Thursday 23 June 2011

matatu madness

its Monday morning and business is as usual except for one Steve a.k.a mangofero. this is his 3rdsquad and from the look of things this is a bad day to be spinning the buru's finest otherwise called "nganya," 'mama yao,' or better known as 'brown sugar'.he takes his stride and decides to do work the way it will be, "Kama mbaya, mbaya!" he muses within himself. he opens a small bottle which he has just taken from his pocket and drinks the content to raise the degree of madness to a level required to access the C.B.D.
"iende irudi" shouts his conductor by-the side door. Steve takes the charge and steps on the gas pedal,going at between 90 $ a 100kph per hour along jogoo road. he carelessly overtakes personal cars pushing some out of the road and barely missing to hit others,
"umeiva buda" complements come from his conductor, which triggers some more action from him, and he now resists the urge to stop at anything, he overlaps on pavements,pressing his 'parrarira' the loudest and realisng his 'freno' to make a cough like noise,he abuses those adamant driver who refuse to give him way and steps on emergency brakes at no sign of it.
Steve now is in town near his final destination when he opts to save time and reach commercial before 'ruff-cuts' gets there via another route,he opts to take the right hand side of the road amidst complaints from other motorists who are driving on the right lane,
                                                       (an accident scene)
"umbwa! kwani barabara ni ya mamako?" he abuses one innocent driver and clenches his fist and shakes it in a sign meaning- f**k you-
its drama at commercial as the two matatus are both within range of the terminus and each seeks to outdo the other, when the unexpected happens. A Nairobi area traffic police land cruiser (the most dreaded by all matatu drivers in Nairobi) appears from nowhere full of traffic police and the Nairobi traffic one(Onyango) comfortably perched at the front,"nomaa! nomaa!" shouts Vinnie, mangoferos conductor, a cry that startle all matatus at commercial stage. the stage becomes chaotic with all matatus seeking to desert the area, in a flash of a second the land cruiser manages to partly block mangoferos way and onyango in a swift move manages to enter brown sugar via the conductors door , he blocks all the passengers from alighting and makes towards Steve's side, howbeit he cant access him since Steve is shielded by a big screen behind him, at this point the junior try to disembark from the cruiser when Steve quickly makes a stunt move as 'like-in-the-movie' and goes on the pavement across the road and turns again right and barely knocks down a pedestrian and goes towards luthuli avenue with the land cruiser in pursuit while the traffic boss is on board. the police car instantly raises alarm and pursues brown sugar towards out of town,( TO BE CONTINUED)