Softly Calls the Serengeti

by Frank Coates

  She took her wine glass to the seat at the window and watched the traffic crawl up Valley Road from the city, headlights reflecting off the wet tarmac. The office buildings and hotels beyond the gloomy space that was Uhuru Park sparkled in the darkness. The city seemed oblivious to the rampaging violence that was occurring just a few kilometres up the road.

  She took a sip of wine and swirled the glass, admiring the various shades of red as the liquid caught the light.

  The events of the last twenty-four hours had shifted her attention away from her main objective, which was to complete her research. She resolved to put the political situation and the violent protests from her mind until that objective was reached.

  Anything that might develop between Mark and her would have to wait until the end of the trip; if it were to happen at all.

  ‘Good evening, this is John Muya with the latest news.

  ‘The President of Uganda, Mr Yoweri Museveni, has congratulated President Kibaki on his success in retaining the position of Kenya’s head of state. The message comes as a surprise to most commentators as the outcome of the elections is still a matter of some dispute. Mr Museveni is the first and only national leader to make such an announcement, and has infuriated members and supporters of the Orange Democratic Movement, who claim that Mr Raila Odinga received the most votes but has been cheated of victory.

  ‘Police are mobilising in the Kibera district, where there are fears of an escalation in the unrest that has been occurring over recent days. A number of people have been injured in violent attacks and there have been many accounts of property damage.’

  The news swept through Kibera like wildfire. Supporters of Raila Odinga felt that the Ugandan president, by personally congratulating President Kibaki on his win, had stabbed Odinga in the back.

  The Luos turned to the only manifestation of the neighbouring country within their reach—the Ugandan railway, which passed through Kibera on its journey from the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa to the landlocked country on the distant shores of Lake Victoria. The railway was Uganda’s lifeline and everyone in Kibera knew it.

  That night, a mob attacked the iron rails in a fury. They used iron stakes, poles and sticks, as if the lines were an incarnation of the foreign government.

  Joshua received text messages to join them, but when he arrived on the scene he could see nothing but chaos. The efforts to tear up the tracks were uncoordinated and futile. He sent out a call for the Siafu to gather at Kamukungi, where the railway tracked through the only open space in its path through Kibera. About thirty young men assembled. Joshua took charge, leading a raid on the railway maintenance shed, which yielded tools to attack the rails more vigorously. Many others, who saw the footballers working with such purpose, joined their ranks.

  Joshua organised his followers into smaller crews, then joined one that worked furiously for hours with one of the precious few pinch-bars. They had only ten keys to show for their work. After another four hours and with over a hundred helpers straining to prise loose the keys on each of the iron-hard wooden sleepers, they had managed to rip up just one rail length. They rolled it into the ditch at the side of the track and gave a roar of satisfaction that filled the night.

  But Joshua was less than impressed. It was slow, dangerous and exhausting work, made more difficult by a drizzling rain that caused the pinch-bars to be slippery. The key his small crew had been working on for some time refused to budge. Joshua, exhausted, was forced to admit defeat. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and handed the bar to one of his team-mates to continue the struggle. He then walked along the length of the rail to see how his companions were going. He could see they too were making only slow progress.

  Each rail had two keys to hold it to the sleeper. There were over two hundred sleepers to a length of rail. It would take the whole gang the remainder of the night to remove just one more rail. This would never do. He had seen the railway maintenance gangs, with their mobile cranes, power tools and rams, remove and replace a rail in an hour or so. The loss and disorder they wanted to cause Uganda would therefore be very short-lived.

  Joshua studied the rail section more carefully and realised everyone had missed the obvious answer to their problem. At the end of each length of rail, a pair of fishplates bolted the sections together. Therefore, by removing just sixteen fishplate bolts, a whole section of rail would be detached.

