Walking Home (25 page)

She laughed. I hadn’t expected that.

“You think these words are funny?”

“No, it is just that what you are saying makes me think that you would be a good minister.”

I did listen in church. I knew the Bible—our mother always had us study the words and what they meant—but still … a minister?

“Do you really believe that our parents are looking down at us from heaven?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I do not
believe
it—I
know
it. It is certain, and they will guide us the way the string is guiding us now. Do you see it?”

“I don’t need to see it,” she said. “All I need is to keep holding your hand, because you see it. You are a good brother … and a good father and mother.”

“Then let us walk forward together.”

Suddenly the smell of the air changed. It was more
pungent, and people who were in front of us started running back in our direction.

“What is happening?” Jata called out to a woman rushing toward us.

“Tear gas!” the woman yelled. “There is a demonstration ahead, and the soldiers are coming! Run, little ones! Run!”

We turned and rushed along with the group. Some people passed us and we passed those who were older or struggling with heavy loads. The mass of people flooded onto the road. Vehicles jockeyed about, some almost hitting people and other vehicles as they tried to turn and drive away.

There was a loud crack, followed by another and another. I knew without asking that it was gunfire!

“We must move faster!” I said, pulling Jata along. I had the urge to drop the water container, but I knew our life depended on it.

We came to a set of railroad tracks that we had passed a few minutes before which cut across the road. People were streaming off the road and onto the tracks in both directions. Railway tracks! That was the other way to Mombasa, along the tracks.

I grabbed an old woman by the arm. “These tracks—do they lead to Mombasa?”

“Yes, yes,” she yelled. “They run between Mombasa and Kampala, Uganda.”

“Which way is Mombasa?”

“That way, that way,” she said, pointing to our left. “Now leave me alone! Let me go!”

I released my grip and she fled down the road. I was going to ask another person, just to be sure, but I didn’t need to. The way the sun was shining, reflecting off the rails, I was positive that I could see the string.

“Come, Jata.”

We walked right down the middle of the tracks. We were not alone. There were many people in front of us and even more joining from behind, flooding off the road and onto the rails. There were more gunshots coming from behind, and that awful smell was stronger. My eyes felt itchy and my lungs began to burn. Whatever was chasing the people this way was still chasing us. We had to move fast not to be overtaken.

I overheard two men talking ahead of me. “The police are as bad as the rioters,” one said.

“But what would happen if there weren’t any police?” the other asked.

It was then I noticed that the side of the first man’s head was gashed, with blood flowing down his neck and staining his shirt.

“Sir, did the police do that?” I asked, venturing a question.

“No, a protester threw a rock that caught me. But the police have done far worse to many, believe me. I have seen it.”

“We have all seen it,” the second man said. “It is like there is no safe place to go.”

“Certainly not here,” the first replied.

“Will they come here?” I asked. “Will they follow?”

Jata gripped my hand tighter.

“Maybe they will. Maybe they are in front of you already. Sometimes you fear the police, and sometimes you fear that there are no police.”

“I do not understand.”

“The only thing worse than the violence committed by the police is the violence committed because there are no police. You will soon see that.”

What did that mean? I wanted to ask, but I was afraid of the answer.

All at once I skidded to a stop, getting bumped and jostled from behind before I could move us off the tracks. I was just so shocked at what I had seen. Ahead there
were
no tracks. They had been uprooted—the rails and ties torn from the ground and thrown about as if an angry giant had been at work. All that remained was the gravel of the railbed, as if the small pieces of rock were too insignificant for him to bother moving. Of course, it had been the work not of an angry giant but of angry men—many angry men.

I turned to a woman who was moving slowly nearby. “What happened here?”

She shrugged. “Even God does not know what happens in Kibera.”

“
This
is Kibera?” I gasped.

“It is not the Garden of Eden.” The woman walked on.

“We cannot be here,” I said to Jata, trying to steady my voice. “We cannot go on.” I could see that she was feeling the same fear I was feeling.

I grabbed her and turned around, then realized we couldn’t go back either. The crowd behind us was large and moving fast, and those who passed had panic in their eyes. Was there another way? I looked to one side and then the other. Both ways were blocked by small tin buildings—sheds, stores and homes—that stretched out into the distance. If there was a path, I didn’t see it. There was only one way: we had to follow the string. With Jata in one hand and the water container in the other, I plunged into the fleeing crowd.

As we walked I looked cautiously from side to side. The little buildings pressed in around us, but then suddenly a gap opened up. The buildings that had surely been there had been reduced to tangled piles of twisted metal, burned timber and wooden beams. A whole swath of homes on both sides of the railroad had been destroyed. The scar created a large opening
over ground littered with the remains of what had once stood there.

While the buildings had been pushed away from the tracks, we were pressed in by the smells. The odor of burning was everywhere, and I could see that there were still small fires smoldering. But it was more than that. There was a stench—the foul air of human waste, so much more pungent than that of animals. It seemed to be oozing out of the thick black muck that was everywhere, extending out in all directions. Sometimes in their haste to pass, people would slide down the gravel of the railbed, sinking ankle-deep in the very muck they wanted to escape. Other times people would leave the tracks deliberately, disappearing along one of the small side paths into the endless shanties that stretched out into the distance. Kibera seemed like it was all one big tin roof. I couldn’t see where one shack stopped and another started.

Even with people leaving the path, we were constantly pushed from behind. But the pace seemed to have lessened—as if people were still running, but possibly not being chased.

Suddenly the rails were in place again, held together by metal ties. A few paces back they were gone, and now here they were. Had the giant grown tired of destruction? At almost the same instant, the shops at the side of the tracks started to press in upon us once
more. The thick black mud was still there, but there were people moving through it. Some were in fresh pressed shirts, and others in suits and ties. Women were sitting at the thresholds of the little shops, some using whisk brooms to sweep away the garbage. In one shop there were green bananas and even greener cabbage for sale. With the reds of the tomatoes piled on the counter, it almost looked pretty.

The rusty tin buildings were still cluttered and crowded together, but there was an order to things. Did this mean we were past the worst?

“Sir, is this still Kibera?” I asked a man just behind us.

“It is until we reach the road.”

“But this part seems so different,” I said.

“Different from back there, but the same as it was before. People are born, raised, schooled, shop, work and die in Kibera. It is just that too many died too soon these past days.”

“But there are shops open and people doing business,” I said.

“People can be killed, but life goes on. It is going on.” He left the tracks and disappeared down one of the narrow corridors leading past the shops and into the shanties.