I was parked on Uhuru Highway on Friday afternoon, bonding with our prezzo. I was listening to his press conference on the radio, and before I knew it I got to feeling
all woiyee for the man. 'Listen to the feeling in his voice,
when he says he doesn’t want to pay, but he has to. He sounds so
heartbroken,' I sighed. 'By golly, Kamwana really does care about
us...so, so much!' Then an idiot journalist began to ask an idiot
question and my mind began to wander, away from my oh so caring
prezzo and back to the reality of a massive traffic jam in the CBD. 'That
man,' I muttered, staring at the mess ahead and behind me, 'doesn't
give a rat's ass about us, does he?'
See, I was in the innermost lane of 4
lanes of traffic, at a complete standstill for the past 20 or so
minutes, with a big ass 4x4 right in front of me obscuring my view of
the roundabout (and the langa policeman who was holding us hostage,
in 28 degree afternoon sun), and the worst part of the shiny
monstrosity reflecting sunlight straight in my eyes was its dark
tinted windows, so dark I couldn’t even see the silhouette of the
driver, or the cars ahead of him. With no hope something interesting
to look at, I turned to my left and there was...wait for it...another
big ass 4x4, wine red this one, with black windows, and what looked
like a Somali, or Mwarabu, or generally light skinned negro, driver. 'Hmmm...' I thought, 'the cops must just love his tinted window owning, 'foreign
looking' ass, especially when he's just back from the mosque in his
lovely white kofia.' The man looked back at me all nonchalant like,
gave me a brief smile and shrugged, such as we drivers do when parked on the highway, in 28 degree afternoon sun. Random
aside, he looked a lot cooler than me, probably because his car had functioning A/C while mine only has an A/C button.
Realising I could no longer stare at
the man on my left, having made eye contact and therefore no longer a stranger, I swivelled in my seat to look behind me; random
Japanese saloon car, with two men in the front, dark windows rolled
down. I quickly turned away, because any woman in this town
knows not to stare at men in random Japanese saloon cars with dark
windows and Man U stickers. Don’t look at me like that, you know
I'm right, those buggers are the ones who offer to buy you a
ka-nyama and then take you to the nearest Chomazone (that, my
friends, is terror, drinking in a bar by the highway terror). In
fairness, I should point out that these guys are also the guys who
will get your door open in two minutes, if you should so happen to
lock your keys inside. They're handy, is what I'm saying, and
resourceful. And they like putting those blue lights in the rims of
their random Japanese cars, otherwise how will you know who they are
at night, yes? Now you know. Moving on swiftly...
While el presidente was busy throwing
his lawyer under the bus, I got to thinking, how on earth does our
inspector of general things intend to keep my city, and country, safe
when he can't even keep the tinted windows off the bloody road? All
week it was travel advisory this and evacuated tourist that, but all
the IG had to say was, 'No tinted windows!' How now? To his credit
(ptuh!), the man has been on a roll. The week before it was a
ludicrous directive to PSV operators to screen their passengers,
because we all know the bad guys never carry ID's, and they always
label their bombs as, well, bombs, just to make the search easier. Now, if that bright idea had been plucked from thin air it wouldn’t
have been so bad, but alas, it was his targeted response to a set of
blasts on Thika Road. Yup, this is what passes for security in our
country. We get hit by...has anyone taken credit for those attacks? Wait, what am I saying? All crime is Al Shabaab these
days, no? We get hit by the terrorists, terrorists who oddly enough
weren’t rounded up in the sweeps they said were designed to round
them up, terrorists who haven’t been locked up at the detention,
sorry, screening centre at Kasarani, terrorists who have not been
deported back to Somalia, we get hit by these terrorists, and all our
top cop can think of is how to make our lives just a little bit
harder. Because crime, sorry, terror, isn’t kicking our fucking
asses enough as is.
