We have
Westernised cultures and westernised bus stops. WERE WA'SHISTESWA tells you
more about what to expect in a bus stop full of people from the western part of
Kenya.
They call it Stend Kisa bus
stage, although bicycles, camels and beggars stop there too. In fact, majority
of vehicles here are vans, pick-ups, cars and lorries before you even think of
Msamaria or Mbukinya. The stage is known from Lwanda to Mulwanda; Khwisero to
Khayega to Malakisi to Funyula, and Msamaria Mwema touts of Nairobi know it
also.
Stend Kisa bus stage is not your everyday bus (and camel) stop: it is
peculiar; distinct. When you go to Stend Kisa bus stage, unless you didn't go
there, there are things that can never escape your eye.
There is this woman selling
onions, sugarcane and boiled groundnuts. She always has on her leso and rubber
shoes that reveal more toes than hide. She is fat, tough looking and with a
muscle you would never wish to meet.
In fact, she must be doing more of her
selling through infliction of this commercial fear than business attraction.
The way she sits on that her wooden stool will make you define your qualities
of a mother in law, but the way she frowns at a non-buyer makes you hate
poverty.
Stend Kisa bus station has
the manambas. For those who need definition, a manamba is that samaritan who
knows of your journey more than you do, and that you need his accurate and unparallelled
advice while you are at it. They are always there. Chofrii, Kition, Mrefu,
Mandeke, Chonii, among others.
You must see them because those unchoreographed
calls will not allow it otherwise. To call passangers to their ship, they
whistle, they whine, they bray, they howl, they hoot, they shout, they purr;
but still remain manambas looking for the day's flour.
The vehicles at Stend
Kisa have boards showing the destinations for each, but still Chofrii will
insist on wanting to help you know where to go. And this is help, until you
play contrary to their script. Then you start to know how you have an ugly eye
or how you are proud without education or even the secret of why your spouse
abandoned you.
Next time schools open, I
will never attend to sons of some professionals in my class, unless someone
apologises.
But they are not alone. There
is always this or that conductor asking where boss you are going. You play
sharp and ask him where his metal junk (pronounced as 'chopper') is headed. He
tells you. You say you are not going there. He asks again where it is you are
going therefore. His vehicle seems to be going everywhere now. You say
Khumusalaba to buy a dog. He says come he in fact has one space for Khumusalaba
before the van leaves for Butere. You say you are not going to the Khumusalaba
of Butere but that of Soi. He says no problem, come with him he has space for
that too. He even has a hand on your sisal sack that should carry your pet
back. You are cornered. You tell him to leave you alone. He calls the manambas,
and they give you collective insults. Boss, you never mess with those of Stend
Kisa.
But even that's not all. When
you eventually enter the matatu comes the sales boy. Weak, mulnourished and
disillussioned, he looks like he shall collapse in his next blink. His shirt
has three rat holes near the left shoulder-line, but he is yet to start knowing
inconfidence.
Like his other compatriots, he sells everything too. Sells Nacet,
a jembe, Eveready, tealeaves, shirt buttons, needles, bar soap, bamba ten,
cutex, Dasani and rat poison. In the other hand are sachets of groundnuts, two
cobs of roasted maize, a roll of polythene rope, toothpaste, ginger biscuits,
mukombera, a roast chicken leg, and a woman's panties. The only things I don't
see are the Femiplan female condom and Aromat. He also has fishing lines for
sale. Don't ask me how he carries all. I also don't know. He insists you should
buy.
Ignore him?
(Part 2 coming soon)
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