Our ride in a potato truck with three goats.

November 3, 2003

This morning, we were lucky enough to catch a nearly empty potato truck heading down the mountain to Narok. One of Crystal's counterparts escorted us. I say the truck was nearly empty, because in the back with us were three frightened but surprisingly obnoxious goats. Allison and I sat on a sack of potatoes, while the goats inched closer and covered half the truck bed with urine.

Despite the hardships, I have never spent a happier spell here in Kenya than I did then - riding up and down the mountains, looking through the open door on the side at the spectacular views provided. I even felt a moment of envy for Crystal, who is getting the unadulterated Peace Corps experience I will never have. But, hey, sitting in a computer lab in Narok, helping my counterpart Robert connect the router to the satellite dish is pretty freakin cool too!

January 14, 2004

A Kenyan will only buy enough fuel to get him where he's going. It is inconceivable, even for the rich, to FILL the gas tank. I took a cab to Nairobi a few weeks ago at the expense of MED. Felix got 4000 shillings for the trip, but still stopped for gas TWICE in 200 km. Today, I took a kumi kumi (like a matatu, only a car crammed with people instead of a minivan) to Ole Tipis Girls School. There wasn't enough gas to even start the car. Luckily, Narok is in a valley, so we just rolled down the hill into the BP.

January 23, 2004

Robert and I went to Nairobi yesterday. I wanted to buy art supplies for the primary school, and he had some computer equipment to pick up. We were planning on being back mid-afternoon, but Kenya time is a few hours slower than the rest of the world. Still, we were on schedule to be back by five, when we hit a little snag - namely a 1000-lb. zebu (like a cow). Clearly, it was Robert's fault. He had time to stop, but must have believed the cow was aware of the rules of the road, and would suddenly speed up to let us pass. By the time Robert applied his brakes, it was too late. Fortunately, he'd nearly stopped. In fact, the zebu actually got up and walked away, and in my little fantasy lived a long happy life. Not likely.

I’m in Nairobi. I came Sunday morning, which was quite an experience. I headed to my stage in Narok around 8am. It was strange – no matatus were running. The touts and drivers were just lounging about, and no passengers were boarding the vehicles.

I went to the booth and asked for a ticket, but the man said I would have to wait. I asked why, but his English wasn’t very good, and he finally sputtered out something which sounded to me like, “A vehicle has been stolen.” I assumed he meant there’d been another hijacking. It happens at least once a month between Suswa and Maai Mahiu, always one of the night buses coming from Kisii. The man said they were waiting for the police to give them clearance.

Ten minutes later, a man seated near me said, “Excuse me, madam. There is a vehicle going.” I looked up to see a half full matatu preparing to leave – it wasn’t parked in the usual spot, so I again went to the booth to see if it was legit. No one was around, and the vehicle’s conductor came over and ushered me in. I asked, “Is it safe? The road is open?” But he didn’t answer, just directed me to a back seat.

We left the stage and circled around town twice picking up passengers to fill the matatu. After 20 minutes, we finally headed out of town and stopped at the gas station near my house. The conductor collected our money and put gas in the tank. He ejected the man next to me, who said he was going to Maai Mahiu, not Nairobi. Then the driver got a call – it was news of some sort, and he relayed the information in Kikuyu to the other passengers. All of them were Kikuyu – not a single Maasai in the bunch.

I struggled to understand what was going on, but the only words I understood were the town names – Suswa, Maai Mahiu, Naivasha.

We started to pull out of the station, but the driver suddenly backed up to the gas pumps again and they put more fuel in. Then the conductor let the Maai Mahiu passenger back on and recollected his money, which he’d returned five minutes earlier.

Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. Hardly any Kiswahili was being spoken, and certainly no English. No one was the least bit interested in giving me any information, and I didn’t have the words in Kiswahili to ask.

We set off, and the other passengers were watchful from the beginning. When we finally approached Suswa after 90 minutes, the others craned their necks to see what was going on. Nothing seemed terribly unusual to me. There were a few truckloads of soldiers in the area, but I’ve seen that before. At one point, I saw a small group of Maasai men walking swiftly through the bush to our left, heading in the direction of Maai Mahiu. That struck me as a bit strange, since the Maasai never walk with a sense of purpose.

Later, we came across about 20 Maasai walking in the middle of the road in the opposite direction. The passengers shifted in their seats as we drove past and turned around simultaneously to watch the band of men retreat through the back window.

In Maai Mahiu, we dropped off our passenger and headed up the mountain road to Nairobi. Everyone relaxed.

When I got to Nairobi, I relayed the story to a few people, still completely in the dark. Finally, Phil said, “Oh, yeah. The tribal clashes.”

The whaaaa? Yes, the Maasai and Kikuyu in that area have been fighting since Saturday over water rights. A local Kikuyu councilman has been siphoning off public water to irrigate his shamba, and the Maasai have no water for their livestock. So there were some beatings, some houses burned down, a few deaths. And I guess the “stolen vehicle” would be the matatu that was stopped in Maai Mahiu, and some of the passengers beaten.

I guess it’s pretty serious, because I got two texts yesterday from people in Narok telling me not to come back that way. I may just have to wait it out in Nairobi!

February 12, 2005

On the ride home, we ran into an accident along the curvy mountain road near Maai Mahiu. Two trucks had hit each other, and traffic was at a complete stop in both directions. Our clever driver decided to use a back way, a dirt path off to the left. It was so rutted that at one point, he made us all alight, so that he could drive through this big dip without our extra weight. We reloaded on the other side, then got to a point where the path ended. The driver turned into this field in front of a house and we picked up the path again. As it happened, the field and house were owned by a family, and the path was gated in front of their property. About 10 men were standing there, charging cars for permission to go through their gate. Hey, Virginia is for lovers, and Kenya is for exploiting the hardships of others.

June 16, 2005

I hitched a ride back to town with two Coca Cola drivers. They were really nice guys, overly interested in America and me, as usual. I’ve discovered that a few harmless lies always work well in these situations, and can be lots of fun too. Today, I was married to a Luo named Odhiambo. Kenyan men are much more respectful if they think you’re married to another Kenyan, plus it gives them hope that maybe someday they’ll marry an American sugar mommy too!