The traffic cop decides we've been idle
too long, and decides to let us pass, but not all of us, only about
23 cars. Mind you, would've been 27 if some lady hadn’t thought to
get into my lane in a most unserious manner, sticking her nose in and
blocking me, and then stopping to ask me to give her way, this while
the cop is furiously waving us through. The cop got pissed off and
stopped us, right at the lights, made us wait,
just because. Suffice to say, I and the blue light chaps behind me,
and the two cars that were previously behind her in the next lane, we
were round about ready to beat her 'lane changing just before the
roundabout' ass. What, she couldn’t change lanes INSIDE the
roundabout, like every other shit driver? Nkt! Yes, I am speaking
in jest, I am a firm believer in sticking to your lane. Thing is, in
this city people seem to think those lines on the road are mere
suggestions of where you should be pointing you car. And don’t get
me started on the whole solid line v broken line lane changing rule, that's what earned me another 10 minutes behind that not clever driver lady. I think I've detoured, where was I?
Kamwana was now defending his
government's decision to fire a man by sms, lecturing the country on
the three reasons why he would feel the need to remove someone from
their post, and informing us that there would be other changes being
made in the not so distant future, if need be. It all sounded quite good, until
I glanced up at the policeman holding up traffic and thought to
myself, 'But is he going to fire this man's idiot boss, or hasn't
said boss offended the right woman yet? One day,' I sighed, 'the
inspector will get an sms, and he will be no more, one day...' Finally free of the insanity on the highway and now stuck in slow
moving traffic outside el presidente's (not) residence, I heard him
say something about his macho nne, the journos obligingly
laughing along, instead of asking him what his plans for our security
were. I laughed along too, relieved to find out that despite the
evident dismay the man felt, he still found it in himself to crack the
odd joke, in Kiswahili no less. 'He's lovely this man, just
lovely...' And then I looked at the line of cars ahead and behind
me, and Nkt!'d myself.
By the time I got to my destination, he'd wrapped up his press conference and normal transmission resumed with
a brief bulletin, twin blast in the city, as many as 10 dead, more injured, blood will most
likely be needed. And nary a word from my president. My president called a press conference
to talk about the money he had to pay to unknown people for unknown
goods and services not rendered, so he could borrow a shitload more
money, because he, they, had already budgeted for this money they
hadn’t borrowed yet. Meanwhile, out in 28 degree afternoon
sunshine, his people were getting blown apart by...no really, has
anyone claimed credit for the last attack?...blown apart by criminal
terrorists, as they went on with their daily business of earning a
living in this hard knock city of ours. I'm willing to bet that
somewhere in the market there was a radio on, blasting loud music,
music that was interrupted for the president, live from State
House, even as some idiot was flinging a
grenade.
We, raia, get blown up. Shot. Hell,
it's only a matter of time before the bastards take to
stabbing us like the Chinese terrorists/rebels/disgruntled types (si we're looking East and whatnot?). Meanwhile, they, the powers that be, spin, and
spin, and spin some more.
15 terrorists, many hostages.
No, mattresses.
No, water bottles.
No, criminals.
No, Somalis.
No, illegals.
No, ID's.
No, tinted windows.
No, economic sabotage!
Wait, that was a good one. The white man is screwing us over! No wait, they're all white. The West is
out to get us, because the East is now our friend! Look at the
highway they built us (that we'll be paying for, for a good long
while), and the railway they're going to build us (that we'll be
paying for, for a goo...ah fuck it!).
No, Raila!
You know they're scraping the bottom of
the spin barrel when they throw Raila at us, but hey, needs must and
such like nonsense. Besides, those CORD buggers are so foolish they can't even figure out how to protest basic insecurity, except when someone's trying to assassinate them, that is.
Spin, spin, more bloody spin...
They lie and we die.
Now we know.
For your viewing
pleasure, Nakaaya ft M1, 'Mr Politician' (see playlist). It's dedicated to all of
us idiots who voted for all these idiots who hired all the other
idiots to tell us shit, and then do precisely fuck all for
all of us. Yes?
