Barbed Wire Fence Is Not Something You Want to Be Pushed Up Against

Since The Nation is hosting me while I’m here in Kenya and giving me a place to work, I’ve spent the last few days working from there. Yesterday (Thursday) I worked until 5 PM and Michael met me outside of The Nation’s building. We’ve been mostly taking city buses and matatus because we can’t afford to take cabs everywhere we need to go all the time. So we walked to the place where we catch the bus back to our apartment. Since it was 5 PM, everyone was on the streets trying to go home. It was insane how many people were maneuvering on the sidewalks to find their matatu or city bus number. Our bus is #46. The first couple 46 buses we came to were full so we started walking down the street towards oncoming traffic with the rest of the crowd searching for an empty bus. We were in a bit of a hurry because we were chasing the sun and had to be home before the sun set. It's not safe for us to be walking outside in the dark.

After some time, we came upon a 46 bus that had some open seats. There were about 10 people in front of us waiting to get on the bus. But since this wasn’t technically a place you get on the bus (traffic just wasn’t moving so conductors were allowing people to get onboard), a policeman made the bus driver move the bus up since traffic had started moving. So instead of turning around and calmly walking the few steps needed to catch up with the bus, the 10 people in front of us trampled me.

Not more than 10 minutes before this, I had taken my backpack off my pack and moved it to my front because since we were in such a huge crowd of people, I didn’t want to take a chance on someone unzipping my backpack without me knowing and stealing something. But if I had known I was going to be pushed into barbed wire, I would have kept my backpack on my back for protection!

As those 10 people were running towards the bus, they pushed me back into the barbed wire fence that conveniently lined the side of the road. The barbed wire tore into my back. I started screaming but it was no use. I continued to be smashed into the barbed wire. Finally once they all made it to the bus, I was released. I totally freaked out, primarily because of the instant extreme pain I was in but also because it was so frightening. I reached to my back and felt a tear in my shirt.

And I didn’t have to see the blood to know that my back was bleeding. I could feel the wetness on my back from the blood trickling down my skin. At that moment, the only place I really wanted to go was home (and not our apartment in Nairobi home but USA home). But I didn’t have that option.

We jumped into a cab and tried to get back to our apartment as quickly as possible but of course traffic was horrible. The stinging on my back and the pain wouldn’t stop. I was so unbelievably angry at those 10 people who trampled me, who heard me screaming, who saw my face, and who couldn’t be bothered to make sure I was okay because they would rather not miss their bus.

Once we got into our apartment and I took off my shirt, I freaked out again at the site of my back. But Michael was nice enough to nurse me up: cleaned the cut, put Neosporin on it and poured me a glass of Coke.

And then to put the icing on the cake, our Internet didn’t work for the rest of the night.

I think I'm going to take cabs from now on when I'm leaving The Nation at rush hour.

Hopefully today will be a better day.