My trip

We got off to an inauspicious start. At 7am sharp, I was at the bus station, as appointed. Florence told me that we would be taking “Easy Coach”, one of the nicest buses in the country. At a price of 1500 shillings ($23) it had better be nice! But long distance busses, like good shoes, are one thing that I’m willing to pay for. Normally, they’re worth their weight in gold in the comfort level.

Anyways, as it turns out, for some reason, Easy Coach wasn’t going where we needed to. So off we hike through the throngs of people in the downtown bus station. Bus stations in big African cities are not exactly my idea of good time – thieves are rife, especially when they see the white girl coming! Florence is also pretty paranoid of such places, since she knows the kinds of things that happen around there, too! After quite some few minutes of hassle in trying to find a good bus that would do the direction we wanted, we finally found ourselves in the last remaining seats in the very back of the bus.

As soon as we started to move, two men who were sitting next to Florence got up from the back seats and jumped off the bus. Florence immediately suspected that they had robbed her – but after some searching in her bag and pockets, all her money and cell phone were accounted for. So was all of my stuff, thankfully. We were also grateful for the extra space that was left by these two fellows. So spread out a little and got ready for a pretty comfortable ride.

Then the preaching started. Yup, preaching. A young man with his Bible started preaching in his best “televangelist” voice. He even thumped his Bible a few times! He roamed the aisle of the bus, stopping once in a while to lay hands on and pray for various passengers. And then, just before we left the city limits, he passed around a little offering bag, which people dutifully filled with coins and small bills. The bus slowed down, the preacher took his bag of money, and jumped off the bus. Phew – I was a little afraid that he was going to preach the entire 8 hours to our destination!

But just when I thought we could settle in and have a nice quiet bus ride… another man jumped on the bus. This one had already had too much to drink, and it was only 7:30am! Unfortunately, the only open seats were the ones next to me and Florence. So we spent the next 4 hours trying to ignore and generally keep the drunkard at bay. He really wanted to talk about everything and everything constantly. Florence and I tried all the tricks – feigning sleep, getting out our books to read, having our own conversations between us, turning our backs to him (which was easy since he reeked of alcohol). But to no avail. He was pretty harmless, but very annoying. Of course, he invited us to his house to spend the weekend… needless to say, we passed on the offer.

The landscape was beautiful as we drove. As we drove through the Rift Valley, we passed herds of Zebra and impala. I didn’t see any giraffe or buffalo like I’ve seen in that area before, but I was rather busy at that point ignoring the drunk guy, who we had put next to the window so he could get some fresh air and perhaps sober up a bit!

Finally, at 11:30, he reached his destination, and for a little while, until we reached the next stop, we could spread out a little bit, with the two of us over three seats. Of course, at the next village on the way, a rather large man came and sat down in our vacant seat. At least this one was quiet and sober! But we were rather packed in like sardines in the back of that bus! There were a few good bumps where we all went flying all over each other! But it was much more jovial and fun without our drunken friend next to us.

The landscape became even more beautiful as we drove up the other side of the Rift Valley. Much of the tea is grown in that area, and there are huge plantations, stretching as far as the eye can see. The land is very hilly, lush and green, and there were some beautiful views up and down the hills. But I didn’t really want to take out my camera and advertise that I was a tourist, so I don’t have any photos of it. But it really was gorgeous.

After about 7 hours, we reached Kisumu, which is a port town right on Lake Victoria. It amazes me that the Lake is so big – it really does look like you’re looking at a great sea. I can relate to how the first European explorers must have felt when they first reached the lake in their search for the source of the Nile. It’s just so huge! Apparently, it’s quite common to catch 200kg Nile Perch in the Lake! Zane could feast for a few weeks on the head of one of those big fishies!

We never really stopped for lunch or anything, and we only stopped for one pee break the entire time. I was so thankful that I didn’t drink much, though I paid for it later with a splitting headache! But I would take a headache over the prospect of having to stop an entire bus of 60 people on the side of the road to take a pee break! We were able to buy bananas (mmm, so sweet and fresh from the tree. We got two bunches of bananas for 20 shillings (about 30 cents!), and they were so tasty. I had also brought some boiled eggs for lunch – boiled eggs have got to be the best bus trip lunch!

9 hours after we left Nairobi, we arrived in a small town near the Uganda border. I don’t actually remember what that town is called… but it’s not in the Kenya Lonely Planet guide, that’s for sure! As soon as we jumped off the bus, a throng of taxi drivers assaulted us, wanting to take us somewhere. We decided to take a Peugot – a great station wagon from the 1960’s. With 9 passengers plus the driver squashed into the station wagon (plus everyone’s luggage!), we zoomed off down the road … almost to the very end of the road.

After about a 30 minute ride in the Peugot, we were dropped at the end of the taxi line, still about 10 km from our final destination. Florence had in her mind to ask the Peugot driver if he would take us the rest of the way down the road, for a small price, of course. Well, that taxi driver took one look at my pasty white skin and asked for an exorbitant price. He proceeded to tell us how all white people have so much money and we’re just there to give them money… he was not very kind at all, actually, and was quite open about the fact that he was trying to take advantage of us because I’m white.

