Today when changing a punctured tire at some junction at night(quite dark), I had two young dudes(teenagers or early twenties) who shined eyes and wanted to earn a coin do it only because I thought its safer when we are three. Because I suspected them, nilikaa macho all time nikawacha wasquat hapo wafanye mimi nikisimama kando kidogo vile naweza chomoka ikihitajika. And again, I had made judgement that if I didnt let them, they may decide to call reinforcement to take the coin if they had to while I am squatting there alone. Never mind the fact that I had to show them how to jack the vehicle up properly. Walikuwa wakitoa kitu moja moja naweka kwa boot wakimaliza wheel spanner tu ndio ilikuwa inje.
Ile incident ilikuwa hapa ktalk msee aliwekwa kwa boot na akaibiwa gari akichange tire kwa junction ilikuwa inanikula akili. The only thing that kept me calm is that it wasnt 9 or 10 pm, but just about 7:30
Now some other fairly built guy, 38-40, crossed the road, said hi, which i didnt respond to and joined some other two or three dudes seemingly waiting for a matatu (ilkuwa kwa junction zenye zinakuwanga na lanes za exit na bus stop). There werent many people. So the guy who had said hi walked up to me as the boys were finishing bolting the spare wheel, shined eyes and said something in hard shiny language so i didnt get it properly. He then switched to swahili and asked “Kijana utatufikisha gatitu?” (if you know where that is). I declined. I was now taking back wheel spanner and handing the two young men a few notes after which wakaanza kujitoa. The other dude who wanted to hitch a ride with his friends was still insisting I take them to “gatitu”. I went quiet. He had now called his friends and they were approaching.
I became nervous, got into the vehicle, threw the wheel spanner on to the passenger seat, and was fumbling for the cut out button. They were about to open the doors to invite themselves so I locked the doors, started the vehicle and rolled a distance away before taking back to the highway, left them knocking at the doors. Is it too hard to understand that a lone driver cannot give lift to three or four shiny eyed male strangers at 7:30pm no matter who they are? Why bother ask for such a lift bana na nyinyi ni ndume. matatu hazikuwa zimeisha by the way zilikuwa zinapita moja moja.
BTW I punctured the tire when some driver who couldnt overtake a lorry doing 2kmph on straight stretch hit brakes on me and my car nearly mounted his/hers. So in a road rage, i tried to overlap, failed juu ya mitaro, I hit the tarmac again very hard since it was very high. The front right tyre didnt do a kilometre.
It usually helps to count slowly to ten and let it pass. Doesn’t make sense have your a*se ripped apart by shine eyes just coz you couldn’t control your temper