Things I Feel Strongly About: April 2014

When I departed Kenya that night in October 2013 after an eventful four-week holiday, (during which, among other things, the Westgate shopping mall terrorist tragedy happened, and only a few hundred metres from the location in Westlands, Nairobi that I had been visiting on the morning of the incident), I had no inkling that in a matter of months I would be back in this lively city. Yet here I was in the third week of April 2014, in Nairobi, lying in the same bed, in the same room, at the same hotel that I had stayed on my last visit.

The wonderful staff at the hotel seemed pleased to have me back as a guest. They even joked that they had reserved this very room specially for me, knowing that I would turn up again soon. And while it was nice to receive such a welcome and be treated as some kind of special customer, my stay at the hotel would be for just a few hours, because this time I had arrived in Kenya with a decidedly and altogether more intrepid mindset.

The journey to Nairobi had itself not been without its difficulties, what with a sleepless twelve-hour layover at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. But I thought of this only as a minor discomfort, for in my mind I was undertaking a voyage of discovery. The hope was that an annoyance such as this would be more than made up for in the end.

The trip was paid for with the few pennies I had been putting aside. I had left my last job a few months before, currently had no income, and had been busy for weeks searching furiously for a replacement employment. My bank account wasn't exactly bulging, but I managed to convince myself that notwithstanding, this short break would be well worth it even if the only way to justify it was to see it as a break from the stresses and frustrations of job searching.

I set out on the journey full of yearning and a desire for something different; in need of a diversion; something to take me and my mind to places we had never been. It had to be Kenya - there was a nagging feeling that I had previously only had a glimpse of the place; a nagging feeling that there was unfinished business that needed to be seen to; a feeling that translated into something like a magnetic attraction towards the place. So there was considerable anticipation and expectation. Nairobi, clearly, would not on this occasion be enough. I wanted more.

So the next morning after the night of my arrival in Nairobi, leaving my heavy travel bag behind for safekeeping in the back office of the hotel's reception, and armed with only a rucksack, I set out of town on a bus from the bus station at Mfangano Street, headed towards the town of Kericho, in the area known at the South Rift Valley. I had taken a ten-day break from my routine in London and this was one break I was determined to wring every drop of excitement and education out of.

My plan was to hop off the bus at Bomet, the county headquarters of Bomet County, meet up with my online friend Peter in town and then later make my way with him to his home on his farm, or "shamba". Shamba is the word for 'farm' in the Swahili language. And this is exactly what happened.

Meeting Peter in person for the first time was good, but spending quality time alone with him thereafter was much, much better. Instinctively, almost telepathically, each of us seemed to know what the other was thinking, and then we would exchange a knowing look. And I suspect too that his thoughts towards me were similar. But, erm, I digress.

The aim here is to attempt to discuss, as closely as I can, the way that I spent those ten days. So let me step backwards in time a little bit and describe my impressions and observations of that bus trip from Nairobi to the South Rift Valley.

As soon as the bus turned left off the A104, a road that runs northeastwards from Nairobi via Naivasha, the first striking observation was of the preponderance of agriculture activity wherever I looked or turned. A few kilometres beyond Maai Mahiu the town located at the junction where the bus turned off the A104, we came upon what I considered must be the Rift Valley itself. It revealed itself to me as a very steep precipice immediately to the left of the road that we were driving on, a precipice that was little too close to the tyres of the bus, (I thought to myself) and there was no protective barrier. It seemed almost as if the road had been constructed on top of a cliff and on the cliff's very edge. The cliff itself sloped downwards sharply, almost vertically for hundreds of metres at least. And while I do not consider myself to suffer from an irrational fear of heights, I'm not a mountaineer either. Neither am I a bird.

On the other side of the road to the right, another cliff, but this one rising vertically upwards such that the road appeared to have been constructed at the cliff's bottom or base. The road was clearly on the side of a mountain, winding its way around the mountain's side in sharp, tight bends and turns, the driver of the bus being careful to avoid oncoming traffic. I was later to learn that this geographical physical feature is known as The Escarpment.

I soon noticed that I was the only person on the bus who appeared to be nervous. The others seemed calm, nonplussed, those who weren't dozing happily were biting into their sugar cane or chewing on their roasted maize purchased from vendors who, when the bus stopped briefly at Maai Mahiu, had thrust their hands through the open windows holding cobs of maize and sticks of sugar cane.

And the bus continued on its way down this road located at the top of one cliff and at the bottom of another cliff on the opposite side of the road. But soon enough we descended from this mountainside on to a vast dry dusty plain that looked distinctly more arid than any other landscapes I had seen thus far on this bus trip, with dust-devils blowing everywhere. The dust-devils were even visible in the distance.. as far as the eye could see.