet
Once the banking is done and a number of other very time consuming errands are completed, we carry yet another heavy box back to a secure point, my host knows somebody who will transport all the non perishable items home in his car for her, this is far more preferable to us, rather than taking them along with the many kilos of fresh fruit and vegetables. With the day drawing to a close, I'm told we need to visit the fish and chicken market, all I can say is.......OMG!!!!!
Again we pick our way along the tiny pot holed back alleys of the Nakuru markets. I find myself in places a lone mazungu would never have gone if visiting Nakuru, and as I step foot into the chicken market maybe I wouldn't have minded missing this one off my bucket list. But to be honest it's an "experience" if nothing else, we are here for chicken and by the smell and the noise we are in the right place. Stalls and stalls of dark scaled fish I've never seen before are piled high and I'm reminded of my daughters story's from her experience in the Quito markets in Ecuador.
As we make our way through the markets the stench is rank, dozens and dozens of cages line the walls, each one was once home to the produce now for sale in plastic bags on the table in front of us. Freshly slaughtered chickens complete with their entrails and their last fully formed but still shell'less egg sit in a bag, not unlike the goldfish I once used to eye at the fairground as a child in England. When our two foul are selected, the old lady vendor quickly pierces the corner of the bag, drains the fluid that surrounds the bird into a gutter by my feet and pops the contents into a small black plastic bag and we are on our way...Again I think to myself, "it would be so easy to be vegetarian here"
It's soon time to head home and as we make our way to the places my host has stored her purchases we become more and more laden down like a pack horse.. Fruit, veges, litres and litres of water, groceries, along with screeds and screeds of supplies and three pairs of shoes all for a nine year old heading back to boarding school.
If you recall the matatu drivers are not playing ball today, so I'm told we need to get a tuktuk home, so with great excitement (mine) we squeeze ourselves into this bizarre looking little vehicle... A tuktuk is a cross between something driven by Fred Flintstone and a carriage you might find on a ride at the fairground...each tuktuk is a three wheeled vehicle powered by a motorcycle engine with the driver (we had two) screened off from the passengers by a mesh screen, the vehicle is encased in a canvas like fabric and the side doors zip down, it's noisy, it's bumpy, and it cost us 500ks and about half and hour to travel the 20 or so kilometres home... And I loved it!!!!!!
When we all finally "hatch" out of our tuktuk the friendly driver allows me to photograph him and his very cute little vehicle, its been a very long, very enlightening day.
A day that I can say only reconfirmed yet again that the simple life isn't always the easy life. Today I have personally experienced how damned hard the average Kenyan woman works just to complete everyday chores that we take for granted.
Asante sana
Jacq
That's a cool car right they
ReplyDelete