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There is a new way to beat the ever worsening traffic jams in the town. Yes, a way of getting public transport right up to your doorstep. Forget about all the jibe of how Bongo is under developed.
Thanks to the ‘Boda Boda’ revolution which is transforming both public and private transport across East Africa. But before you begin to celebrate, these rides as many have proved can be really scaring and costly.
The other day, I was feeling a bit lousy and lazy at work. It must have been the effects of the brown bottles I had downed the previous night. As you are all aware the English Premium League is back and Bongo politics is at its peak especially with the looming October,31 General Elections.
It is just natural that these arguments sometimes drag on to the late hours of night, sometimes even beyond mid-night. The rhetoric ranges from Liverpool having wasted resources to sign Joe Cole from Chelsea to allegations that someone must have planted a banana skin in Dr Slaa bed room for him to slide and fall in such a huge heap. Some even suggested crazy ideas that if Mwalimu was alive today, he would have joined the opposition!
Well, I had an awful headache. So I asked my boss for permission to leave early. After giving me one suspicious look she granted it without asking the usual questions. At the bus stop I wait for the daladala to take me home. I waited for quite some time to a point that my tired body couldn’t take it any longer.
I looked around for a place to sit but there wasn’t any as the shade was crammed by petty traders and fruit vendors who have turned the place into some open market. The buses that came were either packed to the door or were simply not going in my direction.
In the beginning, I had ignored a group of ‘boda boda’ riders who were sitting on their motorbikes just near the bus stop.
“I mean why pay 1000 or so for the piki piki yet it was only Sh 250?” I reflected.
“But why suffer? When I have just got a salary increase?
Ah elections bwana; that man Mugaya must have known the perfect time to turn on the heat on the government who had earlier on claimed they didn’t need their votes,wee acha tu!”
The other half of me was trying to seduce me to take the Boda Boda, not with all that pay increase buzzing in my brains. However, I must know better than anyone else that this increase will soon mean nothing.
The indicators are already there; Tanesco are telling us our electricity bill must increase by 30% come January.
Of course, that will be followed Dawasa, Mwawasa, and all those water supply guys will be demanding us to pay more; even Mangi at the Kioski will soon follow suit by giving us a new price list. “How long will we carry this Tanesco burden?” I asked myself as another dala dala whizzed by without any signs of stopping.
One of the boda boda men must have noticed my frustration. “ Mzee vipi? Usafiri?” I hesitated, and then I found myself bargaining the fair. “Buku jero.” The fellow said meaning Sh1500.
“Hakuna, buku tu.”
Seeing that his competitors were getting interested, he accepted that I pay only a thousand for the trip.
I had never used this kind of transport in town before because of all the bad publicity it has generated lately. Hardly a day passes without you hearing of a fatal Boda Boda accident. I threw caution to the winds and jumped on for a ride home. My excitement of the ride grew thin when the guy started displaying his mischievous maneuvering skills. He accelerated and over took two cars from the left.
“Er? Is that right?” I asked nervously. “Mzee, without ‘kutanua’ do you think we can beat this jam?”
Well I guessed he was right. One of the reasons the jam are worsening is the narrow strips of tarmac left on most Bongo roads. “But you know it against the traffic rules? Aren't you afraid of the police?”
“Ha, rules are made to be broken, besides the guys know we don’t have much 'mshiko' to offer. They prefer lorries and dala dala where they are sure of getting something,” he said.
As he spoke those words he accelerated further. This time he was over taking a queue of stranded cars on the right. Suddenly, a truck a truck appeared from the opposite side at lightning speed. We were right in the middle of the road. My drive had only one option to fly into the trench.
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