Meru making

The day after our trip to Kibwezi, we found that we were once again in a matatu, hired for the weekend, on the way to Meru, and the subject of 15 to 20 police checks on the trip up.

We dropped our bags at the Hotel Incredible (again, one of the plentiful misnomers in Kenya) before going to a small and very busy church in a small village for several baptisms. Here they demonstrated the awful reality of subsistence living, and stuffed us until we could barely move. We also met Jane Nkonge, an incorrigible and irrepressible church worker who had arranged our trip and was to be our guide.

In the evening, Jo was feeling unwell (suspected malaria), so James and I went to the pub (aren't I sympathetic) where we had our first encounter with the overly friendly deaf dumb barman. He took to us very quickly and started throwing sawdust on some prostitutes so that they would leave.

We also met a man who wanted us to take photos of his house (again one suspects miraa, which doesn't make one violent, but does make one wierd). Here he is with his wife and cow.

The next day we went to two churches. The plan was to visit the first for twenty minutes, before going to the second church. Best laid plans and all that...

When we arrived at the first church the matatu driver stated that he needed more money, or he wouldn't drive us anywhere. So we stayed for the service, whilst Jane tried to sort him out. This church was started in August. In this time they have built a building (no walls yet), and the congregation has grown to 103! Not bad huh.

Meanwhile the row over the matatu was getting more and more acrimonious. The driver called the police, and whilst we as white people would have been in the wrong, I got rather excited about the coming confrontation with the law. Unfortunately, Jane knew the policeman’s boss, and so nothing happened. Maybe later in our trip.

Then we went to another church in a banana plantation which was cool, but a long drive down a muddy and bumpy road. Due to the matatu dispute the service had finished, but everyone was patiently waiting for James to give his sermon. This was the third time for the sermon in two days, he was getting polished. Once again, they stuffed us, but fortunately it started raining, and we were told that we would have to get moving or we would get stuck. The upper road was already impassable, so we took the lower road.

It started to rain on the way back, but we were fine until we got to a hill. We slid our way up it, and at the top Jane said that we were past the worst bit and would be fine. At this point another hill hove into view, a hill we got stuck on. So out jumped the men (including Jane and Jo) to push in the pouring rain (I had hoped African culture would be more chauvinistic), and boy did we push, to no avail. Meanwhile, another matatu turned up, so we pushed some more. Eventually, our matatu rolled to the bottom of the hill, and we tried pushing from the bottom, only to get the matatu up with comparative ease.

The second matatu then had a go, and got stuck half way up. We pushed, and we pushed and we pushed again. Nothing happened. The suggestion that we start from the bottom was greeted with disdain (what do muzungos know about pushing matatus anyway), so we pushed and we pushed and we pushed. The tyres were totally bald, and were being left on the road as they span and sprayed all pushers with mud. Eventually, the Africans produced a rope. Once this had happened it was short work to get the matatu to the top, although we did have a conversation with an African who could not get his head around the fact that we were pushing a matatu and didn't want anything in return.

The next day we were due to return to Nairobi, but there was a matatu strike and so danger of violence.  As James would say, 'I wonder why they are being harassed; oh I know, because they drive death traps like dangerous lunatics, the morons'. So we stayed in Meru and ate a kilo of meat each. I also got hippo poo, ask Margaret for details.

We also went back to the pub, where the deaf and dumb barman (with eyes like polished eight balls from the miraa) decided to drink with us, stopped someone’s pool game so that we could play almost provoking a mass brawl, and provoking the banning of pool for the evening by the manager. He then spent the evening conversing with James by writing on my leg with his hand (which remained when he wasn’t writing!), decided we were army helicopter pilots (and started miming to people that we were soldiers and that they had better shut up or we would shoot them), and then demanded that we pay for his drinks, before passing out. We took a photo and scarpered.

The next day the matatu strike was still on, but we left anyway getting an army escort at one point (this was a bloke in an old golf, so unimpressive I didn’t even bother trying to take a photo), and arrived home safely, before watching ‘Cars’. Shrek is better.