New Normal

Cherop nudged the male passenger in front of her and signalled him to open the car window. It was a torrid afternoon. The air outside was dry and still. She had sat in the car for twenty minutes and sweat beads had begun forming on her face. She kept adjusting and readjusting her face mask, pulling it forward sometimes as though to create room for air circulation. She let loose her braids that she had secured with a band at the back of her head, pulled out a flimsy scarf from her handbag and fanned herself with it. There were only three of them in the car, waiting for one more passenger to arrive before the van would leave for the SGR terminus located in Mombasa’s Miritini area. And soon, she arrived. A short, plump and fair skinned woman. Visible parts of her face shimmered from foundation. She who wore a long bulky blonde weave that fell on her back.  Cherop could not help wondering how Mombasa women managed to comfortably wear weaves in such hot weather, considering she had more than once contemplated shaving her hair. The woman was not the first she had seen in bulky weaves or wigs.  Once the woman had settled, the driver started the engine and off they rode. Car motion offered some respite in the otherwise suffocating air. Cherop stopped fanning. 

The journey to Miritini was unusually quiet. Usually people from Mombasa, unlike those from Nairobi, were generally considered warm. And it did not matter whether or not one was originally from the Coast because one assimilated into the Coastal way of life within their first few days of stay. In Mombasa, it was not uncommon for strangers to greet each other, to exchange smiles. An air of familiarity always hung among people. But times had changed. A new respiratory virus named Novel Coronavirus had emerged. It was highly infectious, they said. As a result, the ministry of health had been insistent and consistent about measures to curb its spread such as Social Distancing, hand sanitization and less social interactions as had been advised by the World Health Organization. And it was for that reason that on that day, there were only 4 passengers in an eight-capacity van.

Anxiety had numbed Cherop for weeks when the Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of Coronavirus in the country. She had perpetually thought about her hypertensive grandmother in the upcountry whom she deeply adored. Most of the Coronavirus deaths as she had read from the internet were linked to hypertension and diabetes as comorbidities, age notwithstanding. The thought of losing her grandmother drove her nuts. She called her every day and gently admonished her,

“Stay at home batyem.” 

But her grandma’ never seemed to take her seriously. She would just laugh her warnings off and reminded her that she had lived long enough to worry about dying. Cherop envied her grandma’ her peace with her own looming end. Her resignation. Maybe it came with age, she thought. But what she knew for sure was that she was not ready to lose her batyem. They had quite the relationship. They shared quite the bond. Every time she was in the upcountry, it was at her grandma’s that she spent most of her days.

Cherop had booked an afternoon train, which was set to leave at 1515hrs. They arrived at the terminus at 1345hrs just in time to print and confirm their travel tickets. The terminus remarkably smelled of abandonment. There were notably fewer cars at the parking lot and even fewer people on the queue. Water taps and soaps had been stationed at one metre intervals between few metres from the bus park and the first security check point. Cherop walked past to join the queue. A guard who had noticed her motioned her to go back and wash her hands. She instead removed her pocket sanitizer from her handbag, squeezed some on the palm of her left hand and rubbed both hands gently. She preferred her sanitizer to the liquid soaps that always left her hands uncomfortably dry.

“Place your luggage, including your phones on the bar and move one step backwards.” directed a gentleman on the opposite end of the metal bar in a voice she considered condescending. 

She was familiar with the routine. It bored her. But she was not going to complain especially about the dusty bars as she always did. Because there was some semblance of safety in saying less, or nothing at all while outdoors in those covid-19 scarred times. 

They complied .Cherop watched in trepidation as two dogs were led to sniff at their luggage. Satisfied, the security personnel allowed them to pass. An ominous kind of quiet had taken the place of the usually bustling foyer normally filled with people posing for selfies and chatting heartily as they waited for boarding time. It was disorienting.

 She made for the ticket office. Before the pandemic struck, passengers would print the tickets by themselves. But on that day however, the printing was done by the staff.  It was another safety measure.

Cherop collected her ticket, left the office and took the escalator to the waiting bay on the first floor. The floor offered a better view of the magnificent landscape. Nature always carried her away. And especially on that day, it would offer a perfect escape from the feelings of alienation that the pandemic had brought with it. 

She tapped her phone to check the time. It was 1415hrs. A whole hour to the train’s departure time. She took one selfie and deleted it immediately. She thought she looked dull. The acne breakout, thanks to the routine wearing of surgical masks, was yet to clear. Or had left behind ugly black spots. She put away her phone and started marvelling at the landscape.  She had begun to get absorbed into the beauty of nature when her phone vibrated. It was a message from her boyfriend Ray. 

“Sup sugar” read the message.

 “Boarding in 15 mins” she replied. 

