Ukimwi Road , livre ebook

Other books by the author
FULL TILT
TIBETAN FOOTHOLD
THE WAITING LAND
IN ETHIOPIA WITH A MULE
ON A SHOESTRING TO COORG
WHERE THE INDUS IS YOUNG
RACE TO THE FINISH?
A PLACE APART
EIGHT FEET IN THE ANDES
WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS
MUDDLING THROUGH IN MADAGASCAR
TALES FROM TWO CITIES
CAMEROON WITH EGBERT
TRANSYLVANIA AND BEYOND
Copyright
First published in the United States in 1995 by
The Overlook Press
www.overlookpress.com
Copyright © 1993 Dervla Murphy
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN 978-1-46830-589-0
For Jo and Oisin, who rallied round
Contents

Other Books by the Author
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Maps

Chapter 1. A Rough Welcome: Nairobi to Sotik
Chapter 2. Graduates or Warriors? Sotik to Maseno
Chapter 3. Across the First Border: Maseno to Entebbe
Chapter 4. A Pause Insular and Urban
Chapter 5. Other Kingdoms: Kampala to Fort Portal
Chapter 6. Feminism Rampant: Fort Portal to Kyotera
Chapter 7. Tanzania Through the Back Door: Kyotera to Shinyanga via Bukoba
Chapter 8. Trivial Trials: Shinyanga to Iringa
Chapter 9. Highland Fling: Iringa to Tukuyu
Chapter 10. One-Man-Banda: The Two Faces of Malawi
Chapter 11. Over the Hills and Far Away: Karonga to Lundazi
Chapter 12. The Last Frontier: Lundazi to Karoi
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements

Sustenance on several levels was lavishly provided en route by Maire and Eamonn Brehony, Pauline Conway, Maura and Jim Culligan, William Howlett, Michael Kelly, Audrey and Michael O’Dowd, Mary and Seamus O’Grady, Betty and Michael O’Meara, Anne and Michael McInery, Joy and John Parkinson, Geraldine Prenderville, Brendan Rogers, Isabelle von Prondzynski and Sean White. To all, affectionate thanks for their considerable contributions to my survival and enlightenment.
Hallam Murray provided invaluable advice on the bicycle-buying level; then he taught me how to use derailleur gears after fifty years of Sturmey Archers.
Diana, Jock and John Murray performed their usual heroic feats on the editorial level; ‘What they do/Still betters what is done.’
One of the more obvious areas of Africa’s decay is the infrastructure. The road is fundamental to the nation and yet it is in large parts in utter disrepair, for mile after mile. It tells us a lot about the state of communications in Africa. It tells us a lot about the African condition. It was Julius Nyerere, founder President of Tanzania, who once said that while the great powers are trying to get to the moon, we are trying to get to the village. Well, the great powers have been to the moon and back, and are now even communicating with the stars. In Africa, however, we are still trying to reach the village. And the village is getting even more remote, receding with worsening communications even further into the distance.
Ali A. Mazrui

