Mundane things, occurrences, issues & observations in life
Long walk and Personal reflections:
It is early afternoon on the 31st of July, 2025; an emergency situation disorients my thoughts. I get delayed as I wait for someone with him to address the crisis and hardly concentrate well in my day’s to do mental list.
Consequently, I fail to make it to the location from where I concentrate on my work despite having some pending tasks.
“How can I constructively use the remaining hours of my day?” I think as the late afternoon slowly trickles in..
.. . “I should take a walk,” I say to myself. And so I take off from the location I am at. Concentrating on my task (I’m trying to practice & cultivate mindfulness as suggested by mental health doyens). I am 15 minutes into my walking when I meet a long time friend at his business along the main road since my idea has always been to walk along main roads in order to avoid risks often inherent in paths and alleys that meander through compounds, homes and residences in several locations in Nairobi. Still, I have to be very alert about traffic zooming past me along the road and also trust God for safety.
“I’m taking a later afternoon walk,” i inform my friend. “Ohh, I envy you. I also like walking a lot and normally & oftenly take long walks. As soon as I close the shop, I’ll also follow you and walk up to Dagoretti market and onto Kirigu and to waithaka and back here,” he assures me. Soon after i get back to my today evening project since it is already past 5pm. Forty minutes since I started my walk, I arrive at the famous Dagoretti Market (Ndunyu) and take a brief break. I have recently discovered that one of the hotels here sells fermented porridge as one of the beverages.
And having learnt that this type of drink helps in building up useful bacteria in the gut, I get into the hotel and make my order but have to wait a few minutes for the drink to be warmed. I am told that the beverage is not as popular as tea or coffee hence it has to be warmed when its consumers make an order.
After enjoying the drink, I am back on the road having now resolved to walk to Ungwaru through Kabiria road. It is 5.48pm and I start off having to manouver through heavy traffic congestion as PSVs (mainly Tuk Tuks & the tiny 8-seater vans – – popular as ‘pigs’) tout and call out for passengers.
Past the heavy traffic, I take the Gitiba Pry school route… At the junction off main Kabiria – Ndunyu rd, I realize that the road is now fully tarmacked. Businesses seem to be thriving. ‘Retired Slaves Charcoal Dealers’ is one the small businesses that attracts my attention.
The semi-permanent structure housing the business seems all covered in charcoal soot but its operators seem busy and undeterred.
In reflection, I ponder… ‘perhaps the investor in the business got inspired after reading how former slaves (who had been captured mostly from Africa and the Caribbean sub-continent) overcame great odds and whose children are today great, wealthy and educated African – Americans.
Perhaps he or she, in business wisdom thought the name choice would inspire him or her and eventually lead to great growth and success of the charcoal business. Perhaps the investor meant to call the business ‘Former Slaves Charcoal Dealers’ seeing that the term ‘retired’ may infer slowed determination. This business name makes me ponder on the interesting world of businesses names and their choices. I recall a business in this sub-county with the name ‘Vanity Lounge’ and which apparently seems not to be popular or doing well. Another with the name ‘Dark Fantasy’ seems to have closed shop several months ago.
Along the tarmacked Gitiba rd, i realize that vehicles /motor bikes /bicycles traffic is rather low. I realize that children are also benefiting seeing that they have turned the roads into playing fields. Some have marked rectangular boxes with smaller boxes inside to enable them to play their childhood games of sorts jumping over the boxes and throwing small stones to show the boxes to be avoided in the fervent jumping and jubilation as others miss the targets. Others, boys, are playing football using small handmade balls.
At one point, some young girls have a bicycle and are keenly training their friends, also young lasses, on how to ride….
Determined to reach my destination, I keep up pace seeing that it is now heading to 7pm. Past Kirigu pry school and onto to Pathenios Orthodox church, I am now on the well lit kabiria road with a bit of walking pedestrians and Tuk Tuks & ‘pigs’ constantly speeding by.
This also turns out as a familiarization walk seeing that i have not been to the areas since the roads got tarmacked some years ago. I had heard about centres and institutions such as the Agape children’s centre, Beth Mugo High and Kabiria Pry school and as I walk, I observe to appreciate and identify the institutions and the much construction progress that has happened in the area.
Down kabiria rd, I start noticing that human traffic is increasing gradually and suddenly I am at a point where I am being held back by people infront of my path. To overtake them and continue on my walk to beat my timings deadline, I have to struggle to avoid motor bikes, PSVs and personal cars and return back into the paved walk paths.
The wonder of business names captures my attention again when I reach a business premise under the name ‘Wakahii Base’ (I surmise this to mean that the base/building belongs to a person nicknamed ‘the mother/father of a boy’). And despite the struggles I am facing to overcome huge human and vehicles traffic in order to remain safe, I am happy to be in a safer place still. In such congested places one is often relatively safe from the risks of thuggery from thugs and muggers who attack pedestrians in deserted and lonely locations.
Soon i realize that i have reached the popular ‘Kabiria mwisho’ stage and apart from appreciating that I’m relatively in a safer location, I also realize that I am now even closer to my destination which initially was kawangware BP……
Past Riruta police station, I started feeling a bit tired but soldiered on after taking a sip of the water I was armed with. At Riruta BP, I took a piece of pawpaw and felt energized again and decided to check on a niece who lives nearby but missed her.
Back on track, i felt rather rejuvenated and decided to do my final lap to my final destination about 2.5 km away. I reached safety at 10pm and realized that my walk had lasted about 5 hrs. My phone steps ‘counter’ had recorded 19538 steps.
On average i have realized that one normal human being step averages 0.5 metres(50 cm or half a metre), so my simple mathematics gave the distance I had covered in my relieving walk as 9769 metres translating into about 9.769km.
