TOUR TURMOIL
My first school tour to the city was a communal event, drawing in not just students, but an eclectic mix of adults as well. Among them were neglected housewives determined to smoke out their deadbeat husbands in Nairobi, retired city dandies nostalgic for the city lights, and dreamy young women hoping to find a husband in city’s streets supposedly paved with gold. Aunty Jerusha and my Uncle didn’t fit into any of these categories, but they still tagged along.
Our journey of a thousand steps to the city started with a feast of roasted tubers and boiled maize—cherished snacks which we stuffed in our pockets for later use.
We then boarded the bus, an ancient Ford contraption that might have been cobbled together by Henry Ford himself. The sluggish beast hissed and groaned through the hills of Murang’a, almost throwing us into a river at one point, as if it had a mind of its own.
Uncle, bored out of his mind, lit up a stub of his beloved kiraiku, filling the bus with pungent smoke. But the cigarette fumes were mild compared to the awful gases emitted by the boys, thanks to the boiled maize snacks. We finally arrived at Nairobi Museum at midday, the banana leaves planted on the nose of the bus waving wildly in the wind.
We feasted on boflo and soda before entering the museum. For our cherished Gen Z readers, “boflo” was our term of endearment for bread. After lunch, the toured started, our distended tummies leading the way. Minyoo infestation back then was a pandemic—they hadn’t discovered dewormers yet.
The real drama began at the snake exhibit. Aunty Jerusha let out a blood-curdling wail and loudly cursed the snakes for misleading Eve in the Garden of Eden. When she tried to hurl rocks at them, the museum guards intervened and lead her away.
On our journey back home, we were informed by the police that some thugs had poured ‘Omo’ on the road at Kabati, ostensibly to make vehicles skid so they could rob them. The headmaster, a bald man who had taught the entire village in his long career, suggested we spend the night in Thika town.
Our bus was parked next to a nightclub with dancing disco lights. “Why can’t they decide to put those lights on or off?” Aunty Jerusha wondered aloud. Unbeknownst to her, Uncle was in that nightclub, happily gyrating to Kamaru’s adult-rated numbers.
Predictably, when it was time to leave, Uncle was missing in action. A rescue team was dispatched to the nightclub, but it was too packed for anyone to spot him. Some wise chap lay on the floor and checked the revelers’ shoes. That’s how Uncle was traced—he was the only one dancing in gumboots.
We landed in the village later that evening, our tummies empty but our young mouths full of tall tales about the dazzling wonders of the big city.