•Monday, September 07, 2009
Yesterday, I was stuck in the jam for almost three hours. This is quite strange being a Sunday. A Sunday evening to be precise. This happened along Jogoo road. I queued impatiently and waited anxiously to join Outering road. Any other day is normal jam day for Nairobi and that has become acceptable. Sunday is however supposed to be hallowed I presume.
At first I thought it was a small road mishap that would clear in minutes. For sometime I strained my neck craning through the window as if looking for a rainbow, a promise that it is not the destructive weekday road menace. I changed channels, played mental hide and seek with other drivers and passengers in adjacent cars, shuffled with the car's AC and a bit of daydreaming until my mind was tired. Then the many glasses of water I had taken prior to my drive started taking a toll on me and exerting pressure on my breakable system. I started feeling hot. A thin hot sweat donned my brow. I contemplated the roadside but couldn't wait to get home for a sweet relief.
Amidst my misery, I wondered, is the Kenyan social psyche that bewitched? Is our aura so poisoned that we cease to exist as a community as our selfish and greedy maniac ego-selves stake a claim for everything we can see, hear, smell, taste and feel? Is there a community of a modest behaving people you can uniquely identify and name as Kenyans?
As I joined Outering road after sweating it out for two hours on Jogoo road, I realised this was a Sunday my system will dread for a while. The oncoming traffic had overwhelmed the road's small capacity. The oncoming cars were not only overlapping, they had taken over our lane including its overlapping ragged sidewalk. We could not move for another hour. Deadlocked. I thought, these cars surely are not being driven by human beings. This must be the ultimate invasion by the Martians who converted their cold planet into a desert by cutting down all the eucalyptus trees.
I wondered what became of the Sabbath day and keeping it holy? Even the Fridatian members do not get to this level even with their sensorial excitement. What became of being good neighbours and loving them as we love ourselves? Why block a junction when you can clearly see it is not clear and you are joining a jam? Why block a lane that has the cars that will clear the roundabout for you?
For a long time I thought that Kenya's leaders are the problem. I would feel that a certain building within the central business district harboured Kenya's tragic reality. That if this building fed the appetite of the ground beneath it when all members were present then the Kenyan cancer would be cured forever.
I now theorize that Kenyans are the problem. We feed on each other and suck each other's energies whenever we can, decimating our kinsmen if need be. We are our own worst enemies, the 45 million of us. We do not love each other and in so doing hate ourselves. Gosh, it even sounds odd trying to insinuate that Kenyans can love each other.
Our problem is not Kibaki, nor Raila, nor Ruto or Kalonzo and it is not the Mudavadis. No, it is not the Kenyattas and the Mois. For all it is worth these seemingly imposing monsters are a creation of Kenyans. We give them life and feed them daily with our energies and sweat to continue working on us as we work for them.
Our social psyche is warped and our meta-physical environment is so polluted that our propensity to self-destruct is increasing at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not only on our roads, it is the daily dose on our businesses, our workplaces, our churches, our schools, our hospitals, our villages and our homes.
For the drivers on Kenyan roads, let us keenly observe how the Citi Hopas, the Double M's, KBS', Nissan Matatus and other Matatu drivers drive on our roads. If you find them impolite, harassing, bullish, offensive, discourteous, insulting, selfish and dangerous just know you are not any better, you drive like them too. All Kenyan drivers have taken and religiously practised a lesson or two from the callous and rough-on-the-edges matatu drivers. Graduates of Matatu Driving School and Computer College.
At first I thought it was a small road mishap that would clear in minutes. For sometime I strained my neck craning through the window as if looking for a rainbow, a promise that it is not the destructive weekday road menace. I changed channels, played mental hide and seek with other drivers and passengers in adjacent cars, shuffled with the car's AC and a bit of daydreaming until my mind was tired. Then the many glasses of water I had taken prior to my drive started taking a toll on me and exerting pressure on my breakable system. I started feeling hot. A thin hot sweat donned my brow. I contemplated the roadside but couldn't wait to get home for a sweet relief.
Amidst my misery, I wondered, is the Kenyan social psyche that bewitched? Is our aura so poisoned that we cease to exist as a community as our selfish and greedy maniac ego-selves stake a claim for everything we can see, hear, smell, taste and feel? Is there a community of a modest behaving people you can uniquely identify and name as Kenyans?
As I joined Outering road after sweating it out for two hours on Jogoo road, I realised this was a Sunday my system will dread for a while. The oncoming traffic had overwhelmed the road's small capacity. The oncoming cars were not only overlapping, they had taken over our lane including its overlapping ragged sidewalk. We could not move for another hour. Deadlocked. I thought, these cars surely are not being driven by human beings. This must be the ultimate invasion by the Martians who converted their cold planet into a desert by cutting down all the eucalyptus trees.
I wondered what became of the Sabbath day and keeping it holy? Even the Fridatian members do not get to this level even with their sensorial excitement. What became of being good neighbours and loving them as we love ourselves? Why block a junction when you can clearly see it is not clear and you are joining a jam? Why block a lane that has the cars that will clear the roundabout for you?
For a long time I thought that Kenya's leaders are the problem. I would feel that a certain building within the central business district harboured Kenya's tragic reality. That if this building fed the appetite of the ground beneath it when all members were present then the Kenyan cancer would be cured forever.
I now theorize that Kenyans are the problem. We feed on each other and suck each other's energies whenever we can, decimating our kinsmen if need be. We are our own worst enemies, the 45 million of us. We do not love each other and in so doing hate ourselves. Gosh, it even sounds odd trying to insinuate that Kenyans can love each other.
Our problem is not Kibaki, nor Raila, nor Ruto or Kalonzo and it is not the Mudavadis. No, it is not the Kenyattas and the Mois. For all it is worth these seemingly imposing monsters are a creation of Kenyans. We give them life and feed them daily with our energies and sweat to continue working on us as we work for them.
Our social psyche is warped and our meta-physical environment is so polluted that our propensity to self-destruct is increasing at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not only on our roads, it is the daily dose on our businesses, our workplaces, our churches, our schools, our hospitals, our villages and our homes.
For the drivers on Kenyan roads, let us keenly observe how the Citi Hopas, the Double M's, KBS', Nissan Matatus and other Matatu drivers drive on our roads. If you find them impolite, harassing, bullish, offensive, discourteous, insulting, selfish and dangerous just know you are not any better, you drive like them too. All Kenyan drivers have taken and religiously practised a lesson or two from the callous and rough-on-the-edges matatu drivers. Graduates of Matatu Driving School and Computer College.
