Good Bribes!

Those who have been to Kisumu can attest to the fact that bicycle(ngware) is still very common even with the influx of peng(bodaboda) today.

Way back when I was still spinning at a kibandaski in Kisumu, most of the customers were those ngware guys. You know how pedalling a bicycle can make you hungry especially if its not for luxurious purposes. I made a lot of friends with them coz I used to serve them good food. Good food here means chakula chafu ya kibanda kwenye utakula jasho, damu, mkojo, nywele, makamasi, mate ya wapishi.
Generally hygiene standards za kibanda ziko down but nonetheless bora uhai, hata mimi hukula kwa kibanda.
Kuna siku one of them didn’t report to work, he was a very popular guy among the group. This guy loved ugali mahargwe so much, I wonder how it tasted but anyway, ilikuwa kwa raha zake. He could come in and just say,“Nyarwath, kawaida!”

We assumed maybe he was tired or busy or had travelled home but it was strange he had not told anybody about it. His absence was notable but we thought he be present the following day.
Second day, he was no show yet, no information, no report, his phone mteja, kwake nyumbani hayuko and he was a bachelor.
That evening kuna mtu alisema aliona bike flani msituni karibu na bridge ya Kibos.
Curious, some guys went to check and it turned out to be the missing guy’s bike, badly twisted. It seemed he had been involved in an accident.

Kibos is quite a distance from town so they started checking the local medical facilities if in case he had been booked coz from the look of that bike, dude must have been involved in an accident. No record. No eye witnesses!

The following morning after combing all the health facilities, it was decided they check police stations. Still, there was nothing.
Last option was the mortuaries! Yes!!

Nobody was willing to set foot in a mortuary to search for a lost person, especially an accident victim.
Hapa ilikuwa ni wale wako na roho wajitolee, me being one of them.
The gravest mistake which made me stop eating meat for quite a while.
Deep inside I was literally choking in fear but outside ni kuweka a brave face, kwani iko nini!!
Mark you, I had never been to a mortuary before!

At around eleven hivi, tukatoka squad ya watu tisa hivi tukaingia Russia, the biggest and the nearest since we were based in Kibuye. It was a Friday.
Russia mortuary watu huingia na rear gate hapo nyuma ya Police Dog Unit coz mbele ni ya kuadmit wagonjwa. Hapo kwa compound kuna a big space for mourners and hearses plus body viewing before transportation. So tukapata coffins kadhaa chini ya miti hapo nje, a chilling site, before we even stepped into the morgue.

It was very busy juu watu wengi hutoa maiti on Fridays. Sisi hao, chocha mpaka kwa entrance ya mortuary.
The door was fully open being a ‘public’ place. Hapa ndio ile uoga iliniingia sasa kabisa coz in front of me were naked bodies, neatly arranged in rows with pathways in between clusters and spotlessly clean floors, no smell at all.
I didn’t want to be in front or behind the group and the place was so cold and eerily silent, this piled more fear in me. I was literally sweating na vile hiyo place ilikuwa baridi.

The guy we were looking for had a prominent mark on his arm, that means we had to turn the bodies and look for the mark. Me??? Never!
The bodies were arranged from the new entrants at the door to the old ones far inside, so the farther you go, the blacker the bodies alafu the male and females were put together as in side by side, stark naked on the cold floor! Children were in another section separately.

As we moved further, a few of us were getting dizzy, me included but I could not turn back alone and walk out coz of the fear of walking among all these corpses. Looking at them some showing white eyes, some tongues hanging out and the eerie silence, no!
Unapata mtu yuko sawa you could even think he’s asleep, warembo, wakonde, wanono, the elderly, vijana yaani mpaka unajiuliza what’s your self worth if this is the inevitable end!

Feeling overwhelmed, I suggested that we ask the attendants for more specific directions and save ourselves this torture. To my surprise everybody readily agreed, kumbe pia walikuwa wameingiza njeve. Hatukuwa tumekaa hata five minutes huko ndani but it was too much!

The attendants were just going about their businesses, not bothering what we were doing. So we paused and wanted to ask a lady who was wheeling a body to a table where another was splitting and injecting them before being taken to a chest of drawers on the other side of the hall.

We stood there looking like sheep until the guy threatened to lock us up with unclaimed bodies if we didn’t get out of his sight. We scrambled for the door fearing the worst and stood at a safe distance then beckoned that lady.
We asked if somebody who was involved in a road accident about two days ago had been brought to their facility. She led us to the accident and burns section and told us to get busy searching. Budda ilibidi turudi na yeye. What I saw! Everybody followed behind me, kumbe we were a bunch of cowards!

Surprised, she asked if we had seen him. Nobody talked. Umewaiskia uoga mpaka sauti inakwama, you want to talk but you can barely mumble a word. Tukakuja tukasimama hapo karibu na mlango and asked her for assistance. You know very well that the assistance comes at a price and it’s not cheap, kama hutaki ujipange!
Long live bribery!

Corpses??
No thanks!

I would have done the same. You are not alone.

Mlipata mwili?

Yea we did

dead?

Yes

:D:D:D
No, he was just taking a nap!

:D:D:D didn’t see this coming

calamity sure makes one philosophical if it doesn’t kill one…

Talking of Kibuye, umenikumbusha kwa Kim. Nyama choma musuri Sana.

My only fear would be catching an illness/infection from the corpses.

Safi. Maybe the fear of our own demise makes us fear looking at corpses.

Mimi ata nilipwe uko siwezi ingia…

:D:D sio kupenda kwa mtu, its not a place to go for a tour or sight seeing, it’s due to unavoidable circumstances that you find yourself there

You just made me start hating ‘makeshift eateries’ food,na vyenye napenda mathagiro ya mbuzi na thufu.
…wacha sasa nimalizie hekaya after the jasho,mate,makamasi ya kibandaski.

ahahah,sijui nacheka nini in but inakaa ata wewe umeingiwa na uoga,

ulikua DJ kwa kibanda ama ni namuna gani ?

Kwani kuna miili haijakufa?

Umedescribe Russia vilivyo.
February nilikuwa hapo nje pia.