How I Escaped Death by a Whisker

Part 1

I would have been dead last year around June. I would have been shot by Nairobi Carjackers. Bullets would have torn through my skull, or my heart or my chest. But I would have died. I would have been reduced to a mere statistic of a Carjacker’s bullet.

My close friend Tiyan and I had visited someone that ill-fated Sunday. It was past 10 a.m. that we boarded a Nissan Matatu bound for Park Place, our student residence area. We were comfortably seated and two more ‘passengers’ stepped in and the Matatu sped off, hurtling along the Haile Selassie Highway. The Nissan screeched to a stop and pulled aside opposite the Kenya Polytechnic. Two more ‘passengers’ squeezed in. I was just partly asleep, just thinking of how my day in court tomorrow will be as a law intern in Judicial Attachment at the Nairobi Law Courts. Tiyan was seated two seats away, may be thinking about his classes tomorrow or reviewing the day, I can’t tell.

What happened was quick, dramatic and precise. The driver and the conductor were yanked and squeezed in-between the seats. Two rough-looking, youthful men took control of the Nissan and two others kept an eye on us. I looked around and an eerie feeling registered. I looked at Tiyan, he glanced back and I immediately knew that we had been carjacked! We would be dead this night!

Tiyan’s neighbor was  still asleep. The poor chap was drunk and no doubt knew that the destination was Rongai.

“Sasa msikize, hatuogopi kuua. Tunakuua. Tunataka simu na pesa. Simu na pesa ama ukufe! Simu na pesa ama ukufe!”

I was immediately behind him. I glanced at this man. He had no mask, no hood. He had hardly reached 35. To him, life could be dispensed. Life was at his beck.  By one killer bullet his orders could be met. I was afraid of this man. Very afraid.

So I removed my wallet and phone. In my wallet I had around 600 shillings and a few coins. My phone was one of those old pioneer Sony Ericsson models that came with an aerial. I could happily give it to anyone as a gift and never think twice. With my colleagues, we could joke that if the phone accidentally slipped into my passenger seat, a fellow passenger could rudely tell me ‘Hey, friend, I think you are leaving behind your phone..please have it’. But I still needed my phone, for communication, you know.

I was the first to comply with the orders.

“Hatutaki wallet zenu washenzi, toa pesa!” The Not-Afraid-to-Kill-Man growled.

I removed the 600 shillings and gave them out together with the phone. But I had to remove my sim-card while he monitored me. The other passengers followed suit. I thought to myself: What if I die tonight wouldn’t it be such a waste after reading for the past more than 16 years and almost reaping the benefits? How will people receive news of my death? Would they find my body anyway?

All the passengers complied. Upon reaching the Haile Selassie Roundabout, we sped the Ngong route instead of the Rongai one. Our drunk fellow wakes up, notices that the Matatu is following an apparently different route. He noisily asks Tiyan about this and causes a commotion. Tiyan whispers to him: “Man, ni kubaya!” But he doesn’t listen. The goons tell him: “We! Tutakupiga risasi! Tutakuua saa hii”. He receives so many slaps and blows. I pity him. That is the much I can offer for now.

Now I was resigned to fate and God. I laughed inside me thinking of how life is so temporary, so transient, so shaky. During the day I was hopping around with life; at night I am lying dead somewhere-I-don’t-know. This life!

One thug makes a call. He is talking over his handset: “Sikiza, tunakuja na hawa mafala mtutegee hapo” We are headed for Ngong or Ngong Forest. And the lives of about 12 passengers were at the mercy of four armed crooks. One wrong move and we are dead meat. We had given out money, phones. What more did these ingrates want from us?

The driver or the conductor made a ‘suspicious move’ and in a quick succession one thug removed something, a weapon, may be a pistol and jabbed it into his head. I felt everyone cringed. The thug intoned: “Hii si toy, kumanina, nitakushoot..hii bizna hatukuanza jana fala na usidhani we ni m-clever sana”. The pistol was cocked and I heard one collective sigh. The driver (I established much later) didn’t move an inch and that saved us, at least at that time.

 The Not-Afraid-to-Kill-Man then looks around and bursts:
“Wanawake ni wangapi kwa hii gari? Oooooooh, naona ni wawili”.

He abruptly stops at that. This gets me thinking: RAPE! Tororot, the God of the Rising Sun, not rape. We have an old woman, old enough to be my grandma. We also have a lady but again I think how heart-wrenching, traumatizing it can get to her young life. Oh no. This will be too sad to bear. Or we passengers being forced to rape them. I hated that moment, I hated this people, I hated the whole situation.

We had been forced to lower our heads all this while but on approaching a police roadblock, the Nairobbers adviced us to ‘kaa vizuri’ like ordinary passengers. I felt like to scream across the window for the police to hear and rescue us but I had no voice what with the parched throat and tension. So we comfortably passed the cops.

It was a bad night for me. The Not-Afraid-to-Kill-Man suddenly turned and barked to me:

“We! Pesa na simu yako, toa ama ukufe saa hizi, hii si mchezo!”

In the humblest voice and pose that man can sink into, I say:
“Boss, ndo hii wallet nilikuwa wa kwanza kukupatia doo na simu Ericsson”. He doesn’t take this.
He says:
“Usicheze na akili yangu, wapi simu”

Then a blow that could have measured 4.5 on the richter scale lands on my nose once twice thrice as I say ‘boss, sikudanganyi ni ukweli’. I realize that I need to save my nose else it will be fractured by this some nose-deconstructor-or-something. ( By the way, for a whole 5 days I walked with a swollen nose..I felt bad that week). I feel like to shout to this shenanigan: Shoot me, coward, shoot me…Shatter my brains now..End this show..Go ahead, coward. But another voice tells me: Salem, these people can actually kill you even when you don’t dare them. You will be the loser. You have something to live for. They have nothing but misery. Their lives suck. Temper your anger!

The ruffian with a pistol-or-something tells us:

“ Hata sisi tuna watoto wanataka kula na kuenda shule. Kibaki alisema ataleta kazi lakini hakuna. Msijali. Hii ndio kazi na tuheshimiane.”

His voice never betrays any emotions or hard feelings. He appears to have sobriety of thought. But I really pray that he maintains this and never do anything stupid. If he kills both me and Tiyan, he has killed the whole village.

Any time from now, we might be dead. And time was running fast....