Salgaa town: Kenya's own 'Wild West'

Studies

By Crazy Monday Correspondent

During the day, Salgaa looks just like any other sleepy roadside market. But a closer look reveals an inordinate number of bars and lodgings for a town its size.

Pointedly, there is a VCT tent bang in the middle of town and we gather that counselling takes place mainly from dusk to dawn.

Some residents stroll around, disinterested in the five odd trailers parked by the Nakuru-Eldoret highway and part of Kenya’s segment of the Great North Road.

DA view of Salgaa market with a VCT tent in the foreground

There are a few boda boda motorcycle taxis parked, waiting for customers wishing to travel the five odd kilometres to Rongai town and other destinations in the lush agricultural hinterland of Elburgon and Molo.

But we are told that we have come at the wrong time. We should wait for nightfall and see the true picture and fame of Salgaa.

Looking beyond the town, one sees the effects that the windfall of Salgaa has created on the neighbouring farms. There are apparently many recently carved out parcels of land and intense construction of palatial homes. The town is evidently growing past its current five-kilometre square ‘commercial zone’. And all this development depends on the trickle-down effect of the money that changes hands here daily courtesy of the thriving trade in flesh.

A Salgaa bar operator, popularly known as Kamangara, points to us where the town began. This is at the intersection of the Nakuru-Eldoret highway and the earth road from Elburgon to Rongai.

“About 20 years ago, there were exactly two kiosks here,” he says.

Kamangara adds that owing to the dangers of highway robbers when climbing the nearby steep hill at Sachangwan at night, truck drivers opted to sleep over in their trailers at Salgaa.

“The women and bars and lodgings followed in that order and now we have Salgaa”, says Kamangara.

He adds that even without the twilight women, with the advent of some flower farms in the neighbourhood, the demand for housing in Salgaa has skyrocketed, making it the hottest place to invest in real estate.

Busy highway

According to Kamangara, Salgaa, which in Kalenjin means praising one’s home, is a truly cosmopolitan town with women from all corners of Kenya and beyond.

“There are even some Tanzanian and Ugandan women here,” he says.

When business is good, twilight women converge here from Nakuru, Molo, Elburgon and Rongai towns.

Kamangara says that when a proposed parking lot is completed, the many trucks that park by the roadside will no longer be a menace to other motorists on this busy highway.

“We shall have a capacity for even more trucks than currently park here on an average night and business is set to grow,” he says.

A woman who only reveals her first name, Felistas, says that she was lured to Salgaa five years ago from her home town of Busia.

“Salgaa’s nightlife has been good and on a good night, one can earn up to Sh3,000 depending on the ‘extra treats’ she may be willing to offer the road-weary truckers,” she says.

Felistas has been able to save enough money to buy a plot at Salgaa on which she plans to put up a house. Felistas, who has since brought her two sisters to try their luck in this veritable Kenya’s Wild West outpost, says that one of the unwritten rules in Salgaa is that a condom is not an option.

“In the time I have been here, we have lost countless girls to Aids,” she says. She adds that some truck drivers often get naughty and have unprotected sex.

Lodging owners

At the mere removal of a condom the girls often scream and night watchmen and lodging owners mete out an instant Salgaa fine of Sh2,000 payable to the girls despite other earlier monetary agreements, says Felistas.

Fatuma, a girl from Mombasa, arrived at Salgaa two years ago at the recommendation of a long distance truck driver.

“He told me about this exotic place upcountry where girls mint money effortlessly and where one can’t miss a day’s earnings,” she says. And she was not disappointed upon arrival.

“I have a Rwandese and Tanzanian truck driver friends and I normally call them to know when they will be passing by. On lean days I try out my luck in Nakuru,” she says.

Indeed, Fatuma’s style epitomises the weekly fluctuation of the flesh trade at Salgaa. According to the people we interviewed, there is a weekly influx of new faces who come every Wednesday night to supplement the regulars due to the huge number of male truckers who sleep over at Salgaa.

We spoke to Mathias, a truck driver whose behemoth petrol tanker bore foreign numbers and he chuckled at this Wednesday jinx. Through halting Kiswahili, we understood that it took three days to drive a truck from Mombasa to Salgaa and the same number of days to reach here from Kampala, hence this mid-week convergence of sinners.

One must wait for nightfall to get the settlement’s true picture. During the day, Salgaa is just like any other sleepy roadside market. Photos: Boniface Thuku/Standard

Kamau Mwangi, a resident of Salgaa, says it is a tough place to bring up children.

“We cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that our children don’t catch glimpses of the sins of the night or their aftermath in the form of discarded used condoms,” he says.

Herbal healers

But he is happy with the economic returns of his business. Kamau’s biggest concern is the frequent incidence of children being hit by speeding cars while crossing the road to the Rongai side to attend school. While many businesses are thriving here, including many churches and two herbal healers, it’s ironical that nobody has thought of putting up a school in Salgaa, he says. The other glaringly absent features in this one-street town are a petrol station and a bank!

However, it does not take long to discover that there is never a shortage of fuel here. As we stroll about, we spot a boda boda motorcycle operator talking intensely with a driver of one of the few trucks parked in town. A large jerrican is tied on the motorcycle. After apparently reaching an agreement, the truck driver comes out with a hosepipe and the two men go to the fuel tank where they openly siphon diesel into the jerrican. After a while the motorcycle operator drives off to deliver his order.

Road accidents

Kamau Mwangi says that besides the trade in flesh trade, business in siphoned fuel is the next biggest thing that sustains Salgaa.

“There are many informal diesel sellers here and the siphoned fuel supplies consumer chains as far as Kericho and Bomet districts,” he says.

Kamau has a theory on the many road accidents around Salgaa area that involve trucks. He thinks that when these drivers sell off fuel, they must compensate for the mileage that it would have taken them by engaging their trucks in neutral gear over vast distances.

“One such area is between Emali and Voi along Mombasa road and of course between Total and Salgaa along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway,” he says.

And often, by the time these trucks have hurtled down to Salgaa, they have gathered enough momentum to run out of control, says Kamau.

Another businessman, Peter, says that the apparent paradise that is their town was nearly shattered by the post-election violence of 2008. “Some of us lost property and fled but I thank God that this chapter is behind us and we have picked up the pieces and are going on with life,” he concludes.

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