  He dashed back to the maintenance shed and found the long spanner he needed. Gathering his crew around him, he explained his strategy. They soon had the fishplates off, but couldn’t budge the complete length. Joshua gathered more and more men to the task, until everyone who could take a hold was aligned along the length of track. With a mighty effort, they lifted the iron rail and sleepers—keys intact—from the bed of ballast and carried them away to the cheers of workers and spectators alike.

  Soon they had two kilometres of line uprooted. Uganda was cut off from the Indian Ocean—her connection to the world.

  As the cheers and whistles reached a crescendo, Joshua pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. He wanted to share the moment with Mayasa, regardless of the hour. Again he received her voicemail message. His euphoria evaporated and his concerns for Mayasa’s well-being grew.

  Joshua had always been the leader of his football-club cadre of Raila supporters, but his scheme to effectively demolish the railway line was so successful he became an instant hero to all those fighting for an Odinga victory. Mobile phone calls and texts expounded his brilliance. Those who were not present on the night but knew him came to congratulate him. Those who didn’t know him sought him out. He added another score of contacts to his address list. Each new contact had his own long list of supporters, whom he could call upon in response to Joshua’s communication.

  Joshua received a flurry of text messages and, having given up on his attempts to call Mayasa, he searched among them for a response to his anxious text. He again received no word from her.

  Shortly after the removal of the railway tracks, rumours spread through the mobile phone network that Odinga would be making a public appearance at Uhuru Park. Joshua sent out a broadcast text message to advise all his network of friends and supporters to gather on Ngong Road to march en masse to the park. The concatenation of networks—Joshua’s and others—created an avalanche of text messages that flooded Kisumu Ndogo and beyond, so that very soon all of Kibera and most of Nairobi were aware of the rumour and the call for numbers to attend the march.

  Tens of thousands converged on Ngong Road, cramming it from kerb to kerb. They carried makeshift banners and placards with crudely painted slogans. Joshua had under his control over a hundred young men, but there were thousands of women, children and old people in the march too, keen to hear and see the man who would bring about the change in their lives that they so desperately wanted.

  Awaiting them at the city end, above Uhuru Park, were the police with their water cannons.

  A senior police officer addressed the crowd with a powerful loudspeaker. His voice carried into the heart of the huge column, appealing for calm and for the marchers to disband peacefully.

  Joshua’s group wanted a confrontation and tried to drown him out by loudly chanting ‘No Raila—No Peace’, but the loudspeaker blared over them.

  ‘Attention, please,’ the officer said. ‘This is an illegal gathering and it is my duty to bring it to an end. There is no rally in Uhuru Park. I repeat, there is no rally in Uhuru Park. The media have confirmed this. It is a rumour. So I ask you all to go home or else I will be forced to break up this illegal rally by whatever means at my disposal.’

  The majority began to waver, glancing at their fellow marchers in some uncertainty. Others used their mobile phones to confirm there was nothing happening in Uhuru Park.

  Joshua and his group kept shouting that the police had never been trustworthy. ‘He lies! He lies!’ they cried. ‘No Raila—No Peace!’

  But slowly the crowd melted away, leaving only the angry young men
to face the water cannons and teargas.

  Joshua sprinted ahead of the slower runners fleeing before the pursuing police baton charge. There were many bloodied heads around him, but he dodged and weaved, avoiding the vicious blows until he and his followers were safely among another mass of protesters on the fringe of Kibera.

  The GSU, a paramilitary wing of the military, formed lines along Kibera Road, with grim-faced, riot-ready men staring down the protesters.

  A rock bounced off a policeman’s acrylic riot shield. It was soon followed by a torrent of rocks and abuse.

  Teargas canisters exploded and then, quite suddenly, there was the crack of a firearm.

  As if as one, the rioters paused in their assault, listening; uncertain.

  Joshua couldn’t be sure where the shot had originated, but a second shot—more powerful than the first—came from the police lines.

  There was a roar of enraged disbelief from the ranks of the protesters, who began to pelt the police with renewed vigour.

