The Road to Kisumu, one last time

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Heather said that the road between Kisumu and Bumala would be a great concept for a video game - see how fast you can make the trip while dodging huge sinkholes, speed bumps, police check stops, people walking and on bicycles, matatus, goats and cows, gasoline tanker trucks, etc etc etc. You definitely have to be on your toes to be a driver in this country.

One of our students who I’ve mentioned before in the Grandmother day entry, Nicholas, works in the market as a porter on the weekends to support his family. Todd and Charles ran into him yesterday when they were picking up the PA system, and arranged for him to help us haul our luggage from the hotel to the police station, where we would be picked up by the bus. It’s about ½ a mile. So we were up early, breakfasted in a timely fashion, finally, and were out waiting for him to arrive at 7am. We waited, and no Nicholas. We had hired another porter since we still seemed to have 5 heavy suitcases, even after unloading all our computers and supplies, and a porter cart can only hold about 3 suitcases. So we decided we’d just pull one suitcase each, take the porter we had and start making our way. We’d only gone a few yards when Todd looked back and saw Nicholas, of course with no shoes, running up to meet us. We think he’d been looking for a porter cart but couldn’t arrange one, so he pulled Heather and Todd’s heavy ones while I pulled my mostly empty one down the highway to the police station. When we got to the police station, Todd paid him 500 KSh, the regular price would have been about 50, but he’s a good kid, works hard in school and on weekends, being the sole money maker for a family of 3 adults and 3 children. He said goodbye and started to walk away, but when he saw how much Todd had given him, he turned around with a big smile, came back and shook our hands again. We hope he was able to take the rest of the day off, or buy a little extra food or something special for his siblings and him. As soon as he left, Heather and I started wiping our eyes again. Less than $10 Cdn and he was on cloud nine.

We waited about 45 minutes for the bus, we’d overestimated how long would take to get to the police station, we’d underestimated how long it would take for the bus to get from Busia to Bumala, and then, on top of it, the bus was late. It started to rain, so we moved into the police station for a few minutes, but the chairs were a bit uncomfortable, and we knew we’d be sitting for the next 10 hours, so we stood outside and the rain petered out. The bus arrived, and we started making our way down the road to Kisumu. We got seats in the front row because it has the best view, but I was sitting right behind the driver and could see the oncoming traffic everytime he’d swerve out to try to pass people. A little nerve-wracking, so I decided to try to get some sleep. A stop in Kisumu, Kericho and Nakuru, just like on the way out to Bumala, no major delays, but it seemed like we had a leak in our radiator as at each stop, the mechanics would be fiddling around in the engine and pouring a few litres of water into it. Made us a little apprehensive, but what could we do. We made it to Nairobi in great time, just over 9 hours. Squeezed 6 suitcases, 3 backpacks and 3 adults into a compact car (we had to make 2 stops and didn’t want to split up into 2 cars in case we got separated along the way, and we didn’t realize the size of the guy’s car when we negotiated the fare), but it’s “all part of the adventure”. Nice evening, some repacking and to bed early for the trip to the Maasai Mara National Park.

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