Ruby, my friend hates matatus too. You know those roaring often rusty rolling juggernauts we euphemize for foreigners as taxis or shuttles. Taxis? Ha! Shuttles...maybe? Terror...oh, most definitely! Beautiful? That depends entirely on how young you are.

We, Ruby's friends, have a theory that her depression is caused by using matatus. Her extraordinarily cheery disposition suffers the greatest remission when she has to take one of those foreboding machines. Unfortunately for her and unless she decides to go very hardy and walk everywhere like her great-grand ancestors did, Ruby will just have to inure her spirit against our beautiful roaring terrors.

bad gamble

Like me, Ruby is one of those Kenyans who do not own a personal car and who in our fear and loathing of matatus will have to find the motivation to buy ourselves the freedom of travel. Meanwhile, this is what she has to endure.

Ruby is a good-humored people person, with friends all over the city and the suburbs and beyond. In this world of bonhomie, parties and soirees, she finds herself invited to a do of some sort on the other side of the city, away from our little enclave here. We have been together a while, and I have often envied the joy that visits her face as she excitedly prepares to go visit one of those on her great list of friends and family.

Truth be told, it is only her joy that I envy. The unwieldy world of masses of friends is not for me, and I it would be a burden, a weighty burden for me to sustain relationships with all my acquaintances, including those who have moved out of town or even out of the country. Instead, I get lost in my little world and if not snapped out of it, forget all the warmth that I have shared. I have had to think of this quite a lot recently, someone warned me that I would one day wake up to find the whole world gone, leaving me behind with my books, my pen and my notebook. It is not yet a notebook, only a paper one.

So on this day I watch the get-ready-to-go event. It is a whole event, as Ruby, unlike me, is no tomboy. No five-minute showers here, hers take at least twenty minutes, and are followed by a twenty minute pre-dressing ritual. Choosing an outfit takes an hour and the whole affair is very systematic, following what are to me arcane customs. Pick an outfit from the wardrobe, put it on, and look in the mirror. Is this the you that you want? Are you fat today? You are? It's down at the ankles or over your head, the clocks go back and that part of the ritual has to be performed anew. Then there's the hair.

before

Some well-intentioned but ignorant people have been known to call Ruby and propose that they will pick her up in thirty minutes. Fast friendships have been tested as three hour wait replaced the ‘I'm almost ready!' For long lost friends, two weeks is more the appropriate lead time as Ruby has to shop about for the appropriate outfit, what cut, what length, how low, how high, and then the salon for a two day pampering. Which reminds me, I was supposed to join the girls, we're going to go and get...what's that thing I must get done to prove I am a Nairobi babe who is with it? Ah, who cares, let's get on with the writing. I'll be fine as a shaggs babe, won't I? There's me infected too, calling myself a babe! I almost cannot believe it.
Three hours later this is Ruby ready to go out. And the shaggs babe by her side is me, hungry and tired from all the work I have put in, but time is short. Hurry!

Here we are at the matatu stage and reality slaps us. It has been a while since we took this bitter option. In that time, John Michuki has been moved from the transport ministry and something's taken a u-turn back to 1997.

The best matatu is the most beautiful thing on wheels you have ever seen. If you care at all about your eardrums those psychedelic colours will not draw you in. The worst matatu is the ugliest thing you have ever seen and if it hits you (as is not too unlikely, you will not die from the impact. It will probably just fall apart. What may kill you is the rust from the worn out panels.

Then there are the touts. Conductors they call them, the ones who seem to control the cacophony with a wild waving of all limbs. Their the ones shouting at you, grabbing your handbag, doing their best to help you into their matatu and for those who are female, the man helping you up with his hand on the delicate parts of your anatomy- that is the conductor. Our Ruby is not be a tomboy, but God know she is tough. You don't just...I watched with gleeful surprise as a rowdy youth doubles up in pain. Conduct that.

By this time, Ruby is feeling violated and distressed. She has tears in her eyes, she doesn't want to miss her little do and has no choice but to get into one of those matatus. I feel sorry for us.

While Ruby hates the touts, it is the drivers that molest my peace. This one is the archetype of the kind that riles me most. He hoots often, at the slightest excuse and often for none at all, he brakes too suddenly and so often that my body keeps looking up the definition of whiplash every minute and a few seconds, he overtakes at corners, speeds off like the devil only to brake violently again. I close my eyes and pray to God, for mercy, for forgiveness and then increasingly just for dear life.

In the meantime, Ruby's travails know no respite. Did I mention that this little trip takes us to a remote piece of the country where they only know that Kenya is in Nairobi? The police here don't mind how many people are packed into a matatu that should hold at most 15 people. We are stacked to the seams, there's seventeen pleading for life here at the back and if there's three more joining our death trap, one will join the driver and his two passengers at the front and the wretched two will dangle with the conductor.

after- above us only sky

I have tried in vain to warn Ruby not to sit in the seat right behind the driver's cabin and right next to the sliding doors. But she was still in the tough after-glow of having kicked that man. It was happy days coming in (if anything can be described as such here), then we got properly packed and the conductor was bent over Ruby's knees, now it's happy days for him, there's three more passengers and he is lying on top of Ruby.

On top of Ruby! How dare you do that to a minister's daughter and in public, too? Never mind that you stink of three days sweat and, and, and... she is a good girl! She's never wronged anyone, or even harmed a fly.

Warning signs. I had enough time only to yell at the driver to stop. Serial braker that he was, he was only too happy to oblige, and as he braked Ruby purged the morning's breakfast all over the conductor. He yelled and threw a few insults but Ruby only got sicker. So here I am, watching the matatu dip under the horizon. And here is Ruby; she's still getting sick in the bushes. All this around us, vast grassland, distant hills and not a home in sight.

Fortunately for us, Safaricom and Celtel have coverage here. Ruby calls her mother crying at the injustice, I call the friends we are going to visit and beg their intervention. These are tears coming, but I push them back. One hysterical girl at a time, and no way our rescuers should find us bawling in the bushes. So there's only a bit of a shine to my eye, and I console Ruby barely, just barely restraining myself.

It is two hours later when we are picked up. Our friends invite another friend who has a car that gallops to our rescue.

Don't feel sorry for us though. Amazingly, Ruby and I recover just enough to enjoy a week of relaxation in the idyllic settings of a farm on a lake, where we catch flamingoes feeding and converse idly about the hyacinth, and what a menace that has become.

We give the matatus a miss on the way back as the friendly friend takes us back all the way home after the one happy week. But life is cruel and the very next day, I have to go to the city...in a matatu. Ruby and I feel that there's only so much that delicate stomachs and hearts can bear. She is buying a car.

I'll move to a secluded self-reliant village somewhere and live out the rest of my days in peace away from matatus.

Reforms!