Some might argue that Football culture in Kenya is nonexistent beyond Gor Mahia, Efusi (AFC Leopards) and their rivalry that plays out in the Mashemeji derby contested between these two aristocrats of Kenyan soccer. I wouldn’t argue with those who say so. But beyond the expected in football culture – derbies, rivalries and persistence of a caste system which separates the big boys from the chaff- in Kenya, football culture is matatus, graffiti and trips to cheer your team, while ridding in matatus much as pirates would.
Ingwe Route 125 Rongai
The ‘heatwave’ filter digitally applied on this image of Ingwe Route 125 Rongai, only makes an already intriguing picture a unforgettable story. Beyond the characteristically sick graffiti on the matatu – whose center piece a man looking up to the heavens in a half defiant, half ‘where-does-my-help-come -from’ pose -, there is rich detail to ingest.
It’s this detail, not all of which that I will detail, that draws me in. Closer, my gaze is fixated on the almost easy to ignore title of the picture within the picture. I talk of the picture whose frame is the outline of the edge of the matatu’s body. “God First” it reads, possibly in consolation to the man, the subject of the picture, with a burdened face. What burden’s him? I wonder. Is it the ‘Soul Eater’? Is she, far upper left corner up there in the lights, looking down on the matatu and the man, the ‘Soul Eater’?
I have heard nasty stories of dating in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, which happens to be the setting of this story. Ingwe Route 125 Rongai, is a matatu which we’ve christened ‘Ingwe’. It is a privately owned public transport utility plying route 125 to the Nairobi metropolitan suburb of Ongata Rongai. Rongai is a neighborhood chided to be in Nairobi’s diaspora. In truth, its within reach, really it is. I know the traffic can get unbearable, and is probably why the man in the picture within the picture needs the wings traced out by the tail lights of the matatu.