Mystery

When I was a child I used to think that being a matatu tout/driver would be one of the coolest (and probably best paying) jobs on earth. I thought that the whole rugged clothes thing was but a ploy to keep the rest of us from being pulled into this very glamorous career. So for the better part of my childhood life I studied them I tried to walk like them, talk like them and even be like them. So what got me hooked onto this profession? Communication. I thought you had to be highly trained to be able to communicate by virtue of taps on a door and two second glances. Their mode of communication just looked highly skilled. I mean, how would the driver know exactly when to stop and when to go? How was it that the tout was never left behind and even when he seemingly was he managed to catch up to us (I mean in theory a car should be much faster than one on foot right?)

It got so bad that I began to ask around about the school for makangas (touts) or something and, to my great disappointment, I was told there was none. Hence I edited my theory and decided that the paring for driver and tout was so complex that only the perfect pair could be picked and even after that rigorous training had to be undergone. One tap for go, two for stop, a left sided glance for cops ahead and much more of their secret code I managed to decipher. See, secrets have always fascinated me. I like to unravel the mystery, to entrench myself so deep into the enigma that it falls apart under my superior wit.

Enigma entreats me and due to this I end up being one of the people who don’t fancy

Sometimes the more you try to unravel a situation the deeper you find yourself

Acheim’s Razor. To people like me that doesn’t make sense if the simplest answer is the best one then why is it a problem? How can it be that the answer lies within the question itself? It just can’t be that easy. Or can it? We seem to spend our lives looking for answers to questions that don’t even need to be asked. To questions that make no sense to begin with. Maybe it is time we let go of the mystery and just took life for what it is: Simple.