Kenya Bus Service and BC Transit. In BC Transit, I know since late 90's, as a bus driver then, subsequently becoming the Safety & Training Officer, Phil Thornton-Joe (almost retiring if he has not.) In Kenya, I knew the makanga's (conductors) who would give me a ride home when I had no bus fare. That happened. Phil, I saw a bus driver on Friday 21, July, 2017, leaving UVIC on #14 at around 4:30 PM or 4:45 PM and he was a spit image of your professionalism. I told him how I appreciated that he said hello to each and every customer and good bye as well. All with your kind of ease. Then I knew, we had made it! Somehow.

On July 5, 2017, involving bus number 9474, route number 30 heading to James Bay around 1:00 PM, on a Wednesday, I saw the fastest exchange of bus driver's shift on Douglas Street near the fence close to BC Transit.  Those gentlemen changed places and hi and in less than a minute, we were moving forward.

There were Matatus in Kenya,

And there were...things...

That is how I grew up. Fighting every day to get into public transport and getting pick pocketed most of the times.  When I left Kenya in 1996, this was the style of catching transport.  Diving in like there is no tomorrow.  Dignity was out the door.  Now imagine you have a toddler tied to your chest, now imagine that you are pregnant.  It was kila mtu na chake.

Then I arrived in Canada.  Like night and day.

When we went back to Kenya in 2011, there seemed to be no overloading the buses and matatus.  There was some sort of order.  I thought I was dreaming.

Desiderata.

I have had you Desiderata since I was in my mid-teens.  Given to me by Reverend Timothy Gathambo - Presbyterian Church of East Africa - PCEA

And then, yesterday and I came home from work, I took a seat on the bus and this guy, (Asian looking - not East Indian, not Native American) would look at me and act like he is going to punch someone (me) or at times he acted like he was suppressing a panic attack.  I moved to the back.  He did not seem bothered by the other black girl opposite me. My seat I left was taken by a young black man.  There was like three black people in the small area.

I knew what might have been happening because a non-black friend of mine fainted in a (University of British Columbia) UBC African Awareness event in the 2000s.  She said the whole experience was overwhelming.

Mungu, nimeona mengi.