An assembly of bicycles outside Kakamega's popular entertainment joints in the 1970s through to 1990s meant only one thing: payday for teachers. In those days, bicycles were a status symbol owned mostly by senior teachers and civil servants.
A lot has changed since, so much that someone who last visited Kakamega town 15 years ago will hardly recognise it today.
Paved roads, pedestrian walkways, tree-lined streets,and a clean taxi park, among other improvements, proclaim the fruits of devolution.
The wide, well-lit modern section of road between Amalemba and Lurambi estates on either side of the town is a tremendous improvement on the former single-lane and narrow road. It is the first indicator to a visitor that he or she is entering town.
Muliro gardens, the recreation park that stunned the world with its obscene pictures in 2011 has had a facelift. There are no more bamboo thickets and benches on which immorality thrived, turning the gardens into a contemporary Sodom and Gomorrah. Today, people relax there while hawkers conduct their business.
Yet despite the transformation, some landmarks still remain, like the Karumaindo bar and roast meat joint in Lurambi on the outskirts of the town. The bar was set up in 1964 and is still going strong nearly 60 years later.
"Except for the usual challenges in any business, we are doing relatively well. Ownership of the bar has changed several times, but the location and name have endured.
New entertainment joints have come up all around us, especially with the increase in population and the expansion of Masinde Muliro University, but our clients are special," Niko Atswenje Musundi, proprietor of Karumaindo bar says.
"Most of those who frequent Karumaindo bar belong to the older generation that started patronising it decades ago. They have maintained loyalty to the establishment and would rather have their beer here than anywhere else," Atswenje adds.
"We tried changing the name of the bar to 'Mundenjekhero' in 2019 but patrons would have none of it. We had to revert after only a few weeks," Atswenje recalls with a smile. In the local language, Mundenjekhero is a place where elders used to congregate and drink from a communal pot using long wooden straws.
"We purposefully do not sell keg beer to keep the rowdy younger generation away. Neither do we play loud music. We only play rhumba because that is how our clientele wants it. Karumaindo is more like a member's club. Most of them are retirees, teachers and civil servants".
Besides Karumaindo, there were other famous social meeting places like Wayside hotel and bar, Buhando bar, Bunyore bar, Green bar and Bendera hotel, bar and restaurant. Wayside hotel, bar and restaurant was situated in town, a few meters down the road from the current Kakamega County government headquarters.
The Bendera hotel, bar and restaurant faced the entrance to Muliro gardens. Much later, it gave way to one of the main banks in Kakamega town while Wayside died away. Buhando bar, on western edge of town, operated as the most famous roast goat meat joint in town for years until it ceased operations a few months ago for renovation purposes.
"Wayside was classy and the place to be in the 1980s through to the 1990s. It was the most popular bar in town where the who-is -who of town at the time used to meet and share banter over a bottle of beer", James Chibole reminisces. A businessman in town, he was one of the patrons of the club.
"I met a District Officer who later became a close friend of mine at Wayside sometime in 1987. We often took drinks alternately between Karumaindo bar in Lurambi and Wayside as the most popular drinks joints in town then," Patrick Kisuya says.
"Whenever one needed some quiet environment outside the noise of town, we would then go to Karumaindo in Lurambi. As it were, we shuffled between the two bars on a good day".
Across the road from Wayside bar, the few taxis that operated at the time used to park there.
"Those days, taxis were mainly ramshackles. A car had to have seen better days to qualify as a taxi. The ramshackles rattled so loudly,that it was hard to converse normally. Many did not have ignition keys and were either kicked into life using exposed wires or pushed. The brakes required constant pumping to work," Songoi Mathew recalls with a chuckle.
Then, as opposed to now, bicycles were a rarity. Most of the people who owned bicycles were teachers, and they only came out on pay days. It was therefore easy to tell when teachers had earned. Today, however, bicycles are no longer a status symbol. They have become ubiquitous and a means through which many earn a living ferrying people from one point to another.
"Any day many bicycles were seen in town, it was a signal that teachers had earned and many were out watering their throats after days of shouting and inhaling chalk dust. The other sign was seeing people walk around town carrying kerosene in five-litre jerricans. Many of them were teachers who had just earned," Songoi recalls.
Most schools were rural-based, but services were domiciled in towns. It was not possible to find a bar or filling station anywhere close to the villages, which was why teachers took advantage of the day they went to town to get their pay to party, buy kerosene and do some shopping.
Unfortunately, most of the teachers also lost their money and bicycles on payday. Criminals easily tracked them. The inebriated never stood a chance once thugs attacked them in secluded places on their way home after taking one too many.
