This Journey We're On.

Today, I woke up psyched up for the day and for the life ahead of me. I took a shower, had breakfast, watched Tusker Project Fame, got disgusted at how westernized the whole show is, then Ieft for work at about 5pm.

I live 10 minutes away from the city centre. On weekends or holidays, it’s three minutes away. Anyway, on weekends, the matatu guys have a really hard time getting customers to travel with them, because the customers assume that because it’s a weekend they should be charged half price for travelling in those matatus. The matatu owners, preferring to make a loss rather than carry people at half price, go ahead with those who agree to pay the full fare.

So, today, I got a mat soon after walking out of my gate, but the driver had intentions other than taking me to the City Centre. I ended up further from my destination than I had been while at home. You see, the driver kept reversing into side roads to get passengers that didn’t want to board the damn matatu, simply because, they didn’t want to go anywhere, they were just walking around aimlessly soaking up the evening sun, or just walking to the shops that are near their homes. But would the driver accept that? No! He just kept going ass first into side road after side road and after some time, I did get depressed and start to think that maybe, it was never my destiny to get what I want or be happy for more than a minute.

Not only that, but when he realized that really the only people that wanted to travel were those in his vehicle at that time, he ran into a weekend revelers jam, and he? Well, he did the unthinkable, he started to drive on the sidewalks, pushing pedestrians into walls and receiving a few insults for it. And then, he got us stuck in a ditch, so we all had to get out of the vehicle and lift it out of the ditch. We couldn’t ask for our money and we were too close to the city to demand all our money back so the other passengers and I just decided to wait it out in the hope that it wouldn’t be too long before we did reach our destinations. I vowed to assess any other matatu very carefully before boarding to ensure that it was partially occupied and would not go forcing pedestrians to become passengers.

This story is not about matatus. It’s about life as a journey and how sometimes, it can be full of unexpected twists and turns. Take me for instance. All I wanted was to get to the City Centre of Nairobi. I got there true, but the hellish bumps and ditches I had to encounter were part of the journey. It is so with life too. I wake up one morning enthusiastic about life, vowing to accomplish great things, but make one silly mistake. I trust others to drive the course of my life and end up in places that I had never intended to go. “Tis so with everyone at one point or another in their lives; we aspire to do great things, we plan for them, we get started but then people along the way direct us to places that are not good for us. And the only way to beat this kind of trusting, wavering habit that takes us nowhere is focus.

We need to focus. We need to focus. For this journey we’re on, the two things that will get us where we want to go are God and Focus.