Sunday 6.49pm
I sit down with my laptop; upload from my camera some pictures I took while in Tsavo West over the weekend.
6.58pm
I go through the pictures, deleting the ones I obviously took drunk. There is one of a squirrel (who takes a picture of a squirrel?) Delete.
7pm
I start banging copy.
7.45pm
Tusker Project Fame is on or something. Doctor Mitch goes down on one knee and like a magician produces and hands Sheila, from his coat pocket, a mangled flower. I stop typing long enough to think “Not in that hideous, shiny fireproof suit mate.” But Sheila blushes like a uniformed character in Tahidi High. I guess it’s never what a man wears on his back but more of what he wears on his sleeve; and the irrepressible Dr Mitch’s is wearing a long chutzpah.
7.58pm
I’m on my 690th word. I have to be careful with word count lately because Style and some readers here feel like I’m writing an endless tome. Keep it short and sweet Jackson, they say. And I listen.
8.03pm
It solemnly dawns on me that those kids in TPF can’t sing. The duets are a carnage and since when did men start wearing them hideously colorful skinny jeans? I chortle silently.
8.12pm
Dinner.
8.20pm
Back to the laptop (I eat fast)
8.30pm
My lil’ girl says she wants to suu-suu (that’s “take a leak” in Chinese). I’d love to tell her that if I interrupt the flow of my writing I won’t get the mojo again. But then again she might pee on herself and that might affect her adulthood like it did Making Appearances’… and Wakili’s. So I drop her shorts and sit her on her potty. I wait there while she does her thing, luxuriously checking her nails. She takes 432mins to pee! I mean I almost fall asleep standing there waiting for her
to finish. After, I promptly make a mental note: no more beer for her.
8.45pm
Banging more copy. More bloodshed on TPF, they’re now sounding like a dirge choir. Mitch is relentless with his jokes.
8.50ish
My laptop screen goes black.
8.51pm
I imagine it’s the power cable, so I push it in and restart. Nothing. Zip. Zilch…Nono (that’s zero in Lunglish)
8.53pm
I get that distinct urge to pee, a sign that shit has surely hit the fan.
8.54pm
It’s official, my laptop has crashed!
8.58pm
I pee.
When you earn a living purely from writing your laptop becomes your lifeline. Literally. I always have terrifying nightmares about my laptop being nicked or of my laptop being sat on by mistake by a woman with a gigantic ass. Or my lil girl peeing on it…for the whole of 340mins! Bad dreams. Now my laptop is dead. I’m not even worried about it that much, I’m worried about my deadlines. And I have three of those every week. Then there are the monthly ones which normally only allow me a measly window of a fortnight.
The first deadline I knew I was going to miss was the Monday morning blog post here . Granted, this is the only writing I do that doesn’t pay me (yet), but it’s got more sentimental value than all the writings I engage in for one simple reason; it is me, unadulterated. My thoughts here are virgin, I’m beyond editing here. I set the agenda as I deem fit. This is my boma. And so it depressed me that I won’t be posting, depressed me so much that I went to sleep curled in a fetal position with my thump stuck in my mouth. Okay, maybe not quite but you get the idea.
Prior to the laptop kibosh I had banged about 1300 words for the post I was to post Monday. Now I can’t recall what I had written and even if I decided to re-write the same post it won’t just be the same. You have to see my frustration. KK, I know you do.
So here is a weak post on my trip to Tsavo over the weekend. A picture essay of sort. Feel free to be envious…or even try.
I liked this tree. It had character. A space. It reminded me of this lady at city hall; one of the rudest and most incompetent people I have ever met. I had gone to seek some information that was free but she gave me she such hell that I ended up paying for it. Like this tree she had these baby-dreadlocks that stuck in the air in all directions. Like the tree she had these gaunt witch-like fingers that she used to lethargically pore through this dog-eared file. Like the tree she had a dry look… a dry, hard and unearthly look that made me not want to argue with her. But most importantly this tree reminded me of her because she is the kind of archetypical government official you want to take a picture of and show your kids 30 years later with a running footnote; The face of bureaucracy, graft and modern witchcraft.
“Daddy what’s that?”
“It’s a picture of a museum.”
“It’s a human being dad. But what is that on her-?”
“Please don’t touch that!”
