At The Intersection of Angry and Almost Home

What is the difference between a Kenyan moving through Kenya during the West terror era and a Northerner in current Kenya?

The Northern buses are famous, at least to us Northerners, for their ability to fly towards home, a longing fulfilling itself in fuel and engine, their wheels barely touching the tarmac once they have left the clog of the city. The long journey ahead, the hours spent seated looking at everything pass you by, slipping from your grasp like childhood dreams, and the endless road that keeps going and going if you do not stop, all seem to summon the foot of the driver to the pedal. I don’t particularly hate it, especially in the night when all I can do is think, and listen to the uncourteous on the bus watch TikTok videos on such loud volumes, it takes everything in me to not snatch it and throw it out the window, or on a more sensible scale, ask them to tone it down. I of course, do none.

We are planning yet again, another trip home to Marsabit, the start point of all the tales that trickle within me, up and down like the heartrate of an arrythmia patient. We have invited a few friends as we often do, this time for my brother’s wedding. We remind the friends, repeatedly to please, bring their national ID or passport, because this homebound bus slows down at the junction where the Great North Road donates a piece of itself in the direction of Merti. I haven’t been, but I have heard many a mention of Merti and when I look at the sign pointing me that way, these mentions are what come to mind.

The bus pulls to the side, always without fail. And then we alight with our IDs, or if we are coming back this way, to Kenya, with our bags too so the military personnel can frisk and the dogs sniff. They, their faces covered with balaclava and their guns on their sides, try to speak to us, see what language rolls off our tongue so they can confirm the nationalities we claim. I stand mum, unspeaking, unindulgent, and often, when they pester, asking if this is what their military training prepared them for, if they did all they did so they can go through the maandazis my mother packed us. The chuckle this elicits is no response that I seek and occasionally, they ask if they can get my number, call me sometime and I say not even if you were the last man standing.

One time the tomatoes my father tended to had ripened so well, and the sweet potatoes red and white, succulent with starch had bloomed and so we packed up a pile of them. While checking the luggage, the officer asked if I was certain these were just tomatoes and potatoes and I asked if he had an X-ray vision that saw something else through the food. He glanced up and caught the angry smoke emanating from my face, tied back the bag and handed it to me.

I have been warned repeatedly, by different people including my mother, to contain myself because these people are known to harass, detain and even force people to collect litter because they did not like their tone or questions. I would rather be shot dead on the side of the road before I would allow myself be treated like a criminal. Guilty because we think you are?

I would collect litter with my teeth for earth, but that being commanded for asking questions is not something I will be doing. And so I try to remain silent, because I have nothing kind to say to someone who asks of my friends ‘are you sure you should be going this way’ because their IDs read some other name and some other part of the country that is better than ours, as if the marginalization and subjugation is not systemic.

They insist too, that no photos should be taken of the vicinity of their camp. They have forced people to delete photos from their phones, even though they only captured the ancient mountain witnessing yet another history it will not tell to the generations that will witness it long after we are dead. It feels as if I am the only one angered in this manner, by this violation, this profiling or maybe other people are wiser, more in control of themselves.

The only time I saw the rage I bear within me in someone else, was when a man at the back of the bus yelled at us to not alight. It was many years ago, and an officer came to the window where the man was seated and words were exchanged and then suddenly, the man had held the officer by the collars and was almost pulling him into the bus through the window. Needless to say, we did not alight that night because every passenger yelled at the officers and there was chaos in the vehicle. But it is worthless bringing anger to an armed, military personnel, trained to protect the country from foreign invasion, camped somewhere in the Middle of the Great North Road, harassing and haranguing the citizens who will always have to prove themselves even though they will never not be felt to feel like an outsider.

A few years ago, some friends and I took the bus to Addis. On the way back, we were stopped from a check just outside of Moyale. The officer looked at my passport and skimmed through the places I had travelled to, and then asked what I had gone to do in each of those countries. And then he ended with ‘they are not drug-prone areas’ and handed the passport back and I had so much to say that would have probably had me detained and so I swallowed my rage and boarded the bus, the anger taking root somewhere in my body. I have lost count of the number of times this fury has been left within me. The man who wrote on my post ‘go back to Somalia you stupid feminist’ lingers. I would love to visit Somalia someday. The ‘go back to Garissa’ yelled at my sister. Never mind that if we were to go back anywhere, it would be to Adama or Agar Maram or Mega.

I am filled with indignation as I always am when it is time to head home to Marsabit or depart from home. In the nights however, when I have alighted and had my ID checked, I walk with the group far ahead of the bus as we are bound to, and I turn my gaze up, unadulterated as the waters of a hidden spring, and gaze at the clear sky, the twinkling stars having a field day, showcasing their shine and I write poetry, sometimes vengeful ones that wish terrible things upon certain people and at other times, about serenity that kidnaps my frustration and ties it up with ornamental ropes of calm. And then sometimes, I convince myself that I belong here as much as I want to and none of these pricks can take my belonging away, even though it is not for lack of trying. Other times, I know that I will pack up my bags and head further up until I am at the south of a different border line, and take my chances with relatives I am yet to meet.

But there is no belonging without the labels I suppose, for as long as we inhabit this black body and the continent’s passports. The West will quiz us about our intentions to visit their countries, ask if we will come back because they know how uninhabitable they continue to try to make this place. And we have seen repeatedly, the atrocities upon ourselves in other parts of the world too. You would think home would feel a little more like home, but we move through it, my people and I, as strangers still.