BORN TAO: Safari Rally on wheelbarrows

Growing up in the 90s as adventurous boys meant each of us thought we could be Safari Rally king Patrick Njiru one day.

We made up our own races to practice for this feat. Only that instead of cars, we had wheelbarrows.

We were a team of eight: Guchu, Chombo, Makaveli and Dush Mwitu. Each team had a driver and a co-driver. The sturdier person automatically became the driver as he needed muscles to push the wheelbarrow which the co-driver sat in.

Nguchu’s team: It comprised of Joni and Caleb, irritating boys who were the pros of mchogoano, and you’d guess their branding comprised of some of the most absurd names, nyayake supuu (cute grandma) , machozi ya mamba (crocodile tears) and utajiju (you will know).

Chombo’s team: Solo and Mbalach, two scary, gothic-inspired boys who had branded their wheelbarrow Dracula with an illustration of a vampire’s canines dripping with blood.

Makaveli’s team: Difre and Kanja borrowed lyrics from Tupac Shakur's Album, Makaveli, to brand their wheelbarrow, Kanja could spit the lyrics and Difre inscribed them using a mark pen I had stolen from the school library.

Dush Mwitu's team: I joined forces up with Shei, and determined to prove to the rest that we were the unbeatable mechanics, we replaced the wheelbarrow wheel with a modified tricycle wheel.

Difre even suggested we form an underground wheelbarrow racing club in the school with a cardinal rule to recruit more members at a non-refundable fee of five shillings. By the end of the week, we had managed to bring twenty people on board paying us one hundred shillings.

Saturday afternoon was marked at the D-day for the eagerly awaited racing event. We had even managed to convince Shakim, the DJ mouthpiece of the school to come and commentate the race at a flat fee of twenty shillings.

The race was taking place one hundred meters along a slope running into a shallow stream. Our wheelbarrow did not attract much attention since we had concentrated more on our tricycle wheel and less on the paint job and branding.

Joshu, the school head boy was the event referee, he had promised to disqualify the team that did not make it to the finishing line. In short he meant that there were no rules! Only one champion team that crossed into the stream of water down the slope.

The race started on the count of three.

The indomitable Dush Mwitu dashed out in flight mode, our tricycle wheel modification was lighter and faster. We dominated the race followed closely by chombo who tried to distract us by making scary owl noises behind our backs.

Makaveli were third in pursuit while the crowd cheered them on clearly defining that they were the audience favorites.  Suddenly, Makaveli charged Chombo from the side making them lose their balance temporarily before overtaking.    

With Nguchu trailing behind Chombo, Joni the co-driver reached out to his pocket and removed a “faiya” (catapult) aimed it at Mbalach, hitting him in his ribs using a marble.

Mbalach screamed in pain and let go of the wheelbarrow that lost balance throwing Solo into a thorny shrub across the road, Chombo were out of the race.

“Chombo wanatumia faiya ku-rig race,” the audience cried out.

Makaveli used a simple but effective trick by swaying side to side before suddenly coming to a sudden stop and abandoning the wheelbarrow in the middle of the path, Chombo team crashed into the stationary wheelbarrow.

We heard them screaming behind us for help

We were still leading with about 15 metres to the stream, when I realised Shei was running short of breath and Makaveli were closing in fast on us.

“Buda usichoke bana, tunamaliza,” I encouraged him.

Twack! Our tricycle wheel gave in breaking the center cog, the wheelbarrow plugged into the earth burying me into a universe of darkness. When I came into my senses, I was bed ridden in hospital with my family members around me.

“How did the race end?” I asked, trying to sit up.

My mother broke into tears. I had posed the wrong question.

Well, wheelbarrow racing was banned in our estate forever and ever.