Police Checks, Riots & Traffic Jams

Sarah, our intern, as well as my younger cousin, arrived on Friday morning in Kenya. Her plane was to arrive at 6:05 am in Nairobi. I was at the airport at 6:15 am (knowing that I would still be on time as it takes a lot longer than 10 minutes to get off the plane, through customs, through the Visa counter and collect luggage.

I went over to the screen that shows the arrival times of the planes. I found Sarah’s flight, all excited…knowing I would see her shortly. I looked over to the last column on the screen and it read: DELAYED. I looked at the ETA and it read 8:00.

Well, this was certainly going to change our plans. I had booked us bus tickets from Nairobi to Kitale for 8:30 am. We were obviously going to miss the bus. So I grabbed a seat, an orange juice and people watched for the next two hours.

Sarah arrived, safe and sound with no problems. We grabbed a taxi to downtown Nairobi, picked up a shuttle bus from Nairobi to Eldoret (we take another mode of transportation from Eldoret to Kitale when we do the shuttle bus) and were on the road by 9:50 am. The excitement of the 8.5 hour ride ahead of us.

We were driving for about an hour, when we came up to a police check. The police officer motioned for us to pull over, which we did. He then came over to the window and told the driver to pull the vehicle over to the other side of the road and out in to an open field. We did. They started pulling other vehicles over and having them do the same thing. All of us lined up in a row.

Then another officer came and pulled off the insurance stickers of all the vehicles lined up and took the driver’s licenses of all the drivers. They then told us to drive down the road and stop there. So again, we did. We arrived to find a police truck with 3 men in long white coats (like doctor’s coats). We were the second vehicle to arrive there; they again had us line up side by side to each other vehicle coming in.

We soon found out that the police were doing complete vehicle inspections, like checking the brake system, making sure the lights and turning signals were working, etc. Within 15 minutes or so, there were about 40 vehicles lined up. And although we were the second vehicle there, it didn’t matter. The “inspectors” were so disorganized that what could have taken our vehicle 15 minutes of in-and-out service, took over an hour and a half.

Not only were the people in our vehicle upset, but so were the passengers of the other 40 vehicles. People began chasing the police officers around, yelling at them, demanding that they be released to go as the police were wasting their time. I too was getting frustrated. Not only because I had been up since 5:00 in the morning but because I knew that I would be cutting it close now to entering in to Kitale after curfew time (there’s still the curfew due to the tribal clashes in Mt. Elgon – which have subsided I might add!). I went to this one police officer and explained to him the situation. He asked what vehicle I was in, I told him and he said he would see what he could do. He forgot about me. Moments later, Sarah and I could hear shouting and saw people running. The angry passengers had started a mob around two police officers, the ones who seemed to be heading up the whole operation. The people began shouting at the policemen, raising their fists at them. The police never really flinched.

The people decided to block the street so no one could drive through. There were about 100 of them, blocking the street, shouting. Within 10 minutes or so, there was an army truck in the area breaking up the riot.

I then found another officer, one of the head guys and I explained to him the same story that I had mentioned to the other officer. I told him that Kitale area is strict on the curfew and that if we are late in the city, we could be arrested. He turned to me and laughed, “You’re an mzungu (white person); they won’t arrest you.” I said, “I’ll have you know officer that they have arrested a white person for missing curfew, a catholic priest at that. So, understand sir, that they aren’t playing games in that area and neither am I.” He laughed again at me and turned away.

About five minutes later, that same officer walked by me, and I said aloud, for him to hear, his badge number. He immediately looked at me, stunned and rushed away. Not even two minutes later, he came back to me, “Which is your vehicle, madam?” I pointed to it. “I’ll see what we can do.” In less than 10 minutes, at approximately 12:40 pm, we were getting back in our vehicle, en route to Eldoret.

We reached Eldoret at about 5:45pm. I asked Sarah to stay close to me because the Eldoret stage (where all the public service vehicles come in and out of) is a busy and sometimes dangerous one, if you don’t know where you’re going. As we turned the corner, to find our vehicle to Kitale, a man asked me if I was going to Nairobi. I said that we were coming from Nairobi and we were going to Kitale. At that, he started to grab the bag that was in my hand (Sarah’s luggage). We began playing tug-of-war over it and I kept telling him in Swahili to leave it alone or I was going to beat him but he wouldn’t listen. So with my other hand, that had another bag in it, I swung at him and clocked him good in the side. He finally realized that I was serious and let go of the bag. I turned around to check on Sarah and found him doing the same thing to her. So again I yelled in Swahili at him but he wouldn’t budge, so I went at him full force with death on my face. Thankfully, he saw at that point that I was serious (again!) and let go of her bag.

After 20 plus minutes of waiting for a vehicle to Kitale, it finally arrived. I got Sarah in to the vehicle, secured my seat (as it was only a seven passenger) and made sure that our luggage got on it too. Then started the fight with the driver of the vehicle; he wanted me to pay more because of our luggage…quite a bit more. But I refused. I gave him a bit extra because we did have a lot of luggage but I wasn’t going to allow him to rip me off. So we bantered back and forth and I stood my ground, much to the excitement of the other passengers in the vehicle. The woman sitting behind me said that I was right and that I shouldn’t give in. The gentleman at the back said, “I like your style of doing things, African woman.” We all had a good laugh. The driver gave in to me and we were off to Kitale…or so we thought.

We made it about 10 kilometers outside Eldoret and then we came to a complete STOP. We learned that there was a big graduation ceremony at the Barracks (new soldiers in to the Army). It’s once a year (I think!) and it’s at this one place for the whole country so you have thousands of people trying to leave the place at the same time….on one lane highways. But when you mix thousands of Kenyans from all over the country, trying to leave one place at the same time and impatience, you get a massive dead-stop traffic jam. People took a one-lane highway and made it three lanes…all in the SAME direction. So us innocent folk, who just wanted to get to Kitale and surrounding area, were stuck. For two and a half hours.

Thankfully, we had a van full of fun people. We made jokes; we talked about politics (that is always fun and interesting!). When they found out that this was Sarah’s first time in Kenya and that she literally got off the plane that morning, one woman said, “Please don’t think that this is the way Kenya is all the time. Please don’t go back and tell your people about this.” She was sad that Sarah’s first day could be the worst day for her.

But thankfully Sarah was a trooper, totally awesome and rather than getting frustrated, she enjoyed every minute of it.

When we finally reached Kitale, it was 10:50 p.m. It was 11 hours since we had left Nairobi…this was supposed to be an 8.5 hour trip. Thankfully, there were taxis at the place where our van dropped us off at and we were able to get home. When we arrived at our house, we found Daniel and Tim waiting outside for us to help with the luggage. When we got in the house, we found dinner waiting on the table. Sarah and I were starved; it had been since 2:30 pm, since we had eaten.

We were exhausted. I really don’t remember my head hitting the pillow. I think I was asleep in mid-air. It was such a great time and adventure. I’d do it all over again.

Love you all,

Meredith

xoxoxo