That steamed both of us, so we allowed him to go on his way. The “normal” way for people to go the rest of the way down that road is by “boda boda” – sitting on the back carry-rack of a bike. So Florence went to talk to the boda drivers… except that they had heard the whole conversation with the taxi driver, and refused to take us anywhere unless we also paid them exorbitant prices.

So we said, ok, fine, we’ll walk. Of course, to that, all the boda drivers laughed, saying “the white girl can’t walk – white people have to go in vehicles.”. Ooohhhh, that made me mad! But the fact of the matter was, it was already getting close to sundown, and for us to walk the 10 km would have taken a few hours. But we started to walk, anyways, just to get away from those mean boda drivers. We were both pretty upset with them. What I didn’t realize is that while I was waiting in the wings for Florence to figure out how to get us home, she had been talking with some young men who just happened to be biking by. They both had racks on the back of their bikes, and agreed to take us to the village… but we had to walk down the road and around the corner before we got on. If the boda drivers saw us going with those young men, they said the boda drivers would beat them for taking away their customers! Man, it was getting complicated!

Anyways, we jumped on the back of these bikes, and off we went down the road. I was feeling a little sorry for the guy who was carrying me, because I’m not very practiced at riding on the back of a bike! At least I had done it a few times with a friend when I was in Kenya last year for a month. He had a boda, and I rode on the back with him – but since he was a friend, I could grab onto him when I lost my balance. Plus, he’s a big guy and probably outweighed me by a significant amount. This poor guy who agreed to take me and my backpack wasn’t that much bigger than me, and I wasn’t very balanced, after having traveled for so many hours already! But these two guys were troopers, and I really appreciate their willingess to help us out!

When I wasn’t thinking about falling off the boda and rolling in the dirt, I was really enjoying the ride! The landscape was so beautiful – rolling hills covered in lush vegetation. Small clusters of thatch houses. No garbage anywhere. No pollution spitting trucks. No soldiers with AK-47s. And the sun was starting to set, so everything was bathed in a rose colored hue. It was just incredibly beautiful and peaceful.

Finally, after about an hour on the back of the bike, we arrived at Florence’s sister’s house. We were welcomed warmly with cups of hot cocoa and bread, and made to feel quite at home. As soon as we got there, the put a pot of water on the fire for us to use for a bath… which we had once the sun had set.

Flo’s sister put two banana leaves down in the grass for me, set a basin of water on a third banana leaf, and there I was to take my bath – out in the open just behind one of the huts! I’ve never actually completely showered by moonlight before, truly out in the open like that! But it was quite refreshing to feel the breeze on my bum as I scrubbed with the nice warm water! I think bathing by moonlight was a highlight of the whole trip J But man, was I ever dirty! The face cloth I used to wash my face was absolutely black… and that was just from my face. Yuck. I’m still cleaning the grime out of my ears, actually.

Anyways, we also had a wonderful dinner that evening. Flo’s sister and her husband own a little restaurant on the shore of Lake Victoria, where they serve nice seafood. So the sister, Lucy, had come home for the weekend, bringing some nice fresh fish with her. Imagine, here I go again, singing the praises of a tasty tilapia!

It was quite a scene, seeing everyone come in for dinner. At that particular “homestead”, there are a lot of people… I never did quite get who all lives there. The main house (mud walls with a tin roof) belongs to Lucy and her husband Wilberforce. Wilberforce built his house there when he and Lucy got married. It’s about a 3 minute walk through the bush to his parent’s homestead, and about a 2 minute walk to where his brother had built his house.

In Lucy and Wilberforce’s homestead, there is the main house, with a house for the girls to sleep in, a house for the boys to sleep in, and a kitchen house. There is one hut that’s under construction, which one of the older boys is building, since he’s coming of age where he can have his own place. When he gets married, he will build a house about a 3 minute walk away from his father’s place, and start a homestead for his own children. Anyways, in this homestead where we stayed, there were Lucy and Wilberforce’s 6 children, plus a daughter that belonged to Wilberforce (I have no idea about her mother), plus Lucy and Flo’s younger sister who is in Grade 12 (called “Form 4” here), and one or two children from Wilberforce’s brother.

Turns out several years ago, Wilberforce’s brother died of some unexplained illness. So everyone in the village attributed the sickness to witchcraft, meaning that his wife fled the area, going back to her own village, and leaving the small children. Wilberforce, as the brother, took the children in and is also raising them. Wilberforce and Lucy aren’t that much older than me, and they are already raising a family of 9 or 10 (like I said, I’m not sure who all belonged to who in the family, as there were so many people everywhere!).

So there were quite a few people gathered around in the house for dinner that evening, and everyone was happy to dig into their ugali (stodgy porridge made from maize and cassava) and samak (fish).

Of course, while we were eating, someone fired up the small generator and a Nigerian movie was turned on one of two TVs in the room!

Once the movie was over, and the dishes were cleared away, it was time for sleeping. They put a mattress on the floor for me, complete with a brand new mosquito net hanging from the ceiling! Florence slept on the couch beside me, and we both fell asleep right away... and didn't wake up until sunrise the next morning.