Accommodation is never standard.

The shady people say “Rissot” and the more (they think) cultured will pronounce it “reezort”.. Either way, I was staying at the Yala Resort. And from the looks of the facilities, in no way was it deserving to be referred to as a “Reezort”. I was happily served by Sarafina and was given the best room in town for a liitle more than what you would pay for club entrance in the City. After a good scrub to wash off all the dust from pushing the two tonne 17 horsepower pick up truck to the other side of the country, I headed to the dining hall where I was joined, without invitation, by two ladies of the night.

Langa, poko, daughters of joy, ladies of the night, CSW and all other names conjured up every Friday night by a team of local experts in every local pub in the nation are used to refer to these ladies. These names are endless, but one with no front tooth (hereafter referred to as "no meno") and the other with flouride stained teeth (hereafter referred to as meno shokoret) were not quite the creatures you would expect to convince a drunken, red blooded youth from the City to part with his money. As a fact of matter, they would incline me to re-check the quantity of my wallet contents every hour to make sure I was not robbed. Aside everything, I think MSF (doctors without borders) need to organise a dental drive though Yala rissot.

“Iko nini?” I yelled out in the makeshift restaurant in reference to the food readily available. For those of you who may not have had the pleasure of eating outside of the comfort of a 3 star restaurant and consider “Terrific Tuesday” at Pizza Inn as your idea of roughing it, I have news for you. There are establishments with oral menus which will only be read out if you ask those key words. "Iko nini". Otherwise the waiter comes over and patiently leans on your table looking straight into your eyes waiting for you to read his brain, and decide what it is want to order.  This is no joke.  But it only makes sense if you earn Ksh 3,000 and some drunk comes and eats food worth half your salary with his other drunk friend and the two daughters of joy (No meno and meno shokoret).

*Travelling Fanatic TF

* Dumb Waitress DW

And the converstion goes like this

TF: iko nini dada?

..........Silence......

TF: (slightly agitated) WEWE!!!!

DW: (turning around from watching a Mexican soap on the tube having assumed the ever so comfortable hand in breast position) Eh?!!!! 

TF: Iko nini?

DW: Kila kitu iko

TF: Mko na steak?

DW: hiyo ni nini? Aiy...

TF: si ulisema kila kitu iko.. sema iko nini..

DW: Iko ugali.............. (silence)

TF: (getting extremely infuriated) NA?!!!!

DW: Na beef........... (silence)

TF: Eish madam, kwani hii ni interrogation ya police. Ebu ongea kama radio mpya. Sema ile yote iko..

DW: hiyo tu ndio iko ........ (silence alongside a blank look)

TF: si ulisema kila kitu iko?? Sasa imebadilika? (getting upset so my redness makes me look like a tomato with a beard)

DW: (still....blank look..).

TF: NKT.!!!!! Leta hiyo basi.

DW: Ugali na beef?

TF: kwani iko kitu ingine? NKT!!!!!.. annoyed, upset, hungry etc

DW: sawa....

So anyway, as usual, there is ALWAYS only ugali and beef. And I stubbornly and indirectly order for ugali and beef. And now I sit here, In Yala “Rissot” with No Meno and Meno Shokoret waiting for my Ugali and beef

My trip to nyanza.

I dont have anything against Kisiis, Drunks, footballers etc.. But cops, they are the patipati one wears when going to a public toilet.

So I don’t write about rugby because surprisingly, I rarely attend rugby matches any more.  Not because I have lost interest in the sport but because as time wears on, responsibilities take a toll and one is forced to choose between rugby and paying bills.

I was thrown in the thick of things when I was asked to supervise a project in Gem Dsitrict. OK, I don’t even know if it is a district, lakini they said the people of Gem have really somad and I should be very scared of them,.. WAPI???? Those are just guys of shags with inappropriate use of vocabulary.

So on my way north east from the glamour of Nairobi, I pass the usual drunkards speeding to naivasha for “one”.  I simply Don’t understand how a drunk person, (ir)rationally decides to drive his vehicle down an escarpment while severely intoxicated and  brags to his friends the next day how high he was as he sped down one of nature’s greatest descents. Anyway. This is not a “health and safety column” so shauri yako. Passed naiva–ho and into the plains that lead into Nakuru. These are the most boring of sites to see, it’s like watching paint dry. Don’t be cheated. There is NOTHING to see between those two towns. Just Uhuru’s land on your right and Government land on the left. (Somehow I feel these two people are one and the same).

Passed Nakuru and then the stories start flowing. (sorry I forgot to mention how I was travelling with one my peoples who happens to be a plumber but can paint, do electrical, do plaster, a bit of masonry and roofing). Anyway, so Man Man starts telling me how we should not pass the route to kericho coz some guy had been shot at the forest a week back. The road is rubbish in that stretch (though has been worked on recently) but I was not doing a two hour diversion because of one bullet ridden body. I come from Nairobi. It means I would have to go through Mombasa to get home if I avoided all the roads someone has been shot in the last month.

