Softly Calls the Serengeti by Frank Coates Page A

understood the question as the boy spoke Kiswahili with a very strong accent.
    The plastic bag and its contents disappeared into the front of the boy’s shirt. ‘Where you from? Where you from?’ he demanded.
    â€˜Kisumu.’
    â€˜Jo-Luo, uh? You need a room? You need a place to stay?’
    The repeated questions gave Simon the chance to decipher his odd accent.
    â€˜Um, yes,’ he replied.
    â€˜Come,’ the boy said, taking a few steps away. ‘Come,’ he repeated when Simon remained rooted to the spot.
    He led Simon to a matatu , which the driver raced through the congested streets like a man possessed, throwing Simon about like a cork in a flood.
    About fifteen minutes into their journey, the tree-lined streets and neat houses disappeared, to be replaced by corrugated-iron shacks and cheap concrete-block, two-and three-storey buildings with louvred window glass and graffitied walls.
    â€˜Come,’ the boy said, alighting. He waited with a bored expression until Simon realised he was expected to pay his fare too.
    â€˜What is this place?’ Simon asked as the boy led him through muddy, narrow alleys.
    â€˜This place? Mathare,’ the boy said. And again, ‘Mathare.’
    Mathare was a place like no other Simon had seen. Although there were many cheaply built shacks in the Nyanza district surrounding his village near Lake Victoria, he’d never seen so many in one confined space. The odours of rotting vegetation and, occasionally, human and animal excrement assaulted his senses and seemed to cling to his skin and clothing. He tried to hold his breath until the stench passed, but soon his chest was about to burst and he was forced to gulp air in huge lungfuls. He would have turned back had he not already invested his thirty shillings in the matatu fare.
    After ten minutes, the boy climbed two sets of stairs to an outside walkway that led to an open doorway into a room furnished sparsely with a sofa, a table and half a dozen chairs. There were two young men of about nineteen in the room. Without a word, Simon’s guide took him through into a bedroom equipped with four double bunks.
    â€˜It’s nice, uh?’ he said.
    Before Simon could answer, he added, ‘Hundred shillings.’
    Simon thought he was joking. It was a ridiculous amount. He spoke to one of the boys in the other room, who was a Luo, asking in Dho-Luo if it was true that the rent was a hundred a month.
    The youth assured Simon the rent was no joke; in fact, it was a good price for a bed in Nairobi. Simon was left in no doubt that Nairobi was a very different place to his home.
    He nodded to his guide, who led him out onto the landing to discuss business. A few minutes later, Simon had handed over his month’s rent in advance and the boy had disappeared.
    Later that day the agent arrived and Simon learnt his first lesson of his new life: trust nobody. The tout who had led him to the property held no official capacity, which meant the advance rent Simon had paid him had to be paid again. This left him with just two hundred and seventy-five shillings until he found a means of support.
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    Reflecting upon his past, Simon had no doubt that he had passed on his impetuous nature to his son. It was the cause of much of the trouble between them.
    He wondered yet again about his decision to run away from home. How much more pain could Sergeant Mutua have inflicted upon him over what had been done since coming to Nairobi? If he had stayed in Kisumu could his suffering be worse than losing his wife and children in a fire, and his only son to misunderstanding and prejudice?
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    Joshua had been wandering the alleys of Kisumu Ndogo for hours, unsure of what to do. He knew he couldn’t go back to his father’s shack, but the only other person he felt he could impose upon was Kwazi. The problem was, he hadn’t seen him since Kwazi had uttered those stinging words a few days ago, causing