Still Sings the Nightbird

Home to breastfeed

49 H Home to breastfeed piderweb number 100 was the name of the minibus Kabi boarded to and from Kaza. Number 100 was the identity for the matatu that plied part of her route to and from home. The name, Spiderweb, is what distinguished it from the rest in the fleet marked by that exciting number, 100. An easy-to-write number. Igana. Magana. Kenyatta’s unsmiling face filled the money bills. A hundred. Hundreds. The first big number that one learns. A number that spells plenty and ambition for all – a hundred per cent! The route Number 100 was not because numbers one to ninety nine were in place. No. It was because a great feeling it was to have a hundred shillings in the pocket of one’s imagination. A hundred shillings lining up the pocket of a trouser! Or tucked away safely somewhere on the waist of a skirt; maybe, in a neat knot in one of the corners of a handkerchief; the kerchief was then strung on to the waistband of the skirt. Inside Spiderweb, Kabi felt uncomfortable sandwiched between two fat men who spoke across her face all the way home. One of them had a terrible breath. Forget about the afternoon lesson she had on fresh rivers and lakes of Afrika! Evening was here. All the Geography she had learnt in her life could well fly out of the window. There was no guarantee here, insurance and such concerns belonged to a different world. She looked again and recognized one of the men. He greeted her. He was the one with the bad breath. He asked her if she could afford to pay his fare. She could not. He was the brother of her friend Kuku who went to live in the Rift Valley many years past. Kuku died there before coming back home. Many people had gone to live in the Rift Valley to escape poverty. Politicians began to pave unclear ways for them. Kuku had gone with her family to a part of the Rift Valley where they could sell their labor. But a pick -up van heaped with dry maize on cobs had hit her and taken her life as she walked with her S 50 own stack of firewood. Kabi often thought of her whenever she carried heavy piles and walked on the side of the road. Kabi and Wakabi are fortunate to be alive. Somewhere in the distance, and somewhere near, there are other women who cannot move with pain. So Kabi and her mother are blessed. Yet it is difficult to have pain that breaks your back into two and live. It is trying to have pain in the mind and live. It is arduous to have pain in the body and continue living with zest. But now Kabi was inside minibus Number 100. The full number and the matatu full of people. The old minibus charged down the road at breakneck speed. Kabi knew that her life, her heart as was often said when someone was in great danger, was in her mouth. Passengers had to shout above the noisy clanging of the vehicle. Then they went silent. But not at ease. They felt as if they would be flung out through the windows any time. The trees of Karura forest stared in shock. At such times, a prisoner in a speeding vehicle, Kabi often wondered how the trees felt with this vehicular intrusion. Sometimes, she thought they were crying, ‘mercy, oh, mercy!’ but there was no ear to hear. Deep inside the forest, tree must have spoken to tree, creeper to creeper about this. Kabi wished she could lead the people to shout out against it. ‘Maisha ni magumu,’ people often said, life is hard. They said it as if trying to steer their own life ahead. They said it if you tried to lead crowds. Then they promptly reminded you that the crowd was too ‘heavy’, ‘difficult’ even for Musa in the Bible. They said it in many tongues and Kabi heard in her village. Kƭrƭndƭ kƭaremire Mutha. After some time, they did not even say the word for crowd kƭrƭndƭ …. Somewhere in the middle of a conversation you would hear… “Weee! kƭaremire Mutha. To make money the matatu driver put life in danger. Politician and oppressive fathers sell land to make more money. What could one do to stop them? Get out in the forest and be eaten...