Dust. Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu. More dust. More names I’ll never remember. Giraffe. Oh my god look, a giraffe. Definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Bumping along the Nairobi highway I knew I was in for an adventure. I was 22, invincible, and the only white girl on her way to one of the more remote villages in Kenya. The day before I’d bought a ticket on a first class coach to the nearest major town – my final luxury purchase for the next three months. A day later as I boarded a beat up, overcrowded old bus I was starting to feel I’d been severely ripped off. A chicken was frantically squawking under my feet and every hour or so the entire population of the bus would push and crowd around my seat, pulling potatoes and oranges purchased from roadside sellers – who could be seen on the horizon running towards the bus with their arms extended, like gazelles – through the gaps in the window.
After six hours of incessant bumping and dust I was hot, hungry and terrified. There was an old mama sitting next to me, dozing on my shoulder. Periodically she’d wake up, jabbering and manically gesticulating about having a son who had a house in a town called Eldoret and try and push food into my mouth. Ravenous though I was I’d been told not hours before by my Kenyan friend not to touch a single thing anyone tried to give me.
“When you are on the bus, do not take anything.”
“…Wait, what do you mean?”
“Do not touch anything. If someone gives you something, give it back. And please do not eat. Do not take anything in your mouth. It may kill you.”
Who was I to take such a warning flippantly? Keen for adventure, yes. Looking for guaranteed doom? Hell no. So there I sat, with a half chewed chapati my hands and a grin fixed to my face, trying not to cry.
To put things into perspective, I’d spent months preparing for this trip. It was to be the trip of a lifetime. My first overseas adventure to the remotest place I could find and legitimately be placed in. I’d been told that I would be living with the director of a charity and his wife in a secure compound and to expect no electricity and limited running water. In my mind this equated to a romantic three months spent reading by candlelight and watching kids play soccer in a field that may or may not contain a few healthy looking farm animals. Possibly even a horse.
In reality what I should have been told to do was to sit down and watch repetitive hours of World Vision ads. As the bus raced further away from civilisation my polite smile began to fade as we passed endless towns made up of sticks and UN food sacks. Everything was brown. Piles of rubbish created extensive landscapes of hills and valleys and while there were fields – gorgeous green fields full of tea, sugarcane and maize corn – there were few children well enough to play soccer, even if they could afford the ball.
Pulling in to Kakamega as the sun began to fade the few locals who were left of the bus were convinced I’d missed my stop. I was beginning to think the same. But no. There, leaning against a beat up, rusty Toyota was the guy that was presumably my host dressed in an outrageous red paisley suit jacket straight from the sixties and patched up brown leather shoes. Holding a grubby piece of A4 paper with what was close enough to be my name scribbled on it he grinned when he saw me and yelled out something in Swahili. I smiled back.
“Hello. Onesmus?”
“Hallo Varity. Yes, it is me. Quickly, get in the car. You are late.”
“This car?” Oh God, I’m going to die.
“Yes. It is a taxi. Please help the driver with fifty American dollars.”
Fifty dollars seems a small price to pay for the privilege of seeing your life flash before your eyes. If the bus driver was on crack, careening along the rim of the Great Rift Valley, then I hate to think what our taxi driver had taken as he sped along mere suggestions of dirt roads that were more strings of potholes than anything else. Appearing to either not know where the brake pedal was, or figuring it was there for purely decorative purposes, the driver and Onesmus chatted amiably in the front of the car as I gripped the headrest of the seat in front of me and said my final prayers. Typically, all I could think of was my mother.
“You’ll get yourself killed over there.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen. God. You’d think no-one had ever been to Africa before.”
“Well, Who knows where you’re going. Do you even know where you’re going? We’ll have to come and dig you out of a ditch. If we can ever find you. My only daughter, raped and murdered for a cheap pair of hiking boots.”
“Ha. Get over yourself mum. You should be so lucky.”
Sitting in the car I finally realised the enormity of what I’d done. I’d turned up to a country in Africa with no means of contacting anyone from home, caught a bus quite literally into the middle of the jungle and hopped into a car with two strange men, one of whom the only details I had were a first name and email. I was traveling way too fast along roads that were lined with people dressed poorly, sheltering under makeshift huts in the mud. If I were back in Australia and heard about this I’d think what a flipping idiot. As we rounded corners on two wheels and then men in the front of the car turned from black to white I finally realised the problem. The brakes had failed and we were rushing down a hill, skidding across the track before finally slamming to a stop at the base of a large eucalyptus that creaked and crackled at the assault.
Poking his head into the backseat, Onesmus looked relatively undisturbed. While I was occupied with with quieting the hysterical screaming in my head, my pack was hauled from the car into a tiny but homely hut made from mud, nestled in a picturesque little clearing.
“Sorry, pardon?”
“Karibu Shikunga! Welcome! You have very, very nice shoes.”
