THE NGONG EXPRESS

It was already past nine on that rainy Friday evening when, with great difficulty, I managed to squeeze myself into a matatu. It had been a long desperate struggle to get transport home because it had been raining the whole evening and there were few vehicles. I had been waiting outside the Co-operative Bank for the past 3 hours, trying in vain to enter into the very few Ngong matatus that had come so far; but the crowds pushing to get in had been so thick and violent that I had not managed to enter into any one. I was wet, cold and tired after standing around in the rain hunting for transport home to Ngong, twenty-five kilometers away from Nairobi city centre.

The conductor was shouting with a harsh voice “Steji yote mia hamsini! Steji yote mia hamsini!” Nobody seemed deterred by the fact that this was nearly three times the usual fare, least of all me. We were all worn out and disheartened and we had no courage to argue.

Hardly had I found a seat than the matatu took off, driving up the Haile Selassie Avenue in the general direction of Ngong; I had been one of the last to board. As it weaved its way through the thin evening traffic, I found leisure to look around the matatu. All windows were closed and it was steamy inside the matatu. Above the windows on both sides, the words NGONG EXPRESS SERVICES were written in big gaudy yellow and red letters. It was an old worn out vehicle but with good lighting.

To my right sat two women. The woman at the window wore a dark raincoat. She looked about thirty years old. The one sitting next to me was wearing a thick green pullover and a flowery headscarf. She was plump, elderly and looked like one of the women one sees selling in markets. To my left sat one woman and one man. The woman could have been about 25 years old. She was wearing a thick brown coat that seemed soaked with rain. The man was wearing a red raincoat and he was sitting at the window. Everyone seemed busy trying to wipe away water from his or her face. As the matatu drove up towards Kenyatta Hospital, the conductor started to collect the fare, folding the notes neatly around his middle left finger. He was stocky, with uncombed hair and wearing a dirty maroon matatu coat.

By the time the conductor got to me, the matatu had already passed Lenana School I dipped my hand into my right trouser pocket where I always put my wallet but there was nothing there. Frantically, I searched in the other trouser pockets. Nothing! Somebody must have picked my pocket as we jostled to board the matatu! I looked at the conductor’s outstretched hand and then at his impatient and harsh looking face. “Wee lipa haraka!” he commanded in harsh voice. junction and was driving through the Ngong forest towards Karen. The traffic here was thin and the matatu was traveling fairly fast.

“Somebody must have stolen my wallet as I entered the matatu!” I exclaimed.

“ Wacha. Toa pesa au ushuke. Dere, simamisha gari huyu jamaa ashuke!” He shouted in a loud rough voice.

“Please, do not leave me here. I will find a way to pay you when we arrive in Ngong.” I pleaded with him. But I could see he was not listening to me.

He put the currency notes he had wrapped around his left-hand middle finger into his trouser pocket and pulled violently at my coat lapels with his both hands. I stood up, not knowing what to do next. People looked interested in this small drama and were watching me carefully. As I slowly and reluctantly made my way forward towards the only door, people were silently staring at me, probably expecting more exciting action. I could hear the heavy rain pounding the matatu. I guessed that we were now not far from the Karen shopping center. I could see it would be a long unpleasant and maybe dangerous walk to Ngong if I were forced to alight here and walk home. I stopped, turned around and begged him:

“Please, let me travel on. I will give you my mobile phone as security and you return it to me once I repay you when we arrive in Ngong.”

“ Haya, leta.”

I put my hand into my coat pocket but the phone was not there! God, how could I have lost my phone and wallet and not even noticed anything!

I looked at the now very hostile face of the conductor as the other passengers started to make impatient noises and looking at me as if I was a criminal.

I started again to walk slowly towards the door, but before I had gone far, a man sitting near the door shot up and turned round. He was holding a pistol that he waved in different directions so that all passengers could see it. He said:

“This matatu has been hijacked. All we want are just a few things from you. Do not resist and you will be alright.”

Then he pointed the gun at the conductor, who was also close to the door.

“Wee makanga, lete hiyo yote uliweka kwa mfuko! The gunman commanded. In a hurry, the conductor cleared his pocket and handed the contents over to the gunman.

Then the gunman commanded the driver to continue driving but at a moderate speed. That is when I noticed there was another man standing behind the driver and pointing a gun at the driver. The driver did as he was told. I sat at the nearest seat; it was not far from the door.

It was now very quiet in the matatu. I was frightened and I could see the other passengers were too.

A rough voice from the back shouted:

“Sasa ni wakati wa sadaka. Toeni kwa roho safi. We mama ndio utaanza. Peana simu na pesa yote ile uko nayo”.

