Fuck Mass Suffererz: your Government is killing you

Chuku chuku, Tchoo! Tchoo!

The cheap, rickety, sway-with-me-now surreal orderliness of the morning train through 'Eastlando' is a disaster begging to happen. Feeling a bit dazed by this apparent contradiction? Let's break it down.

Rickety

Sure. That's not the part that dazed you. I hope. And quite frankly, the fact that the train creaks like a spring bed on a cold winter evening - connect that to bedminton - is not the disaster. Given the train charges 40 bob when the cheapest next best thing at the same hour charges double that, I think you'll agree with a fellow sufferer when I say " 'rickety' on Looney Train!'

Sway-with-me-now

Riding the Githurai 44 route train to town can get you sea-sick. Assuming you have the time - or money - to be sick, Sufferer. Forget that the nearest respectable body of water is at least an hour or two north or south of the railway route's radius.The side-to-side front-to-back journey through the motions, intermitted by incessant screams and wails (not from passengers, unfortunately, but the engine) would make your stomach rumble. Would, but doesn't:; why? Coz:

a) You wouldn't find a toilet to cure that rumble, till you get to Nairobi at least; and

b) You don't have the time - or money, as discussed above - to have a stomach rumble. So you rebuke that demon of the stomach rumble before he challenges you. In the name of Cheezaaz!

c) The train costs, once again, 40 bob. Hiyo ni bargain major sana. Deal with the shakes!

Surreal Orderliness

I sometimes live somewhere in the throes of Eastlando. Sasa, I will sometimes take the morning train to work as a result. [For reasons, see #BudgetYaMasufferer]. Usually, at around 5:30 to 6:30, or 6:30 to 7:30 in the am, that the train passes by my doorstep. In the area I sometimes live. 

That train's NEVER late. 

The train has never been late. Unless it breaks down. Which usually SUCKS!! Imagine being stuck in a veritable jungle somewhere in the Serengeti that Eastlamdo sometimes is. At that unGodly un'Allah'like 5 am. 'Yawa' is the only response your vocabulary should throw at that imagined scenario.

Back to order, the train is never late. Always within the same 5 minute bracket of time. It arrives, passengers have 30 or so seconds to board, et voila...the train tchoo tchoos on to the next Gare/ Stage. Inside the train, the couches, old though they may be, accommodate amply well, leaving you space to stretch your legs out. If you so dare. Seeing as they have never heard of Safety Belts at Kenya Railways, you'd probably fall off faster than it takes to say Yohana Mtembezi [Johnnie Walker]. Or maybe just faster than it takes that cry baby at Tusker Project Fame to break an eyelash sweat.

The order in that train reminds of Okoiti Omtata's words at POWOJune2012; indeed, Kenyans are willing to queue, wait in lines longer than Uhuru Highway, if they know that something awaits them at the end of that queue.

Disaster waiting to Happen 

This country's idea of Disaster Management and Preparedness is in preparing to manage the disaster's after effects. We, captained by chest-thumping tomfoolery, chose to walk KDF {Kenya Defence Forces - defending who? what? where?) into a running battle with Guerilla war lightweight champs in Somali. End result of poor forethought? Bombs left right and centre, above, below and within. Now a gang of maniacs storm a church in Garissa; their tithe, their offering...a spray bullets on the innocent crowd. 

Enter the train from Eastlando. No safety precautions whatsoever. No metal detectors, no sniffer dogs, zilch. nada, niet, nein...zut alors! This, despite the fact that passengers board and alight, bags and all, practically at every stop.

Does the scenario seem dire enough yet?

Enter the train station, at the Arrivals in 'Railways'. Policemen. General Service Unit. AK47s and all that other 'shock and awe' show of force. Not least, an actual Rottweiler that darn near bit off a young lady's head this morning. Literally. As in despite its handler, it jumped all the way 2 or so metres up into the air, going for her head  as she passed by.

At the exit, you find metal detectors and armed guards. Even at 6:30 am in the morning. Impressive, aye?

Well, it is; but only if you miss the fact that the powers that be would much rather cure than prevent attacks on the citizenry who board such a train everyday. Only if the irony in having so much security at the mouth of the CBD - Central Business District - while none goes into securing the people traveling into it, does not stand out to you.

Kenya ni Kwetu; lakini jichungeni Mass Sufferers.

In Other News:

[i] Are you a Kiss 100 fan? Do you feel like your earphones (assuming you use them) are constantly trying to 'Make you Dance'?

Am gonna make you dance

Am gonna am gonna make you dance

[ii] Why you need to know what the US, British, Saudi and Israeli interests in Kenya (Nairobi particularly) are? Because they could KILL you...that's why. At least if Iran is to be feared; and Israel, believed. See today's headlines for more.

[iii] Does anyone else feel the Mass Media sometimes acts like a Public Toilet? A regular dose of 10 bob opinions going down the sewage pipe. In case you missed it, that's an insult. To the Media. And more so to the public.

Siku njemani!