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73 Part Two Son— Cry freedom cry Till your heart bleeds of injustice Cry freedom cry Till the world awakens to your plight Cry Freedom Cry Till your hopes come true! 74 [107.23.85.179] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:46 GMT) 75 11 am’s journey to Kakamega was eventful. At day break, he hopped into a van with the inscription Mwenda Tayari. Poor man, he chose a wrong day for his journey. For he was not only rammed in the van like a sardine in a jar among students returning home for their Christmas holiday, but also, there were many other passengers along their travels. The van was hot and stuffy that he could smell the repugnant stench of people’s sweat and other unpleasant bodily odours—sweat, pungent-sweaty-armpits, foul mouth and . . . It was as though some of those travellers had neither bathed nor brushed their teeth. He wished he had been sitting by the window to thrust his nose outside for fresh air, but that was hardly the case. He was sandwiched between two women on a back seat. One of the women had two children, a toddler and an infant. The other had a toddler. The woman with two children, without much of a request, pushed her toddler onto Sam’s lap. The boy, a filthy looking chap with sleep matter in his eyes and a runny nose, sheepishly and without protest plopped his bottom onto Sam’s lap, just as the driver revved the engine. The van hit a bump, tossing him up and down. He grunted his teeth with disgust as the force of the speeding van forced him to jerk forward. The boy grabbed onto his shirt tightly to avoid falling. There was nothing he could do now. If only he had money, he would have bought an extra space on the van. He had seen many people do that . . . If only he had money! The woman with the infant pulled her bulging breast out of her blouse and rammed it into the baby’s mouth. She did not bother to conceal her act. The baby, with hungry eyes, clung onto her mother’s nipple and hungrily began to suckle. Sam watched this spectacle with detached interest. The van’s engine revved as its wheels rolled on tirelessly. It stopped regularly to drop or pick up new passengers, or when others disembarked. That was all Sam could remember. He must have fallen asleep, in spite of the bumpiness in the road, and missed the municipal sign that read “WELCOME TO S 76 KAKAMEGA.” When he opened his eyes, it was to the loud screeching sound of the tires grinding on asphalt and to the loud clamouring voices of people at the bus stop . . . That was close to midday, and the sun was sweltering hot with a slight drifting wind. The draft transformed the bus stop into an instant dust ball, which made it a bit unpleasant. Most marketers seemed oblivious to it all. For Sam, it was a mere trivial distraction. As he disembarked the van, holding a duffle bag in his hand, he noted that the town was not only dry and dusty, but also, buzzing with a lot of activity. No sooner had he stepped to the ground than he slung his bag on his left shoulder. He stopped just long enough to inspect his surroundings. There were many people in town—men and women, young and old. There were no trees, at least, not as much as in his village and, certainly, no boulders like those that dotted Mung’oma landscape. Instead, there were many buildings, buses, matatus, vans, from different towns—Kisumu, Eldoret, Webuye, Mumias, Nairobi, Bungoma, Busia—some arriving or about to take off. Traders were busy lugging their merchandise from the bus stop to their stalls in the market. Others were pushing carts full of commodities—from sacks of potatoes, second-hand clothes, fruits, to anything that deserved to be transported. Nearby, there was a stall of rowdy chickens imprisoned in lisela.11 A rotund man selling them was engaged in a transaction with some woman and was almost oblivious to everything around him. A woman selling fried fish nearby was surrounded by her regular customers—most looking for a bargain for her fresh fish. ‘Two hundred and fifty shillings for this one,’ she was insisting. ‘You will like it!’ While petty traders were busy haggling with their customers amid jam-packed vehicles...