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Of Kisii, Keumbu & Kegati

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Welcome to the land of the bananas.

Banana trees are the signage that welcomes you to the heart of South Nyanza.
A few months away, I landed in Kisii town - a crowded town to the South of Nyanza. It was deep into the night, an eerie night, when I arrived. On a cold still night, Kisii can seem a forlorn place. 

And there I was, with a bag in tow, ready to take the town by storm. I had traveled a couple hundred kilometers from Nairobi to get started once again. Bored with the chagrin of a dirty metropolis and its inept officers, I had no love lost for a city I had lived for the better part of the decade. So I set sail, and waded to Kisii where I was keen to eke a fortune for myself and for the glory of the Lord.

Growing up in the rift, there were lots of inoculating stories I heard about Kisii. Mostly, they were terrifying tales that scared my childhood away. And so, as I set foot in Kisii town, in spite of the morbid fear I harbored about the place growing up, I was drawn to the opulence of peace that pervaded the air. 

There were no buses or nganyas to disturb the calm of the night. There were no traders chained in servitude. There were no beggars competing for the compassion of travelers. 

There was a semblance of peace and tranquility - something that had discerned my path for days. And who wouldn't take a new challenge anyways?

In few days that followed, I would settle into a room I was booked into by a family friend. Thereafter, I would acquaint myself with the lingua of the Abagusii.

Every morning, I would signal a bodaboda guy and lighten his day with a perfectly executed greeting;
"Nyairire?''­­
And he would respond "nyairire buya"
How easy that was!
Sometimes the bodaboda guy would indulge me further - seldom about politics, indolence and debauchery of the government of the day. Often, I would decline such a superfluous conversation with an air of reluctance.
It's been a couple of months now and I am consigned to the daily hustle and bustle of operators plying different routes. The young and the old of the town toil with utmost industry to put food on the table.
I've met a number of elderly women with kiondos full of groundnuts, mangoes and jars of coffee beans appeasing travelers with the marvel of their goods.

In spite of my childhood fears about the place, I have attested the kindness and friendliness of its people.

I am just getting started. In the evening you'd be sure I will "weirire'' to you. And believe me you, imma wait for your response.

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