Thika than Water: Stories of Camping, Landless Estate, and Polluted Waterfalls

Let nobody fool you on the state of Thika Fourteen Falls. It is despicable. It is filthy. Its waters has more polythene bags than you can count. Simply, it is a total eyesore. A shame of Thika. A shame of the Nation. A shame of Us All. No, I was not told all these. Neither am I paid to discredit the Thika Fourteen Falls. Sijalipwa. To put it into clear perspective, we shall have to start from the beginning:

On Saturday 11^th, ten minutes before four p.m., I left Kahawa Wendani Estate, together with four friends, packed a few belongings – a black sweater, a pair of blue rubber shoes, two ball bens, a notebook, two books, just in case: Nairobi Heat by Mukoma wa Ngugi and The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (that I never read) and left to go camping. 

But I forgot my National ID. You can imagine how significant it is right now when the State is trying to sanitize and redeem itself after bungling (yes, bungling) the Garissa College University bloodbath that allowed four terrorists to slaughter 148 of our brothers and sisters. Your ID is your life. So I worried over my ID the entire journey that ended – pwap! At the Fourteen Falls Lodge located along Thika-Garissa Road.

Camping

Camp Mates: Mesh, Solo, Mike, Kweto, and I

It was my first time going for camping. So were my friends except one, maybe Mike. I am speculating because from what he has told us before, it is often: it-looked-like-camping-but-again-it-was-not-camping stories. Himself he is not sure. Nobody is sure. 

We arrive at the lodge a few minutes after seven p.m. and are welcomed by a man of short stature, stocky, with a clean-shaven head except for a few tufts of hair. It looks like box-cut, his hairstyle. He wears those bad plastic shoes that expose his big toes under the yellow glow of the neon bulb fixed up there – atop the reception room–a mud-walled hut. Back in my village, his shoes fetch less than $1. The temperatures are near freezing here because the Lodge is adjacent to River Chania and it disturbs me how our man survives the cold in those bad plastic shoes. When he opens his mouth to address us, he comes off as informal, casual, street-smart, something unexpected, or rather, I did not expect. He delights in cutting corners as we shall realise later.

L-R: Solo, Kweto, and I

‘Karibuni’ he tells us extending a handshake. 

            The leader of our delegation, Mesh, advances forward and makes to sit on the only available seat opposite our man. Meanwhile, we remain standing at the door of the hut, savouring the natural scent of flora and fauna, so we believe, as the two deliberate. 

            ‘Tent, unfortunately, hamtapata. But kuna manyattas. Pia haziko mbaya,’’ he tells us. 

                                                                          

            ‘But kila kitu iko.’

They do the math of the total cost. We shall not use the brochure that has standard prices. I told you our man knows how to cut corners. And corners he cuts because, surprisingly, they arrive at a budget of 4,200/-. We suspect foul play in his quick deal. Not that the budget exceeds ours. In fact, it is way below. We only believe he wants to give us sub-standard services. We insist on first seeing the manyattas. 

‘Aya twendeni. Ziko sawa.’ He assures us as we file out of the hut. 

            They are manyattas for real. Like those used by Maasais. Except these have electricity. We complain of the electricity. 

            ‘Hatutaki stima. Hamna candles ama taa aina zingine,’ we innocently protest. 

            We shall get candles, he pledges. What about firewood? Do they have enough that we can buy? Yes. They have plenty. But we shall not buy. Instead, he shall ‘organize.’ Like Red in Stephen King’s short story, Rita Hayworth from the collection Different Seasons, he is the man who can get you things at Fourteen Falls Lodge. Or, Morgan Freeman acting as Red in The Shawshank Redemption, the movie adaption of the story. He simply ‘organizes.’ But he does not expect something small the Kenyan way. We look at each other in foolish delight. And to his word: we get plenty of firewood later in the night for our bonfire. Free!

            Can we stroll on our own at night to enjoy nature and refresh, maybe, for some of us now plagued by an outbreak of village nostalgia, the memories of listening to the chorus of the crickets, watching the half-moon, the stars, and fire-flies with their greenlight? Indeed, he gives us the greenlight, metaphorically, i.e., but first, he gives us an orientation where we can roast our meat. 

During the orientation, he warns us of the limits of the night. 

‘Do not go near the river now’ he points at the direction of the river. ‘Hippos are out and it could be dangerous.’ 

 Mesh shrinks at the revelation. 

 

Follow the Leader: Mesh

‘Soldiers also train around.’ He adds, again, as an afterthought, something that further chills us.

The night remains ghostly still, with occasional fluttering of leaves and singing insects as we scan the wild with satisfactory relish. This is what Jack London referred to as The Call of the Wild. Here, we have been called upon to bear witness to nature and night. London writes:

“But under it all (we) were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting (ourselves) against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space [words in bracket mine]. ”

Later, our man walks us to where a grill jiko is for roasting our 5kg of goat meat.  Together we carry the grill jiko to an isolated spot – a cave-like ground with peculiar animal sounds. 

‘That’s a baboon,’ says Solo. 

Frogs croak incessantly, setting a uniform tempo that pierces the still, ghostly night illuminated by a half-moon playing hide and seek with the clouds and stars above. The restful sky reminds me of the innocence of village life, sitting by grandmother’s mango tree waiting for supper together with my stepbrothers and stepsisters now scattered in this wide world. 

