The Nakuru Scam
Beware of men bearing lug nuts.
“Right. Left. Right and right again. Straight on.” One of the Kenyans shouted directions.
The jeep was careering through a maze of alleyways.
“Right.” We lurched round a bend into a rutted lane, barely the width of the vehicle. A high, barred gate loomed ahead and the jeep screeched to a halt. One of the two Kenyans riding outside, leapt down and opened it. My husband drove through and the African closed the gate behind with a sickening thud. Within minutes the three Kenyans had removed the front wheels of the jeep and we were stranded, our vehicle immobilized, in an African township.
It had seemed a good idea at the time: to hire a jeep in Nairobi and then drive up country to Nakuru National Park to see the flamingos. The jeep was a bit dodgy. No oil registered on the dipstick. There was no water in any of the battery cells but nothing major went wrong until we reached the dusty outskirts of the town of Nakuru. As my husband negotiated a narrow rutted road seething with traffic, he suddenly noticed that there was too much play in the steering. The market stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables by the side of the road, only added to his difficulties. So did the pedestrians weaving in and out of the rusting lorries and jam-packed buses and the mangy dogs nosing rotting refuse in the gutters. Suddenly three Africans ran out in front of the jeep.
My husband slowed and before we could do anything to stop them, the men had clambered aboard.
“The ball joints on your track rod ends have gone,” shouted the only one that could speak English. “But we can get it fixed.”
Dazed, confused, disorientated, my husband turned the jeep. Once we had left the main road, we found ourselves in a maze of twisting alleyways.
“Right! Left. Right and right again. Straight on.”
The lanes and alleys became narrower and narrower, until the final passage in this interminable labyrinth was barely the width of the jeep. Through a blur of shimmering heat, I was vaguely aware of tin roofed huts, tall black fences, piles of rusting machinery and rolls of barbed wire. Suddenly we were facing a high, barred gate. One of the men leapt out of the jeep and opened it. My husband drove through. The gate was slammed and locked behind us.
Once behind closed gates inside the compound, Joe, the English speaking Kenyan explained that he would need to go to a maintenance depot to buy the spare parts that were required to repair our vehicle.
“You will have to come with me, to pay,” he explained to my husband, who nodded and before I could say, ‘What about me?’ The pair had disappeared.
I was left with the two non-English speaking “mechanics” who both lay down under the jeep and promptly went to sleep. As I tried to huddle into the shade of one of the tinned roofed buildings that surrounded the compound, first one then two, then more and more children began to filter out from doorways and passages. The youngest, barely three, snotty nosed and wearing only a grubby white tee shirt was clutching the hand of a gangling youth of about fifteen. All the children were bare foot, the boys dressed in frayed shorts, the girls in brightly colored shifts. White teeth gleaming in shining black faces they appeared indifferent to the heat, which lay, a thick blanket on the unmoving air.
The oldest boy spoke: “What do you do mama?”
“Teach,” I said nervously. The smile on the boy’s face faded.
“Music,” I offered.
“Sing a song,” he ordered, the smile restored.
I’m a music teacher by trade and used to performing to children so I sang, “Sun Arise,” the Aborigine song that Rolf Harris popularized. It went down well. I followed with: “When you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” The children applauded wildly and joined in the actions. Dizzy with success, I was just launching into “I’m a little teapot” (I taught infants for a bit), when my husband and Joe returned with the spare parts.
My husband looked at me like they do, so I stopped singing and told the children that it was their turn now. They needed no second asking. There was a swift consultation. Within seconds all the children were singing and in three-part harmony. Then they began to dance. The mechanics woke up and joined in as did various women who had drifted out of the adjoining houses. I was enchanted and very impressed. Music it seems crosses all boundaries. Still singing, the mechanics accomplished the repair and then they reinstalled the wheels. The “repair” was accomplished, the wheels set back in place and the gates reopened. Joe agreed to guide us back onto the road that led to the National Park.
It was time to say “Goodbye” to the children. The oldest boy shook my hand. I wanted to give him a present and searched my bag frantically but found only a biro.
“Sorry. That’s all I have.”
“It is enough,’ he said with great dignity.”
We saw the flamingos. They were magnificent but an anticlimax after the children. Anyway, still unsure whether we had been conned or not we set off back to our hotel. On the road that lead out of road we had the answer. Three Africans leapt out from the side of the road. They pointed to the front of the car. One shouted,
“Your track rods are broke.”
We drove on.
Slyvie Downes’s articles have been published in the travel magazines Italy, Times Educational Supplement, Music Education, and Mslexia. Her short stories and an anthology of poetry Signals in the Dark, and a comic novel Changing Places have also been published.