THE ARREST
Eid-ul-Fitr is here!! I wake up at 9am despite having planned to be changing my bug's fly-wheel seal and wheel bearings by 8am somewhere in the foothills of the breath-taking Lukenya hills - blame it on the holiday. I abhor superstition and all his/her relatives, but looking back now, premonition (who in my book is superstition's closest relative) had me swallowing double my daily ration of breakfast. It turned out that friend who's new to driving had recently acquired a pick-up and had chosen to make her maiden drive along Mombasa road that day taking advantage of the low-traffic highway thanks to illustrious Kenyans still hibernating beneath their duvets. Owing to a number of motivations; chief among them being that the pick-up was manual (I love manual cars), I decided to offer the otherwise expensive services of a VW Beetle chase-car for free.Picture me whistling as I cruise down Mombasa road behind the pick-up without a care in the world; with my hazard lights on to keep off unruly truck drivers whose susceptibility of scaring off rookie drivers into a roadside ditches is always high. The pick-up in front is doing just fine with occasional sways while being overtaken by 18-wheelers. I easily get carried away and overtake the pick-up at GM (General Motors) in a bid to flaunt my superior skills to the kurutu pick-up driver and her co-driver while acting as a route sweeper. You must be thinking, a VW Beetle sweeper or wannabe?? Well my Betty has two horns, a normal one and a Pararira (trumpet) that can easily match an 18-wheeler's and that has successfully bullied one or two unruly drivers on our roads * chest thumps!! *
I used my pararira thrice; twice successfully and the third time successfully but with grave consequences. Success 1: Imara Daima junction parariraaaaaa!! successfully tamed cars trying to join the highway thus ensuring an easy passage for Betty and the pick-up. Success 2: Parariraaaaaaa!! successfully prevented a Matatu from rejoining the highway matatu-style; we passed with ease. Success 3 AKA Failure 1: Parariraaaaaa!!! Just past Cabanas on our way to Embakasi. Successfully thwarts a matatu from rejoining the road carelessly. Beetle passes but matatu gets in the way of the pick-up. Riiinnngggggg!! I decide to answer a phone call while allowing the matatu to overtake so we can continue with the beetle-pick-up cruise. BAD MOVE!!! Matatu overtakes and cuts into my lane blocking me instantly: "Wewe kiyana weka hio gari kando mara moja!!" three traffic cops from inside the matatu shout in unison. I strongly condemn Israel's shelling of gaza, but if mainstream media's claims that Israel is making calls to target buildings or using roof-knockers to warn occupants' of imminent attack are true, me thinks it's a humane idea and I too expected some kind of arrest-warning from the cops. Shock on me!!!! A common misconception by cops and wananchi is that if you are driving a classic car you are poor and can barely afford insurance; the hungry cop pounced on my windscreen and clearly saw his face darken on realizing he couldn't nail me insurance-wise: stupid cop!! "Kiyana unapigia sisi horn kama ya train halafu unaanza kuongea na simu ukiendesha gari??" A cop asks as he jumps into Betty's passenger seat. "Endesha gari twende polisi, unaona nissan imejaa polisi na unaendelea kuongea kwa simu" he asks. I promptly answer "Afande mimi bado ona Nissan imebeba polisi, nilidhani ni abiria, si tuongee tu kama wanaume...". Cop explained that his boss was in the Nissan matatu and being a "traffic operation" I had no choice but drive to the police station.
THE CELLS
We get to the OB section and "my cop" points me to his boss and says "ongea nayeye". The hungry boss asks: "uko na pesa ngapi" ...I hate giving bribes, and if I have to, I stick to a few hundreds. I answered: "afisa niko na mia tano". The furious boss shouts "andikia yeye!!!". I am left at the mercy of what I consider the rudest cop in Kenya; a very ugly lady who I believe makes up for the lost beauty by insulting and being rude to newly-arrested Kenyans - especially if you seem to being doing better than her in life. She points me into to some cubicle full of foul-smelling shoes. Free advice: if you ever enter such a cubicle, don't stress your lungs by holding your breath because you will still breathe in that foul smell ultimately. Maybe you might want to stay further away from some multi-coloured-I-have-never-been-washed-since-I-was-bought old sneakers. By now you must know that it takes an criminal/traffic offence plus one shoe to get yourself into a cell. The other shoe is left in some cubicle. Inside I find people frantically making calls and visibly yet to come to terms with their newly acquired status as "guests of the states". I get flushed out of the stinky room in the middle of my third call.
The ugly cop snatches my phone off my ear while hurling obscenities. In turn, I engage the two cops in an argument explaining to them that I am just informing friends and relatives of my arrest. The impatient cops pin me to the wall and frisk me off my wallet and keys, book them against my name and toss me into the cell without explaining what I'm in for, reading me my rights or even bothering to give me options on what to expect next. Inside the cell I am met with all manner of stares from weary faces. Having heard enough stories of bullying in cells, I immediately change my facial expression from frightened to a mean I-visit-police-cells-more-regularly-than-you-visit-the-loo kind of face. Guess what, it works and the first guy to open his mouth in my direction says "you are lucky they let you in with both shoes". Which immediately jolts me alerts my nose of the new extra-foul smell from the feet deprived of one shoe by the aforementioned cubicle coupled with body odours which get worse by the minute. My self pity quickly wears out on learning that some people have already spent a night or two at the cell. Approximately thirty of us are standing in a corridor in between cells on either side. I peep into one cells and see some people already resigned to fate in deep sleep on the concrete floor.
We take turns to peep on a small opening on the metallic door separating the cell from the OB section. All this time, a tall cop opens the door in intervals of 10mins to admit more people. Every time he admits a woman into the women cell, he brandishes a belt and whips his way among any man standing in his way; a scene reminiscent of slavery days. I plead with the cop to fetch me my phone and ultimately he gives in saying "na ujue utalipa". I make a few frantic calls to people who know people and to small fish who know big fish. Just like the last time I got arrested for a traffic offence, I quickly realize that the so called big fish rarely get you out of trouble with cops because they are either "mteja" or don't answer their phones in the first place. My reliable VWA Club friends promise they are on their way to rescue yours truly.... phewks!! On seeing my phone, the cell-mates quickly befriend me and queue up literally to use my phone. I'm dumbfounded that some have spent the night there and it's the first time they're informing relatives, wives and friends. We use my phone to make a minimum of thirty calls which forces me to "okoa jahazi" in the process making me an instant celebrity. An Indian man is thrown into the cell for a traffic offence and some cell mates are quick to vent out their frustrations by taunting him in broken Swahili heavy with Indian accent: "mhindi, wewe iko fanya nini??... Pita huku uoshe choo kwanza... Wewe nafinyilia sisi kwa kampuni yako na kulipa sisi pesa ndogo sasa ona tuko na wewe hapa, pita pande hii, sirry!!" I use my newly-acquired celebrity status to calm the situation. If only news of #MyBukusuDarling had reached us by then... All this time, cops get into the cell and call out two or three names and leave in a huff ignoring my plea for cash bail... Lunch is brought in a bucket and some hungry cell-mates queue up for the badly-cooked ugali and cabbages.
After three hours in the cell, my friends bail me out and as tired and famished as I am, I'm elated to breathe the fresh air of freedom. I floor Betty's accelerator pedal on my way out as if daring the cops to re-arrest me. I swear never to use my phone again while driving and instead invest in a hands-free gadget. I am not sure either whether next time I'll stop so easily for cops in a jalopy to arrest me... God forbid any future arrests. That friends is how my Eid holiday was wasted. Wondering what happened to my friends in the pick-up? Sema kuachwa mataani :)
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