Information Sciences and Technology

Dispatch from Kenya: A long trip

IST student dispatch from Kenya series

A group of students from seven Penn State colleges are spending part of the summer in Nyeri, Kenya to work on three humanitarian engineering and social entrepreneurship projects, Mashavu, WishVast and Eco-Village. In this excerpt, Matt Prindible (WishVast team) talks about the perils of getting around in Kenya.

In any other instance, days like this, or at least how they’re planned on paper, would rarely deserve a blog entry. The plan was simple: spend the morning putting the finishing touches on WishVast’s technology side, catch a matatu from Nyeri to Nairobi, meet up with students from Kansas State also working with the CYEC for the summer, grab a bite to eat, then off to sleep. However, based on any previous experience with Kenya’s chaotic and unpredictable nature (and not to mention that time seems to be slipping into a state of permanent irrelevance), I should have known better.

With the WishVast platform up and running for a day of small scale testing, it was now time to head into town and catch a ride to Nairobi. After planning to leave at 3 p.m., we were off by 5:30 p.m. Travel like this is made possible by individuals who own matatu in a transportation cooperative, and like any other type of business in town, it’s highly competitive and completely chaotic. After finding a driver, or rather, a driver finding us, we were on our way.

The two cities are connected by one main highway, which makes travel to Nairobi a comfortable two and a half hour drive where comfortable is defined as seating 11 people in a vehicle barely made for 9 and racing across uneven pavement at 80 kmph. Less than an hour into our travel, one of the passengers requested a quick stop and we slowed down to a small open air market on the side of the road.

Uninterested in what they had to offer, I closed my eyes to go back to sleep only to be awaken abruptly by the immediate invalidation of my expectations. Surrounding our vehicle were at least 25 frantic salesmen and saleswomen with handfuls of produce attempting to convince the passengers of our matatu that their product and only theirs was the best price and best quality. To anyone outside the vehicle, it might seem as if they were trying to wash our car with fruits and vegetables, pressing them hard into the windows to give us a closer inspection.

With all the passengers in the vehicle satisfied with their purchases, we moved on… slowly. Trying to sell just one more banana, one more potato, one more mango, salesmen clung to our slow moving vehicle shouting one last pitch, attempting to convince us that our shopping decisions were incomplete without this one last fruit or vegetable. Pulling away, our matatu took on the rich organic smell of satisfied shoppers. Take note grocers and drive-through chains: this is the model of efficiency and effectiveness.

Our route through rural Kenya continued almost uninterrupted until we met one particularly large pothole in the highway. The lack of suspension in any vehicle we’ve traveled in means you feel everything the road intended you to feel, but the combination of the feeling and the sound of what we thought was everything mechanical underneath the car falling onto the road made this one especially memorable. While not as disastrous, the hissing sound of leaking tires meant our trip would stop once more.

Pulling off the side of the road and exiting our left-favoring matatu, we realized that we had destroyed two tires and rims in the last pothole. On top of that, darkness was quickly approaching. No need to worry though, a quick call to AAA and we were well on our way. I hope that you’ll understand the inappropriate sarcasm as a way to frame our frustration on what was supposed to be an easy and maybe even relaxing trip.

Helpless and at the mercy of the transportation company to call in two new tires, twilight waned, the rural Kenyan darkness set in, and the passengers of our vehicle prepared to star in a new reality TV series about strangers overcoming social, political, cultural, and lingual barriers to survive the Kenyan wilds. Motivated by light of one flashlight, the driver and two others removed the wheel ruins and prepped the car for the arrival of new wheels. The new wheels eventually arrived and we were on our way, but not before a quick push of the matatu to get it to start, right into oncoming traffic.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, the only other interruption being the extreme congestion entering the city that was completely expected. We finally settled into our hotel about six hours after our expected departure time, only to move once again to meet a few students from Kansas State working with the CYEC for the summer. After introductions, stories, dinner, and a few drinks we were ready to call it a night.
 

Last Updated June 8, 2009