 L-R: Solo, Mike, and I

Camping is an opportunity for one break free from the rat race of city life. Here, deep in the wild, God gives you another chance, and only chance, to review your dreams, hopes, aspirations, mistakes, fears; a moment to atone for past sins if possible. It is here where you can look at the sky and promise yourself and only yourself alone that you will change that man in the mirror for the better. That you will not break hearts again. That you will be wide as that dark blue sky in your relentless search for the true self. That you will shine amidst the vastness like the moon above. 

Everyone is overwhelmed with sickening nostalgia. So everyone wants to fetch firewood to light a fire. We scramble for the few twigs that we can find in the semi-darkness. Mesh has brought a dozen red candles. 

‘Kwani you think we are belong to the Legio Maria Sect,’ I remark. 

Legio Maria Sect is infamous for its use of red candles, white cloths, and other strange paraphernalia during closed-door sessions when called upon to exorcise bad spirits in a homestead. 

Our nyama choma is ready after an endless trial and error. We should have boiled it before placing it on the wire-mesh. We forgot to use a foil paper – a silvery paper that you use to wrap the meat and prevent it from absorbing direct heat. So we end up eating half-cooked meat. But that is camping. And it comes with experimentation, learning new things, making mistakes.

Two a.m. Sleep in the manyattas. We wake up to chirping birds, female talk – a group of women have come to shoot a gospel video. It is a choir type. The morning allows us to absorb the wholeness of the Lodge. We escape into the woods, play childish games, marvel at River Chania with its expansive length. Chania’s resoluteness reminds one of the political overtones it evokes in Central politics. 

Landless Estate

            ‘How come rich people live here in landless estate?’ That’s what I ask one of the residents I meet in a small hotel where have gone to have brunch[1]*. 

            Apart from Landless Estate, I am told there is also Gatundu Estate (though different from the one in Kiambu County). There’s also Muuga Estate. The latter estates belong to commoners. But I am still not satisfied. And not amused.

 Why Landless and yet people in the estate live in gated homes with high walls, surrounded by well-trimmed gardens? And they have street names, too. Pretentions of the rich know no bounds: Cairo St, Freetown St, Canaan St. Inside their prison-homes, I wonder if they have same question as I do: Why landless and yet they occupy tracts of land space for their majestic bungalows? 

Afternoon we devote to swimming at Fourteen Falls Lodge. The management charges sh200 per person. But because our man is around, he shall organize. And he lets us swim at sh125 per person. I told you he is Kenya’s equivalent of Stephen King’s Red. No kickbacks. No chicken.

That is when it coldly dawns on me that I do not know how to swim. All those years. I have learnt how to (mis)use all manner of drugs, experimented with different sex positions, I can confidently roll a joint, but I know nothing of freestyle and breastroke and backstroke. So all that watching of Jason Dunford and Michael Phelps during the Olympics has been in vain. I mean, at 25 years, a quarter century, at least some people are unable to dance like my boy, Nyanchwani. But swimming, Nyasaye wuora!

 

You should have seen me, dragging my weight inside the waters and slapping it stupidly into big bubbles, unable to move from one end to the next, meanwhile, children of age 8 or 9 gliding effortlessly like fish, enjoying themselves and so were my camp mates except for Kweto, another asshole in swimming. 

Note to self: Learn swimming as soon as possible. 

Pollution of Thika Fourteen Falls and the Final Journey Home

            The journey to Thika Fourteen Falls first leads us to Kilimambogo centre. From the centre to Thika Fourteen Falls is a distance of approximately 10 km. One can use a motorbike or a matatu. It is a wide murram road, well maintained, and can allow two vehicles to bypass one another simultaneously. We take a motorbike.

            ‘Mtalipishwa kila mtu mia. Kwa ivo nyinyi wote, mia tano,’ one of the motorcyclists warns. We had not factored in the entry charges. One hundred bob? All of us are taken aback. 

            ‘Ya nini? We ask to nobody in particular. 

            We later draw conclusions to ourselves: Maybe for maintenance. Someone has to maintain the place. 

            The motorbike will charge sh50 per person with the promise of taking us to the same place, but following a clandestine route where we shall not pay a single cent, but shall still see Thika Fourteen Falls. Everywhere, I realise, Kenyans are eager to cut corners. Nobody wants to follow the direct channels. The clandestine route ushers us to paths zigzagging into expansive pineapple plantations and, to our right, an overlooking Mount Kilimambogo.

            Arrival at Thika Fourteen Falls marks the collective disappointment of a polluted river, a polluted environment, polythene bags everywhere; but the waterfalls remain defiant, pouring its water with elegant grace, oblivious of its endangerment! Lovebirds have flocked here. Children. Family. A school is here. It is a Sunday. They take pictures against the background of a dirty water – brown and full of industrial refuse! 

Our anger is palpable! 

            ‘Who dumps all these refuse into the water?’ I ask one of the photographers. 

            ‘Nairobi River. All the waste people pour onto Nairobi River drain here,’ he says. I can read the dejection in his voice, too. He is also disappointed. 

            On our journey back, I keep wondering: where does the money collected at Thika Fourteen Falls go? Are we seeing the heartless destruction of our ecosystem in broad daylight? 

            I get home before eight p.m. Pending emails. Pending online research assignments. I am back to my rat identity!

---

[1] Breakfast and lunch.