Severin Camp, Tsavo. This is where the court was held. Great place. The beauty of this place is that it’s not fenced by an electric fence which means at night you can’t step out to get some air without security because, well, because lions will eat you. It’s not a place for pansies. It’s the wild as uninterrupted as possible. There is a Maasai chap, a 6’5’’ guy who walks you to your tent at night and back to the restaurant. I find it cowardly. But chicks love it because they get to walk with the towering moran who, I suppose, allows them to touch his spear if they ask nicely. Hang on, I think I took a picture of good ol’ Tom. Yes, here it is.
I met this couple deep in Tsavo. They’re from Cape Town. The man is a mechanical engineer. The woman, well, I didn’t ask her because the man wouldn’t stop talking. A very enviable couple this. They were on a road trip from Cape Town right up to Kenya then back down. Their mode of transportation? A beat up Pajero. How cool! The guy asked me what I did for a living, I told him. He then started moaning how Kenyan parks are so damned expensive (true) and how fuel is damned pricey (true again) but how he simply loves our country as compared to most countries in the region (true!).
They have been married six months but have been friends for 5 years. They had been planning the road trip for two years and kept away almost a million for it. When we met they had been on the road for a month.
“How is it so far, have you guys had some bad fights?” I asked
“Oh yes!” they chorused.
“Who won?”
The girl giggled and the man stuck his thump in her direction. Smart bloke. I was thoroughly impressed by them being on a long arduous trip like this not only to experience something truly special but test their relationship. I’m going to say something girlie here by noting that there was something deep about those two; they looked like they truly deserved each other. Seriously, they did. There was an ease between them, an effortless attraction. I’m not saying they were in love, but I could tell that they were friends, and that is better than love any day!
Perhaps my favourite spot in the lodge; the pool (the bar is overpriced). Where I come from we don’t shy away from water. Water is our friend. In Tsavo temperatures crawl to some serious heights as from 11am right until 4pm. There is not much to do during these times because most animals are asleep…I’m not counting the squirrel and birds. So you jump in the pool, have an ice cold Tusker and read a book. You will get dry and pale as a crocodile but it’ not like the French couple on the next lounge bed is any better!
There is normally a little chalkboard at the lodge’s reception where people write what they saw during the game drive. It’s a nice way to inspire people who never see anything but Dik Diks. It’s also a platform where tourists show off their
handwritings.
I love looking at this board, but onaly to see how horrific spellings can get.
While at Tsavo, I saw this:
Look at the last animal seen on that board. A moskito.
That killed me. I have never laughed so hard in my life. In fact this was the highlight t of my trip. On a game drive and saw a moskito! (Find the medal in the post Wilma). I wanted to find this odiero and ask them questions: Was this moskito chilling under a tree picking it’s teeth? Or was it at the local dispensary protesting against the use of quinine and moskito nets? Did it look dangerous this moskito? Were you traumatized by its sheer presence?
I wasn’t the only one who found this hilarious; in fact the look on some guy’s face said it all. Here take a look at this priceless reaction from this guy.
Enough on Moskitos. Let’s try their cousins, the Elephants.
This signpost is atop this picnic point called Poachers Lookout deep into Tsavo West. They pose a question on it. I read it and imagined that this was a rhetorical question, a trick question. Would I take a bullet for an Elephant?
Seriously?
Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to take a bullet for an Elephant? I mean, that’s an unfair expectation. To ask someone to take a bullet for an elephant is to ask for too much of someone. You only take a bullet for people who are very close to you, what has an Elephant done to me lately to deserve such gallant acts of selflessness? Have we had beer before? Did we lose our virginities the same week? Did it save my life?
Why would you want to take a bullet for something that is, what, 200,000kgs? And while you are taking this bullet for this Elephant what is it doing in the meantime? What is it doing while you writhe on the ground trying to keep your insides from spilling out? Do you know how painful a bullet is anyway?
And anyway, an Elephant has a better survival rate after being shot than you do so why, pray, would you take a bullet for an Elephant? No seriously, explain this to me like you would a kid. You are like say 87kgs (maybe 45kgs if you are Nyambura) and an Elephant is the size of New Rehema house in Westlands. Guys, really, who needs to take a bullet for whom?
You see that’s the problem with Elephants; they want special treatment. They want to get onto YouTube without working for it. They are whiny, “Oh we are being persecuted, oh our tribe is being witch hunted…oh…” Oh stop it already Jumbo! Do you see other animals whining? The Lion, Cheetah, Mongoose, Wild Pigs, Zebra…heck even the Moskito is mum! All these animals are quietly t taking their vegetable, but no, Mr. Elephant here in his size 200 shoes wants someone to take a bullet for him!
So no, Jumbo. I wouldn’t take a bullet for you. I’m sorry.