Which part of Kenya makes your imagination fly wild? For ABU OKARI, it is the twisted hills he navigates whenever he is travelling to or from his homeland, Kisii. Read along.
First things first: Kisii is in Nyanza,
North Nyanza. Not in Western or Rift Valley. Western is miles away. Kisii neighbours
some of the people of the Rift.
Who doesn’t, anyway?
If you are coming from
Nairobi, you get to Maai Maahiu (we will talk about this later), then Narok
before heading to Bomet and Sotik before finally showing up in Gusiiland.
Kericho is very near, and so is Kisumu. So if a person looks at me again in that
Kenyan way that says oh my God, and
then says "I thought Kisii was in Western", I will go into enkororo mode. And it won’t be cool, right form the accent, to the
insults and the blood.
I know we share several wonderful qualities
such as our unbreakable love affair with ugali with the Luhya but we are
literally worlds apart. We share Nyanza with the Luo nation and the Kuria as
well.
Now, in my short life in this world, I have
managed to divide my life into three places; Gusii, Eldoret and Nyorobi.
If you join these dots, they will somehow form a triangle. My travels are
triangular, that is how mathematical I am. Now in this mathematical travels, I
flirt with Geography a lot.
The hills and valleys of the Rift Valley
are the most memorable. In fact, they are the only geography. And they are the
reason I am writing this.
In the last few days, two accidents of matatus plunging into the depths of the
Rift Valley have made national headlines. Generally, there is nothing much left
of the matatu to show after the accident,
neither of most of the passengers.
In my triangular travels, I have severally
passed through one of the sections that one of the matatus plunged into. The
experience is never nice.
On one side of the road is a steep wall. On the other, there is a sharp drop into the valley.
Deep in the valley are jagged rocks, huge
rocks and other wonderful features staring back at you. The metallic rails at
the side of the road are no longer useful -- either a huge vehicle drove
through them into the valley or they have somehow managed to rust away and
their absence gone unnoticed to the relevant authorities.
When you drive past them, you try to ignore
what one wrong move means to you and other road users. One wrong move by you or
by someone else could completely alter your narrative. But you notice, and your
mind creates a vivid imagination.
Occasionally, your heart races. The
escarpment before Maai Mahiu if you are driving from Nairobi is one of the
steepest.
Here, even the most reckless road users
temper their enthusiasm. Nature is in control and the wise know that nature is
not a kind disciplinarian.
On the Nairobi-Nakuru highway (this is the post-Kibaki era), there is the viewing point that is a few kilometres away from
Naivasha. But here the road is not as close to the edge as it is at the Maai
Mahiu escarpment.
Further away from the city, are the Nandi
Hills. This is the place that one of the matatus that claimed sixteen lives
went over. The drops are also sharp and
the opposite sides quite steep. Here, the corners are also very sharp and there
are several.
There is a particular one that if you miss it while moving at high
speed, you will literally fly into the valley below. The place also has some of
the largest and most pronounced rocks I have ever seen.
Occasionally, we see wreckages in these
places. Follow here to see the wreckage from one such accident. We also see vehicles that have plunged that are yet to be retrieved. It
makes you imagine. Vivid, scary imaginations. So when a vehicle plunging into
these valleys makes headlines, for some of us, it is not just an accident, but
an ..........of our fears.
Normally, those images flashing on the screens
before us are an embodiment of our fears. They are an exact replica of our
vivid imaginations when we are travelling through these sections.