I turned round and saw that the man with the red raincoat had stood up. He too was holding a gun and pointing it at the woman sitting beside him. Then one of the women who had been sitting on my right but next to the window stood up and started to collect items from the passengers and stashing them into a big blue rucksack. The vehicle moved on slowly towards Ngong. We were now past Karen police station and my hopes that maybe the police might notice the hijacked matatu and rescue us were not fulfilled. I started to pray that the driver would cause an accident or crash our matatu against an oncoming vehicle. But he was driving at a relatively slow speed and the traffic on the road was thin.

The matatu started to descend down the steep winding road into the Mbagathi river which was bounded on both sides by trees and bushes. I peered outside, but it was too dark and I could not see anything. By now, the woman looting the passengers was finishing collecting from the foremost rows of the matatu. She had worked quickly and efficiently. It was tense in the matatu. So far, nobody had offered any resistance. Then suddenly, I heard a loud scream from the back of the matatu. I turned around like every one else and our eyes fastened on the woman sitting at the backseat beside the man with the raincoat. The man with the gun at the back seemed to panic and he must have inadvertently pulled the trigger; the bullet flew wild and hit the farthest window of the matatu.

“ Everybody keep quiet!” The gunman at the door shouted. But even before he had finished, I felt the matatu lurch to the left and I could tell that it had left the road and was sliding down the steep slope through the bushes. Everything was now happening very fast. I saw the gunman near the door trying to open the matatu door; the looting woman, who was now returning from the front and had just reached the row I was in, had finished collecting and stood there, holding on shakily to the rail above with her left hand, while the other one held the rucksack. Without even thinking what I was doing, I snatched the bag from her and pushed it under my seat. Before I could sit up properly, the woman jumped at me but we got destabilized as the matatu tilted slightly on its left side and came to a sudden halt. I shook off the woman. Other people started kicking at her. Passengers had been thrown into each other and they were trying to disentangle themselves from each other.

Another shot rang at the front and I noticed a man with a brown cap trying to wrestle the gun from the thug who had been holding it against the driver. There was a very loud deafening noise as a bullet from the gun tore through the windscreen. What happened next was even faster. From the back of the matatu, a shot was fired, probably to remove the man struggling with the thug at the front. But it hit the door gunman, who had just found his balance and was rushing towards the scuffling pair, at the back of his head. He tried to turn backwards but he started to fall forwards and the gun fell with a clutter to the matatu floor. With alacrity, the conductor jumped at the fallen gunman and retrieved the cash stolen from him from the thug’s trouser pocket.

Astonishingly, the woman at the back continued to scream loudly as if in great pain. But nobody minded her. There was total confusion, as people tried desperately to escape through the windows. I saw the driver turn and pull the front gunman at the feet and as he fell, the man with the brown cap managed to wrest the gun from thug. The other two passengers who had been sitting at the front near the driver started hitting at the fallen gunman while the red-capped man, who now held a gun, turned round and fired towards the back of the matatu, aiming to hit the thug with the red raincoat who was now walking towards the front. The bullet hit the thug on the right shoulder and he cried with pain even as the gun fell from his hands. The man fired again at the thug, this time hitting him on the chest. In that moment, I realized this man was used to handling weapons and probably a policeman.

I removed the bag from under the seat and started trying to identify the owners of the various objects and returning them to them. I was greatly but pleasantly surprised when I found my own mobile and wallet with the money intact inside the rucksack. Nobody tried to claim them. Probably because of the situation we were in, it did not even occur to me to try to find out who the pickpocket had been. I was in any case happy to have gotten my things back. With the phones, that was easy. People would describe the phones and say their numbers and I used my newly found phone to test them. With the wallets, that was also easy. The passengers would describe the color of their wallets and the approximate cash in it. I would verify and return it to them. It was more difficult with the cash that was not in wallets but I finally succeeded in returning everything to the robbed and rightful owners.

The man wearing a brown cap dialed the police from his mobile number but I knew it would take quite a while before the police arrival. Two men were still holding the woman who had been collecting the money. Otherwise, it was almost miraculous that none of the passengers had been seriously wounded.

All this time, the woman at the back continued screaming at intervals. Then I heard the other elderly woman with the thick green pullover sitting at the backseat say with a low voice:

“Inaonekana anapata mtoto. Si mtafute daktari!”

Immediately, three other women went to the back and shielded the screaming woman. The older woman took charge and told the men to go for a walk into the rain. I could not see what the women were doing to the screaming woman, but I gathered they had stretched her on the backseat and were shielding her with their bodies and lessos from the any curious gazes.

As we stood hunched in the rain at the roadside, waiting, I guessed the time must have been about eleven something. The Ngong Express was definitely not keeping its promise of quick transportation. The night was proving to be extremely uncomfortable. We discussed the gangsters who had frightened us so much. After standing for about 20 minutes we heard the women in the matatu ululating and we felt relieved. A youngish woman came out and announced that a healthy beautiful girl had been born.

By Kimani Kinyanjui (Kenyan Writer)