The hill to Sechangwan is steep. Now it makes sense on how a tanker can overturn carrying fuel even if the driver knows its a bad road. Yet the trailer coming down against us was cruising at formula one speed and just flashing his lights. FOKO jembe you driver, if it were not for my gripping the steering tight and closing my eyes, I would have gotten your Number plate and reported you to the cops. Speaking of cops. A new trick for those travelling long distance; dress in your pyjamas, carry several 50 bob notes, crumpled preferably.  When stopped by these modern day hyenas (read cop), look distressed, like your boss sent you for work during your mother’s funeral. And ask him politely if he can accept the ONLY note in your crumbling wallet. Which happens to be the crumbled, wrinkled, tired, 50 bob note with Kenyatta walking with crutches coz it has chokad ile mbaya. Oh I also forgot to say I was in a beat up pickup carrying loads of construction materials thus the “stop and ask him for money” target across my chest.

Once you get past Mau summit and towards kericho, you get to witness beautiful tracts of land with tea and poster women picking their share for the day (of course for pittance pay). But Again I am not a “labour and free trade” columnist, so life continues. Its looks like a million football fields beautifully manicured and just waiting for kenyas finest footballers (if any) to showcase their skills.

Now this is where the shock started. Si Nyanza is BIG. We come down some escarpment and the heat starts. It’s like driving to Mombasa. But here, there are no yellow yellows. And then we drive for about an hour and we have not reached Kisumu. I thought Kisumu was the whole of Nyanza. I mean, with all these jangos that claim they are related to each other, I figured it can’t be that big. Shock on me, they have north nyanza, south nyanza, central nyanza. I mean, they even have time to fit in some bantu’s somewhere in there. Though from the sound of their language, those guys just forced into being Bantus. I cant believe I haven’t reached. GOSH...

so its not rugby

I have been unable to write anything on rugby partly because the league is boring and does not involve travelling, thus beating the purpose of writing journals of NOT travelling on a travel site. But I ended up working in Nyanza for a bit in the last two months and so was forced to travel. I didn't watch a Minute of rugby but had loads of fun meeting new people, getting lost on boda bodas and blending into different cultures. Key moments to be remembered include:

1. The amazing jango bash
2. Nyoyo and Omena staple diets
3. Backbreaking pickup with one horsepower
4. Low profile tyres on kenyan roads
5. Mchezo bus service
6. Long road home.
7. Maseno Ghost town
8. Armaggedon in Ilundi

Over the next week, I shall give small stories of how Kisumu and Nyanza are the next frontier. But not just yet. If you get my drift.

Driftwood sevens

the final tour for many people.

The big one. The last tournament in the circuit. The penultimate decider of the champions, the mother of tours and the biggest dent in the wallet. Not to be missed. With the breaking away of the unhappy rugby players from MSC to form the Mombasa Spartans (like they couldn’t find a better name), Mombasa RFC are attempting to assemble a patchy team so that they can be allowed to host the tournament as this is an obvious prerequisite to having your own tournament. But this should not deter you from attending. As the action will be non-stop. The crowning of the champions will be done on the island and song and dance will be the order of the day as sorrows are drowned and kings are crowned.


Mwamba only needed to get the quarter finals and with the fantastic four preparing for Delhi, it was gonna be steep, but not impossible. so instead, We'll start from when I was pandaing Modern Coast Bus in Nairobi and all buses were fully booked and we had to sit in the last row. Where the bus hits a pothole and you get thrown into the air like your on a see-saw. Somehow, I spent the entire trip asleep while Bobby was busy counting the number of potholes on Msa road. Bwana PS of Roads, Bobby says his survey shows 38 serious potholes between the two Cities. With the levels of corruption and inefficiency, it will take 16 chinese and a million black men (and a special budget of 1 billion) to fix those 38 holes.


we arrived Mombasa at 5 am and slowly made our way to Jundani hotel where we pleaded with the somali to give us a room to shower and freshen up for an hour for kidogo chumz. 'BLIZ dont take long, My bhoss will gam early" he pleaded with us. 


so a quick shower and breakfast of mahamri and chai choma on the streets gives us enough energy to tackle a fun filled saturday. In we walk into MSC and with our muscular build and arrogant swagger, the watchies salute and quickly usher us in without asking any questions. (ok, perhaps i had more of the arrogant swagger than the muscular build). but bado njiliingia bure.


at the pitch was the complete array of fun and games.. and this is not including the rugby going on. the excited msa teenagers were already at the bottom of their first vodo. and it was only 10 am. the refs were fighting with some strange revellers over a tent. The union guys wanted to sit near the halfline but some rowdy guys had already taken charge of the area and mike mwanja was trying to look serious and chase them away. Mike, poor planning on your part cant be a ticket to harrass kenyans who have come to watch rugby. 


The VIP tent had so called important people but noticably, it had Big Ted. The guy had jazad the tent mpaka the guys huko nyuma had to sit on stools to see above him. and alipatiwa kiti ya chuma from the main club coz the plastic chairs had a technical hitch. I think it may be that they are unable to hold anything heavier than a rhino.


Nondies fielded one of their best teams of the circuit and got further then they were used to. kudos to the lions. Sevens was not meant for everyone. Bobby six (flanker) killer was forced to watch from the sidelines due to a broken finger. (maybe Big Ted sat on it?).  


Homeboys came with an ice bath also. Though I don't understand why it was very similar to a large blue bucket from Roto Moulders.  Perhaps its a new state of the art cooling system that was made in Industrial area. Anyway, they got the concept and that's what matters. Cool your players to save energy. 




Now on to the bigger game... !5s rugby