Futile Preparations

“And how you were prepared,” Njenga said as we whizzed along on our return from Ilkiloret to Ngong.

I had just explained my ill-fated Wednesday morning. Njenga always has quite profound things to say.

And I had been prepared. Njenga was to pick me on the pikipiki and take me to the hardware store on Wednesday morning at 7:30a.m, where I was to meet a lorry (truck) filled with ballast for the construction project in Ilkiloret. I figured (wrongly obviously) that if the lorry arrived at 7:30 we could be in Ilkiloret at the latest by 10:30 (which is when I normally start teaching my class).

I sat on the step of Pax Hardware for 1 1/2 hours. I called Joseph the transporter who organizes the trucks and gets the stones that I need (for the best price) at 7:45. He informed me they were running behind schedule and please give them a half hour at 8:30 I was told he would be 10 more minutes. A few minutes after 9am my lorry came rolling up to Pax.

Loading the lorry at Pax Hardware, Ngong.


By this point the fundi (contractor), Samwell who had been coming and going while we waited for the lorry was gone. Joseph explained to me that the driver had been arrested because his license had expired. “Don’t you check these things,” I asked. “Knowing it was a dumb question – of course he didn’t check.” He just smiled and said it was okay now. I’m guessing - because I didn’t want to ask any more dumb questions – that he either paid a fine or bribed the policeman, because the same driver took us to Ilkiloret. As we loaded the last pieces of lumber the driver remarked that we were overloading the lorry.

I thought about commenting and then decided to keep my mouth shut, because he’s going to complain no matter what I say. We set out and Joseph and the driver decide to take another route because the one I take on the pikipiki, while shorter has more hills and is generally rougher. What I didn’t know until we are well into the trip is that they didn’t really know the route that well. About an hour into the trip the road (well it’s more like a path) divides and the driver decides to take the path to the left, we hear a big pop. We all pile out and low and behold we have a puncture. Joseph says, “Don’t worry, we carried a spare.” The driver rattles off something in Swahili and Joseph smiles and says, “The rims for the front and back tires are different, the spare we have is for a front tire.”

Puncture on the "path" to Saikeri that leads us back to the main "road" to Ilkiloret.

Puncture over which I'm told they will put a patch when they return to Ngong!


Now you might think at this point that I’d be getting a bit frazzled… but for some reason I can only chalk up to a significant amount of time spent in similar situations, it doesn’t phase me. We all climb back in the truck and continue driving. “We have double wheels on each side of the back of the truck,” Joseph says. “We will patch the tire when we get back to Ngong.” At this point were still about 45 minutes from Ilkiloret and had two fairly nasty hills in front of us. We finally pull into the classroom compound in Ilkiloret around 12:15 – just as my students are leaving.

Aside: Samwell, the fundi, is a walking caricature. Above is his smarmy pimp pose. Complete with tropical print shirt and a women’s style purple coat with fur collar. All he’s missing is a cigarette hanging off his lip and a fedora. He’s also got an ego that enters the room before he does. None of this matters if he can deliver a structurally sound building – although some of his calculations have been suspect. Appearances aren’t everything, right?

Samwell and his helpers got right to work. The next two photos are from Wednesday and Thursday.