  As Joshua stooped to gather more ammunition, his young companion, who a moment before had stood shoulder to shoulder with him, dropped to the road like a sack of wheat. He lay there motionless. Joshua gaped, expecting to see him leap to his feet and reveal his joke, but as he stared at him, a dark stain spread across his back. Joshua rolled the young man over. The bullet had hit his chest, making a gory mess of it and his Che Guevara tee-shirt.

  The protesters fell into disarray as more and more shots were fired and bodies dropped or the wounded screamed in fear and pain. Joshua ran into the nearest alley as a bullet pinged through the air near his ear.

  Small groups re-formed from among the protesters, but now there were others too—young men Joshua had never seen before, who came swarming from elsewhere in the slums. But these newcomers did not confront the police. They were more intent on creating chaos and the opportunity to plunder anything of value.

  As Joshua, in shock, retreated further into the Kibera heartland, he saw scores of looters breaking in the doors of houses and places of business. The door of the duka where he used to buy small food items was smashed open and a young boy busily stuffed his pockets with chocolate bars. Packs of rioters were now running berserk—burning, raiding, looting.

  In front of Joshua, a group of four men broke into a shack. In a few moments Joshua heard screams coming from within. He dashed into the house.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he screamed. ‘This is not right! Get out!’

  He saw the club, but couldn’t dodge it in time. It came down on his head and his face hit the hard, earthen floor. He slipped into blackness.

  Joshua awoke in gloom. His head ached and there was a crusty patch in the short hair above his ear.

  A chink of light from a closed shutter allowed him to see the outline of objects in the room. A female figure sat at a table above which hung a naked globe. He crept towards it and ran his hand up the cable to click the switch on. The woman sitting at the table appeared stunned. She was dishevelled and, as his eyes became accustomed to the blinding light, he noticed her blouse was torn open, revealing one breast. She had a scrap of old towelling covering her lower body.

  They were alone in the shack. A trickle of blood ran from Joshua’s scalp to his collar. They had both been victims of violent crimes, but the gulf between them was total. She was a Kikuyu and he a Luo. The tribes were in battle as they’d been for centuries.

  He asked her if she needed help.

  She kept her eyes on the table and made no answer.

  ‘Can I call your neighbour to come to assist you?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him. ‘Get out,’ she said bitterly.

  Joshua reached the door, then pulled a twenty-shilling note from his pocket. Avoiding those accusing eyes, he put it on the table, not because she might believe he’d taken any part in the rape, but because he was a man and a Luo.

  There was a feeling of unreality in Kibera as Joshua stumbled home that late afternoon. The sky was blood red and the air thick with smoke. A baby cried somewhere in the distance. Shadowy figures raced across his path. He could hear someone sobbing behind a wooden packing-case wall.

  He passed the smouldering ruins of the duka of an elderly Sikh fellow who sold Joshua his Safaricom mobile phone credits. Joshua had found him cheerful and courteous, and wondered if he’d had the sense to let the looters have their way, or if the Sikhs’ legendary fighting qualities had forced him into an unwinnable battle.

  Parts of Kisumu Ndogo were also alight. The Kikuyu had struck back. Joshua felt a knot in the pit of his stomach as he approached his father’s house. The past had returned to haunt him. Had Kenya not changed in five years? Had nobody learnt the lessons? Would he arrive home to find a parent among the ashes as he had in 2002?

  He gathered pace as he entered the neighbourhood, his head pounding with the increasing strength of his heartbeat.

  There was smoke above the rooftops.

  When he rounded the last corner, the alley feeding into the little group of neighbourhood dwellings was intact.

  Joshua leant against the wall and wept.

  CHAPTER 35

  Koske sat alone, contemplating the virtue of patience. He knew that later that night his willing helpers would work further mischief on his behalf, but those events were already in place. He was presently content to sit in the relative calm of the Kibera evening and wait while his latest plan, a plan that pleased him immensely, came into play. He felt that patience was a very desirable quality because ultimately it led to more satisfying rewards. He could have taken swift revenge on the impetuous Joshua Otieng for spoiling Koske’s opportunity to impress his friends who liked to wager on football games for fun and profit. Instead, he had been patient, and his patience now offered a far more fulfilling reward.

