Bananas

The average Ugandan consumes 1 Kg of bananas per day. When you cross the border the guard is like, "Welcome to Uganda. Please eat 1KG of bananas per day so that you don't pull down our average banana consumption. Uganda is the world's number one consumer of bananas. Enjoy your stay."

Bodo Boda

You can get them other places, but Uganda is the true home of "boda-boda" motorcycle taxi.

Originally boda-bodas were bicycles that gave you a ride between the Kenya and Uganda border ("boda" get it?) posts back in 1960s. You can still get bicycle taxis in Kenyan towns. It's a very pleasant way to travel. It has the advantages of cycling but without the work. They put a padded seat on the back of the bike. In Nakuru rush hour doesn't mean noise, stress traffic jams and pollution. Businessmen read their newspaper as the bicycle taxi man ferries them to work.

But these days the word "boda-boda" means a Ugandan motorcycle taxi. They are everywhere. It's very conveniant. Even if you have your own car, you will find yourself taking the occasional boda when you are in a hurry. Traffic is terrible in Kampala, but the boda-boda men can pass between cars or on the sidewalk so you reach your destination on time.

I sometimes ended up taking bodas late at night. It's a dangerous thing because they could drive you somewhere dark, where their friends are hiding, beat the crap out of you and take all you stuff stuff. But it's also exhilerating because the town is deserted so there is nothing to hold you back. The boda-boda men love to race. You fly through the silent sleeping streets and you realize that life is a glorious thing and short.

Sabaot Land Defence Force

These stories are so old it's not even funny.

For example I was passing through Eldoret, Kenya in 2008.

One thing on the television back then was the leader of the Mount Elgon rebels making pronouncements about justice and so on. It was very local news for El Doret. You can see the mountain from town. I was going to cycle out that way the next day.

They interviewed a general from the Kenyan army afterward and it reassured me. He looked annoyed. "I don't know what he was doing on television making these outrageous pronouncements. The only thing I know is that he is dead. We shot him and then we checked his finger prints. He's definitely dead."

The next day was sunny and good cycling. People were out and about in droves.

Bonus Kenya Entry

My last post was perhaps too bitter and depressing so here is a bonus Kenya entry. This is a picture of a Kenyan tea farm. I think tea is one of the most beautiful plants you can farm. Isn't this a soothing picture? Also tea is very soothing to drink.

One day I stopped to talk to a Kenyan walking thoughtfully behind a flock of sheep. He was a fat man in a business suit. In fact he was a banker from Nairobi. But he told me that whenever he could, he liked to get back to the farm.

I asked him why Kenyans never sheer their sheep or do anything with the wool, because this had been puzzling me for some time. He explained that you need to raise Merino sheep for wool. For meat, people prefer larger, hardier varieties, although his neighbor had a flock of Merino or some kind of Merino hi-bred.

He asked where I was going and I said to South Africa. "Ah," he says, "I am going to South Africa too for the next World Cup."

Another day I passed a team of marathon runners training. Perhaps a some of them competed in the Olympics. Kenya is famous for its athletes.

Gar. Haven't blogged for a while. This picture is from a game drive in Swaziland.

I kind of want to fast forward through blogging about Kenya. I went to high school in Kenya. Kenya is a beautiful country with fantastic wildlife. Kenyan's are highly educated and prosperous people in East Africa. I was looking forward to cycling in Kenya, but when I got there it made me depressed.

The post election violence had happened while I was in Egypt. It was over by the time I arrived, but there were still camps of displaced people and I passed through some burned down towns. Over a thousand people died in the violence. In the end, no one was punished for any of it. When I got there, there were politicians on television calling for all the prisoners to be released because they had just been caught up in the moment or were falsely accused. The chief of police was interviewed and he said they had already released everyone except the murderers and rapists, if anyone was falsely accused they would have a fair court case. As I understand it, a judge eventually released everyone and accused the police of doing shoddy investigations. The international court wants to get involved now because genocide cannot go unpunished.

Kenya is a lawless place now. I visited my high school. There is a big fence around it these days. When I was there, I used to go for runs in the forest. The guard said I was unsafe to go there now. A group of students had been robbed by local charcoal makers who had machetes. The guard said that if I really wanted to go outside it was safest to take a machete.

