LANGAS - Eldoret

WHEREVER YOU GO, GO WITH ALL YOUR HEART. Confucius

Its Imtiaz's birthday. Messages are pouring in on the Signal group.

I must not forget, in two days its our wedding anniversary!

 

I am in Eldoret. Flying back to Nairobi later today. 

 

Yesterday evening I slept at Ndupawa as I always do when in Eldoret.

Its a chilly evening. The Kenyan winter is here - and felt much more so in the highlands  - one mustn't forget that Eldoret is 700ft above mean sea level.. 

This year it is promising to be a cold one!.

I am prepared for this - I have warm clothes on and some more in my rucksack in case the weather plays a fast one on me ....... !

 

I notice that in the evening there are hardly any children playing around. Is it too much homework or are they released late from school. I feel our children are far more overworked than children their age all round the world. Children are supposed to play and also study ... but play more. Keep these thoughts in mind!

I am in LANGAS - a suburban part of Eldoret. The area has many schools and institutions of higher learning. Its a wide road reserve and lined by trees on both sides on most of the length. This as I have explained in a past blog is a legacy of the colonialists who planned the towns with main roads lined by trees on either sides - AVENUES!

This is a node of activity at most times of the day - but actually busts to life in the evening. Children going home, the workers also trekking home with small bags of vegetables or bread or sukuma wiki. Boda bodas screeching up and down the highway and more often on the pedestrian paths - they are a law unto themselves ...... mark my words this will be a difficult dragon to tame!

 

And the evenings are dominated by the youth mostly couples .... seemingly 'hunting or fishing'. This goes on till late. Langas has many tertiary institutions and thus the very large population of young men and women.

 

By 5pm a steady stream of the young pours out of the institutions to while away evenings. There are a variety of distractions and joints to milk the youth of their meager stipends and allowances. The distractions include lounges and clubs, wine and liquor stores, salons, roast meat joints and outside eateries.

 

A few mitumba hawkers stroll along touting their wares......but like everyone else they are deeply aware that its 6th of the month and all the money earned recently at end-month is long gone and forgotten.

In the morning the same Sodom and Gomorrah of yester evening is transformed into a God loving society with school buses honking away urging children to hurry on to school.

 

Last night's boda bodas which were transporting drunkards to and from their escapades are now angels taking parents and young ones to school.

The ladies who were frying chicken and fish for the young alcoholics & frolickers - are now frying mandazi and making wheat flour chapatis for the larks of society.

 

Its a bipolar community!

 

The same routines are repeated throughout the country in all towns and centres that dot the Kenyan scene.

 

In the morning all theclubs, bars, wine and liquor stores are closed. Their doorways littered with empty bottles as if to proudly and defiantly announce the happenings of the previous nights. 

A few condom packets are also carelessly strewn; a sign of what transpired behind the tinted windows of cars that were parked here last night.

 

An old lady with a kiondo of vegetables trots past. All the shops are closed except kiosks which sell milk, bread and mpesa.

Its a familiar scene.

 

The salons which were full last night are also closed. These are as vital to the evening happenings as the wine stores and the nyama choma joints...who wants to date a woman whose hair is not made up! 

What most youth don't realise is that the hair is immediately forgotten the moment the lady 'takes a bait'. - The hair is but an attraction tool as are the made up nails and the scanty dress and skirts.

On the other hand - the decent and hard working citizens are already at work......they have neither the time nor money nor cars or other perks to waste to engage in the deeds and misdeeds of the other section of our bipolar society.

 

There are only two tribes at play here. The haves and the have-nots!

The have-nots work hard and live a decent and largely less sinful life or almost sinless life. 

The haves are the cowboys of the evenings! With almost unlimited resources which they can flaunt at will and with little care!

My colleague with whom we had tea last evening has sent me an sms excusing himself from breakfast. 

We had agreed to do breakfast in town before heading to the airport.....

But I am suspecting he may have been 'hunting & fishing' last night as I retired ... and this suspicion arises from the evening as we were going back to out rooms. He had greeted a lady and received an enthusiastic reply and greeting from (as we sometimes say aliingia box!) .....if this is true then I was therefore a hurdle in that hunt! 

Hehehe - no sureties here; only suspicions.

I had quickly excused myself and we had parted ways.

Hence probably the excuse to skip breakfast - who knows?

If all this is true then I'm sure he's had a long and warm night ..... no need to add to the speculation!

Today for the umpteenth time I'll have breakfast at Jamia Cafe. 

Its opposite Jamia Mosque and hence the name. The area is called Eastleigh - probably because most businesses here are Somali-owned!

My pilot (GR) and I order fried meat and liver and chapatis. 

Its a filling breakfast, enough to last a whole day in case the opportunity of lunch fails to present itself.

 

A quick thought crosses my mind.....the most precious resource I have is time. Every minute and hour is so so valuable. Its not that there is no lunch or that there is no money for food.....alhamdulillah there is plenty. 

Its time that is scarce. 

I must guard and utilise this resource very carefully and jealously.

 

We return to Ndupawa to pick my colleague who looks fresh and too well to have just skipped breakfast. 

 

We head to Eldoret International Airport.

Back towards home...