  He looked around his makeshift office. The orphanage was conveniently empty because he had despatched his latest consignment to the medical clearing-house en route to Wajir.

  The sound of a scuffle came from outside. The door flew open and the girl was flung in. Her tight blue jeans were smudged with filth, probably as a result of the tussle with his men, and her breasts thrust perkily from her tee-shirt. She had a smudge of blood on her top lip. A fighter! The thought pleased him.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Mayasa, isn’t it?’

  She said nothing, but he didn’t mind.

  ‘Welcome to your new home. I hope you find it—’

  ‘Why am I here?’ she demanded.

  Koske stood and walked towards her, stopping an arm’s length from her. He sensed her courage was waning. He flung a backhand at her, catching her on the side of her face and knocking her to the floor. She whimpered, but clawed her way to her feet. A fighter indeed.

  When she faced him again, he said, ‘You are here, my dear Mayasa, because I need…What is it called? Security. No. An insurance policy! That’s what you are—my insurance policy.’ He laughed, feeling quite witty. ‘A short-term insurance policy. And these two gentlemen are my insurance agents. Oh, maybe they’re not really gentlemen, but they do their job. Don’t you?’

  The two men nodded.

  ‘So I’ll leave you with them until this is over.’

  The men restrained her as he opened the door.

  ‘Oh, and boys,’ he said, turning back, ‘make sure Mayasa is comfortable, but be sure not to touch her. That is, not until this is all over.’

  It was a masterful finishing touch. Koske closed the door behind him, content that he had made a suitable impression.

  ‘Good afternoon, viewers, this is John Muya of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation in Nairobi. We cross now to Studio Two to hear an official announcement by the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Mr Samuel Kivuitu.

  ‘Regional stations, please stand by.’

  ‘…and it is my duty as chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to announce the details of the voting in the Kenyan presidential election conducted on Thursday, 27 December 2007.

&nbs
p; ‘The results are as follows:

  ‘Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka—879,903.

  ‘Emelio Mwai Kibaki—4,584,721.

  ‘Raila Amolo Odinga—4,352,993.

  ‘I therefore declare Mr Mwai Kibaki to be the winner of the presidential election. Mr Kibaki retains his position as president of the Republic of Kenya.’

  The man who opened the door to Mayasa’s house was tall and lean. Apart from his tired eyes, which might have been caused by lack of sleep, he appeared healthy.

  ‘Mr…Shaban?’ Joshua asked.

  The man studied Joshua before answering. ‘I am David Shaban,’ he said warily, then his eyes widened. ‘It’s Mayasa. She’s hurt!’

  ‘No, Mr Shaban. She’s not—that is, I don’t know. I’ve come looking for her.’

  ‘She’s not here. Are you Joshua?’

  ‘I am.’

  Mayasa’s father looked at him more intently then, before his expression again turned to one of concern. ‘Where could she be?’

  ‘I was supposed to meet her at Toi Market, but there was a fire and—’

  ‘Toi Market? But I sent her to her sister’s house in Langata.’

  ‘She was there, but she said she wanted to come home.’

  He didn’t add that he had encouraged her. The knot in his stomach grew with the growing panic that he might have contributed to a ghastly mishap.

  The man leant heavily against the door jamb and slowly shook his head. ‘Then, where is she?’

  Joshua pushed through the huge glass doors and into Kenyatta National Hospital. The suffocating odour of antiseptic attacked the back of his throat. He tried to avoid swallowing his saliva for as long as possible, but this made matters worse. When he finally surrendered to it, he had to fight the hot flush of nausea. It was only his second visit to a hospital, and he realised that after seeing Kwazi here, he had developed an irrational fear of the place.