It was Ray, her boyfriend of four years, which she was going to see in Nairobi. He had been away in the US for two years on a study scholarship and had arrived in the country only two days before the suspension of inter county travels by the President. Cherop had been sceptical about this safari, especially because it had been only four days since the travel ban had been lifted after three months and numbers from Nairobi weren’t looking good. The Cabinet Secretary for health had as a result advised people to not to be in any hurry to make travel plans. And then there had constantly been in her mind the W.H.O images of the visual representation of the virus and droplets that were supposed bearers of the virus. But Ray had prevailed upon her until she had caved in, albeit half-heartedly.

Cherop did not understand why she had begun feeling removed from her relationship with Ray. Detached, even. Like she was an onlooker. When Ray had received his admission letter to the University of North Carolina and shared the news with her, ecstatic, she had felt a lump on her throat. And throughout his preparation period, she had teetered from feelings of half-happiness to insecurity to everything in between. But she strived to never let it show. She loved him deeply and was hoping he was going to propose to her on her birthday that would be three weeks after his departure. But as fate would have it, it was never to be. She was twenty-five and craving stability.

They had kissed each other goodbye at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport amid tears. And vowed to stay true to each other. Cherop retreated and when she saw the plane that Ray was aboard taxiing on the runway and eventually taking off, she whispered a prayer and left.

They had kept in touch. But as times went by, the messages reduced with Ray complaining of busy schedules and many times fatigue. He had to juggle school and work. The scholarship had specified that it would cover only tuition fees so he had to struggle to make ends meet.

Once he had popped a photo in which he had posed with a lady on his WhasApp stories. 

“Looking good. Who is she?” she had asked.

“A classmate. She’s Ghanaian.?” came the swift reply.

The lady was slightly taller than Ray, slender and dark skinned. She wore neat cornrows. Her eyebrows were visibly thick. She was gorgeous. The girl; the classmate, had endearingly put her hand on Ray’s shoulder.Cherop had felt jealous. She wondered if Ray was sleeping with her. Then felt guilty for thinking of him as a cheat. Incidentally, Ray had uploaded the same picture to his instagram stories and tagged an account. Akosua was the name. She tapped on it as any jealous girlfriend was wont to do. There were only two pictures on her feed. In one she wore a mustard head wrap and had posed with a fairly old man. The picture was captioned in Fante end the caption ended in a red heart emoji. The other one was a magnificent picture of an ocean. That night Cherop could not sleep. She kept turning and tossing on her bed until morning. She had vowed to herself to never view Ray’s Whatsapp stories again.

Cherop was alone in her compartment in the train. That allowed her the luxury of leaning against the train and stretching her legs out towards the aisle.  The bogie on the other side of the aisle had two people instead of the usual six. The coach was quiet. There were no usual updates on how far they had gone. Nobody alerted them and asked them to look out for elephants and take pictures when they were crossing Tsavo National Park. It was eerie. Some passengers had dozed off. Before the pandemic and when everything was normal, there had always been voiceovers updating them on the train stations they were crossing. Or cautioning parents against letting their kids walk on the aisle as the train was moving at a high speed. Before, people held conversations in their compartments. Some too loud that they had to be asked to tone down. Topics ranged from crimes of passion that had been on the rise to stalled government projects. From corruption to the government’s plan to move the port from Mombasa to Nairobi. Its merits and demerits. And there was always the guy who was connected. Whose relative worked in State House. And there were the patronizing ones; the know it all’s. Train safaris were vibrant and pleasant to extroverts. Then the pandemic came calling. Before the pandemic a cough would mean that one probably had a sinus, or was simply clearing their throat. Or yet, an acid reflux. But that day with the changing times, one had to suppress their cough by all means lest people fled.

Her phone lit. It was a message from Ray.

“How far?”

“I can’t tell.” She replied.

Sensing that she had sounded curt, she followed up with another message almost immediately.

“Arrival time remains unchanged”

“Ok. I’m here.”

Ray had promised to pick her up from the Nairobi terminus, situated in Syokimau. 

She was dozing off when she heard some commotion. Two people, donning full personal protective gear paced along the aisle. She could tell that one was a woman from her bulging chest and voluptuous behind. They were quite a terrifying sight. They were rushing to attend to a passenger on the far end of her coach had who had collapsed. It turned out that the passenger was the same woman she had travelled with in the van. She panicked. Few minutes later she saw the woman being wheeled along the aisle into the infirmary. A respirator was fitted over her face. She appeared unresponsive. 

Then the voice over went on;

“Dear passenger, we have arrived at our Nairobi terminus. Kindly be sure to observe social distance as you leave. Thank you for traveling with us. We hope to see you again.”

Cherop stood and reached for her backpack from the luggage rack, wore it on her back and held her handbag firmly in her hand. As she disembarked, slapped with the Nairobi crispy air, she wondered what this city that had been declared covid-19 epicentre, held for her. 

She stopped to think about the woman for a moment. Then she made for the lift.