Wanja Kavengi: My woeful journey inside a sorry, dilapidated piece of rusty metal

I travelled home from a remote location by means of an old, creaking piece of rusty metal assembled together to make a vehicle that seemed to have been towed straight from a tragic car crash.

Paint was peeling off its body, and the exhaust pipe was coughing out a thick, black, deathly cloud. It had only one side mirror - a basic hand mirror with a red frame, broken in half and fastened to the side of the matatu using a sisal rope. Two seats were missing, but they had been replaced with two mitungis.

Spilled out

When the conductor - who was also the driver - opened the door for me, some people accidentally spilled out of the jalopy, and he had to squeeze us all inside, asking us to “kaa square” because “nafasi iko nyingi”. The old matatu was full of people. It was a 14-seater matatu, but the number of people in it was roughly 356,789,097. Excluding the estimated 432,096,722 people who could not be seen due to overpopulation in the vehicle.

I still do not know if I was standing, sitting, or lying awkwardly. All I know is I soon became part of the pile of sweaty humans with contorted limbs.

As I quietly plotted against my enemies, with my head involuntarily aloft, because someone was sitting on the tips of my braids, my nasal receptors tingled, detecting a smell. I inhaled. It was difficult to breathe because someone’s knee was pressing hard against my chest, fracturing my ribs and puncturing my lungs, but I kept fighting for my dear life by trying my best to gasp and wheeze despite the challenge. My brain quickly processed the smell that my nostrils had picked.

It was a fart.

Someone had farted.

Someone had released a putrid, gaseous bomb from their filthy, rotting bowels into the little, hot, stuffy air in the matatu that was being shared by, roughly, 356,789,097 sweating people, with an estimated 432,096,722 people who could not be seen. A bomb worse than the atomic bomb that was used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A bomb that could be used to win the war against terrorism. A bomb with a stench worse than that of sin.

Someone had knowingly, with all their senses alert, opened their disgusting rectum to make way for a noxious weapon of mass destruction that penetrated into our nostrils and mouths, with the nasty, atrocious taste of their decomposing colon clawing into our throats, choking us with violence unseen, and slowly wringing the life out of our veins.

Someone, a scheming bastard with pure intent to kill, had silently broken wind and filled our lungs with a vile, fetid, malodorous steam, straight from the foul, decaying innards of Satan, and was there amongst us, existing quietly and probably enjoying seeing us all panicking because the revolting smell from their bloated entrails was about to kill us.

I wanted to use my hand(s) to fan away the repugnant smell of gaseous excrement from my face, but one of my arms was being mangled between the bosoms of two fat women while the other arm was wedged against someone’s buttocks

  Loathsome beast

I wanted to turn my head to see if I could spot that loathsome beast that had been sent to assassinate me using the gas produced by the digestion of their lunch as the murder weapon, but my head was trapped between the chest of someone with a loudly-beating heart, and the rigid sole of someone’s shoe that had stepped on cow dung

Someone’s backpack was in my face, and inside the backpack, were hammers, knives and padlocks. At least that’s how it felt because each time the matatu would hit a bump or swerve, the backpack would leave grievous injuries on my face.

I wanted to speak up, to call out the offender, to fight for justice, but whenever I opened my mouth, someone’s sweaty, salty fingers, or the strands of someone’s weave would get into my mouth and muffle any sounds, except the sounds of me gagging and trying not to vomit.

And then, because that was not enough torture, someone else started eating chips.

Another assailant, who was about to die from starvation, started eating chips, and the smell of chips wafted through the matatu, mixing with the demonic smell of someone’s fart, to make a cocktail, the perfect recipe for mass murder.

How the person found room to eat still remains a mystery. How could they even chew? I mean, it was impossible for me to swallow saliva without being strangled into unconsciousness by someone’s elbow, or someone’s wet armpit getting into my eye.

Draft eulogy

I wanted to quickly draft my eulogy on my phone in case I did not make it to my destination alive, and to select the photo I would like framed and displayed on my coffin, but my phone was in my handbag, and the only part of my handbag I could see was an inch of the strap on my shoulder. The rest of the handbag was probably at the back of the matatu, being sat on by a million people.

Whenever a passenger got to their destination and wanted to alight, the conductor-cum-driver would open the door, and thousands of us would pour out of the dilapidated vehicle to let the passenger alight. As they alighted, a shoe would get lost, or a baby would go missing, or a wig would fall off.

I did eventually get to my destination, albeit in critical condition.

Sometimes, bad journeys happen.

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