Christmas
is finally here, and this reminds me of one strange experience I had
with my Family. I am sure they can all attest to this: see, we were
overjoyed since this long awaited trip to
Tanzania had come. We had visited almost all sites in Kenya,
and now it was time for Tanzania. We started traveled by road to
Tanzania at
night and stayed at Arusha. On the second day, we decided to visit
Tanga, one
of the towns in Tanzania with several historical sites and national
parks. We
had not bought a map and we depended on our phones for the GPS signals
(yes, smart phones existed then, thank God).
We were headed to a destination we did
not know. We started asking for directions from the police, at gas stations,
and from fellow road users. Wrong decision. Since Swahili is Tanzania’s National language,
we had a problem understanding them because well, you see, in Kenya we speak “broken” Swahili.
We asked one lady in particular to
guide us and help us know where Kilimanjaro National Park is. She got into our
car and we started the journey, excited that we had finally found help. My father is not a fast driver so the
lady kept on saying “kaza mwendo ama
tutachelewa” (drive faster lest we get late). I kept asking myself why she
kept on telling us to drive faster and we wanted to see sites on the way...tsk!
The first warning sign, which we did
not notice, was when she asked us to drive into a street that had a “NO ENTRY”
sign. Blindly, we drove in. we were surprised see police on motorcycles
following us. We did not know why till they told us that they would arrest us
for breaking the law. The lady, lucky for us, talked to him and explained that
she had led us there.
Then she intended to ask us to turn
after a roundabout and she said, “ukipita
keep lefti, wewe vunja mkono na ukeep
lefti” (when you passed the roundabout, join the road on your left.) by
then, none of us knew what she was saying so we passed the junction to the
National park. She kept mum.
After traveling for two hours with
her constant “kaza mwendo”, we
decided to ask her how far it was since it was getting late and we had to go
back to our hotel at Arusha. That was when she broke our spirits.
“kutoka hapa si mbali, mtapanda juu ya huu mlima, hapo mtaweza
kusaidiwa zaidi. Mimi nashuka hapa. Nimefika nyumbani.” (It’s not far from
here, just go up the hill and you will get help there. I have arrived at home,
so I will leave you to proceed).
Oh the anger that filled us!! How dare
she use us to get her a lift home? And from what we learnt on our way back, the
junction the we had passed was the right way to go! We felt wasted, but we had
learnt a valuable lesson. We pledged to trust our phones only or buy a map.
I
certainly hope this will never happen again...or do I? I hope it does,
it was great!! I wonder what will happen this Christmas!!