1
A Rough Welcome
Nairobi to Sotik

In the past it was taken for granted that when travellers said goodbye they became inaccessible for an indefinite period, only sending back the occasional message (a year or two out of date) in a cleft stick. But now we are expected to remain in touch with home, friends and problems; our escape is merely physical, the mental and emotional shackles staying firmly in place.
On and off, over the years, I have brooded on this constraint. Then suddenly I was vouchsafed a blinding glimpse of the obvious. ‘Ease of communication’ could be defeated by not telling anybody – not even one’s nearest and dearest – where one was going. If nobody knows which continent a traveller is travelling on, enjoyment of the present cannot be threatened by calamities back home, like news of your dog being run over, your house being burned to the ground or your bank going into liquidation.
In January 1992 I craved this degree of isolation. During the previous few years a combination of circumstances (not least my involvement in Rumania’s post-Ceausescu problems) had put me under some stress and my self-prescribed unwinding therapy was a cycle tour from Kenya to Zimbabwe via Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia – a carefree ramble through some of the least hot areas of sub-Saharan Africa. I therefore presented myself, for my sixtieth birthday, with a Dawes Ascent mountain-bike, the cyclist’s equivalent of a Rolls-Royce, named Lear. Then I bought a ticket to Nairobi and told all concerned that I was about to indulge in a four-month mystery tour.
At once all concerned rose up in arms. I was being, they alleged, perverse, selfish, irresponsible and neurotic. They needed to keep in touch, to know that I was safe. The illogic of this attitude escaped them. If I were unsafe – diseased, injured, jailed, robbed, murdered – their knowing about it would not materially alter my situation but would distress them. So my insistence on not keeping in touch was a kindness; every sensible person assumes no news to be good news.
I was, I suppose, trying to create an oasis in time. However, it didn’t work out quite like that; if you leave your own problems behind, other people’s come along to fill the vacuum – a lesson that lay in the future as my airbus took off from Heathrow on 2 March. It was three-quarters empty: worrying for Kenya Airways but agreeable for us passengers. After a tolerable dinner and several free Tusker beers I slept well, lying luxuriously along three seats.
A pair of Heathrow scaremongers had warned me that most Nairobi airport officials are surly predators. But as we landed at 7.30 a.m. I had another concern: would Lear be grievously maimed by the baggage-handlers? Most cyclists are capable of attending to their machines’ injuries; I am not. Anxiously I asked a tall, handsome uniformed official – his precise function unclear – where bicycles could be collected. He gazed down at me reflectively, then wondered, ‘Why did you bring a bicycle? It is better for old people to travel in vehicles.’ Already I was streaming sweat, in no position to dispute his next comment. ‘It is too hot to cycle. Even for us it is too hot before the rains. Why did you come with a bicycle in the hot season?’
For cat-sitter reasons (my home is owned by three cats) this journey had been started a month earlier than originally planned. That a traveller’s timing should be determined by feline whims is plainly absurd but it seemed unnecessary to expose this deranged area of my psyche to an airport official. Meanwhile, as we chattered unproductively, someone might be bikenapping Lear …
The young man nodded towards the conveyor-belt and said, ‘All luggage comes there.’ Spatially a bicycle could not ‘come there’ so I hurried to the Information kiosk where a small round amiable man observed, with a twinkle, that in Kenya lions eat cyclists. Then, intuiting that I was in no mood for banter, he indicated a nearby doorway.
In a grey concrete hanger I found decrepit tractors drawing trailers of luggage through greasy diesel clouds. At last one of them returned with Lear – only Lear – on board. When I eagerly leaped forward, the tractor-driver required no documentary proof of ownership; perhaps my joyous relief was proof enough. Beside the kiosk I set about unwrapping Lear from those many layers of plastic sheeting in which he had been dressed for his journey. Despite this precaution, two nasty gashes marked the saddle and the right-hand gear lever had been dented. Mercifully, neither injury affected his performance. A small but fascinated crowd gathered to watch me adjusting the handlebars before beginning a humiliating struggle to screw on the pedals.
Eventually, the tall handsome official was moved to intervene. ‘You don’t understand bicycles,’ he said triumphantly, taking over the spanner. ‘They are not suitable for women. Pedals must be straight and you are putting them on crooked. It is better if you use vehicles and sell me this bicycle. In Africa we can’t buy such strong bicycles.’ A jolly air-hostess, off our flight but showing no sign of fatigue, fell about laughing and diagnosed, ‘She has a hangover! So many Tuskers, now she can’t see straight!’
By the time I had loaded Lear – his pannier-bags go as hand-luggage – all my fellow-passengers had disappeared and so had the customs officers. At Immigration a charming young woman gave me a three-month visa, said it could be extended indefinitely and sounded sincere when she welcomed me to Kenya. No one was interested in my health documents. So what was all that about ‘surly predators’?
Huge brash advertisement hoardings infest the road into Nairobi and I winced on passing an ‘interpretative centre’ offering The African Experience. My immediate destination was a Christian guest-house on Bishop’s Road where a room plus three palatable buffet meals cost only £8.50. Having locked Lear to my bed, the day could be spent ambling around Nairobi; after an intercontinental flight one needs to take it easy.
Where I had turned off the Uhuru Highway towards Bishop’s Road, a thousand or so men and women were singing in perfect harmony near the corner of Central Park, one of Nairobi’s many wide green spaces. Evidently something was being celebrated and I soon returned to that junction, known as Freedom Corner. The crowd, which had been standing, was now sitting or kneeling and at once several people urgently requested me not to stand.
This was no celebration but a movingly civilised demo, supported by all classes and age groups. On a dais under a canvas awning five elderly women – the mothers of sons ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ for the past six years – were into the fourth day of a hunger-st