The roads were dangerous too. Kenyan drivers are the most selfish and reckless I have seen. One person was killed when I was riding to Eldoret. It was at those dukas after you cross the equator for the last time. I was out of town, winding my way up the hill and I heard the crash. I stopped and looked down the hill. I could see the people down streaming towards the accident. There women screaming. A minivan had hit a pedestrian. The van had stopped and a passenger had gotten out. In the old days, bystanders would have lynched the driver and set his minivan on fire. I didn't want to see it so I left.

I love Kenya, but it has become a violent lawless place.

Everybody must get stoned (North Kenya Day 6)

So I stop to greet these guys. There are three of them around twenty years old. They're wearing western clothing, except that they are all carrying Samburu gear--a small club, a Samburu sword (basically a double edged machete in a scabard), and a staff for herding cows. One of them has warrior paint on his head.

People always want me to stop and chat and normally I don't, but this was a sandy road with a big hump in the middle so I couldn't go around them. One of the reasons I don't stop, is that people often ask me for stuff. Sure enough after I finish shaking everyone's hands, they do start asking me to give them my water bottles.

I explain to them that I still have 40 km left until the next village and I need the water, so OK people it's been fun talking to you but I have to go.

The young man with the warrior paint is blocking my way. "Fuckin," he says and pushes my bike back. "Come on," I say, "I've got a long ways to go." He points to my handle bar bag. "Fuckin," he says indicating that I should open it.

I turn to the guy beside me. "Come on. You speak English. Tell him to let me through." His eyes go wide. He waves his hands and shakes his head. Leave me out of this.

The guy behind me is very tall. He doesn't say anything, just waves his club in a threatening way. It has a big iron nut attached to the end.

War paint dude can't figure out how to open my handle bar bag. "Fuckin" he says to me but I shrug my shoulders and tell him that he needs to speak in English because I don't understand what he's saying.

He gives up on the handle bar bag and moves to the side of me. I stop him as he tries to reach his hand into my pocket. The tall fellow waves his club at me.

War paint dude finds a packet of toilette paper in my pocket. I am amused by this. I knew all along that I only had tissues in there.

They stand for a moment discussing. He gives me back my tissues.

So the thing is, they say that there are Somali bandits north of Marsabit. If I had been robbed by Somalis with AKs then I would have just given them everything. It's a scenario that I had prepared for and worked out in my head.

But I hadn't expected to get robbed like this. These weren't even proper bandits, they were just people walking on the road who happened to meet me and outnumber me.

Anyway, when he gave me back the tissue I made a break for it. War paint dude tried to grab my handle bars but he slipped and fell.

I cycled like mad until, "Whap!" One of them threw a staff and it hit me across the back. I almost laughed because it didn't hurt and I could hear how annoyed they were.

That would have been the end of it, if it hadn't been such sandy road. The sand kept on getting deeper and deeper and I was going slower and slower until they had caught up with me. All the time they were throwing rocks at me.

Eventually the sand was too deep and I had to stop, pick up my bike and move it to the other side of the road under a barrage of flying rocks. Some of those rocks were big too, thrown with both hands.

I escaped. My shirt was completely shredded. I couldn't inhale too deeply for the next couple weeks because of a cracked rib. Also I got a chipped bone at the base of my thumb. I did a lot of stretching, but I expect it will always be a little stiff.

Northern Kenya: South of Marsabit

Marsabit is a dusty, frontier town in the middle of the desert. I was due for a day of rest and laundry, but there wasn't anything interesting happening and I decided to push on.

Once you pass Marsabit, there are still some sandy stretches of road, but you start to see people and villages again.

The local tribes have retained their traditions. Women wear elaborate bead arrangements instead of shirts for example. Some twenty kilometers south of Marsabit, I passed through a village where everyone was especially dressed up with war paint and spears. At first I thought that it must be a festival or something, but later on I learned that it was tribal warfare. There had been some killing before I arrived.

I passed an angry man with an AK-47 slung across his shoulders. He didn't speak English, but I knew he was yelling at me to stop. I looked back to make sure he wasn't pointing the AK at me, and I sped up.