I look out of the grimy window of the bus.  It is early morning, the sky bruised with purple clouds rushing by as if they were in a hurry to get somewhere else.  I will be sitting on the bus for eight hours, a long enough time to get comfortable with chickens riding in the back and  the young man, my escort from Nairobi, sitting next to me.

A stout middle aged woman in a flowered head scarf sits next to a young man with curly black hair, his arm around the woman.  He is whispering in her ear and I wondered if he is her son.  But the way he looked at her, his eyes half closed, I think I am mistaken and he is her lover.  At least I hope that is true.  His voice murmuring sounds of love.  I feel a stab of loneliness, but couldn’t turn my eyes away.  I don’t know why I was so taken by them but I suspect it was because he was so much younger than she was.  The woman stared at him thoughtfully, a no nonsense look about her as she offers him a banana to eat. I wanted to take their love with me, and indeed it did trail me through my Kenyan journey, glimpses here and there of peoples lives.  That’s what I’ve come for as much as the sights.  Even though I would only be riding on the side lines, viewing people as I do from my seat on the bus, only glimpsing the secret heaviness of their experiences, I hoped it would be enough to understand a bit of the intimacy of lives lived in extreme conditions, without the distractions of television, movies, radio, or even street lights.

I turned back to the window, to the smudge mark where my nose had been pressed and watch as we make our way across a mountainous landscape.  I open the window and stare out, not thinking, just letting the passing images sink into my mind.  I’m surprised at how Chinese Corporations have taken over the construction of  the roads, buildings, dams, and bridges.  I see evidence of other Big Corporations when I look out at the growing corn fields and see signs for Monsanto projects.   I wonder what other big corporations besides Nestle will buy up the water-ways and water rights and then sell bottled water back to the people.

I also wonder at what kind of culture will develop with so much natural resources and wealth in the hands of the Corporate world.  What creative skills have people developed from surviving such wealth in the midst of living in such very poor conditions.  The engine grinds as we make our way up, the road winding and twisting and shimmering in the heat.  We drive past a steady stream of people and as we pass one small village to another, I glimpse collapsing wooden stalls, men pulling carts, bicycles piled high with sticks for cooking or building, women sitting on top of bundles of clothes for sale, pieces of plastic sheltering families and sheep and cows wandering about freely nosing the garbage left on the sides of the streets.

The sky has become overcast, the air thick with the smell of burning wood, a smell I will find everywhere for people here cook over wood fires.  As the bus makes its way slowly along the rocky road, I watch three women walk briskly and purposefully and I wonder what they actually were like, as individuals, the things that made them different from all others.

I listen to the lingering voices floating through the bus, joined with the clucking of the chickens sitting regally in the back seat and feel happy as the bus leans one way and lurches another, very slowly making its way over boulders and muddy ruts.  I thought this would only last a few minutes, but, as it turned out, it lasted our whole long ride.

“I’m sorry for being such a poor traveling companion,”I  say, apologizing to my escort on this long bus trip.  He has left me alone to look out the window or to nod off now and then for the past hour.

“Oh, it’s not poor company,” he grins. “It’s called resting.”
He speaks of wanting a family but worries his children will grow to hate him if he can’t feed them and educate them.
“Do you have a girlfriend?
“Yes.”
“What do you do for fun?”I ask.
“Oh we take nature walks and,” he pauses,”we like to just sit and look at one another.” A shy smile creeps into his lips.
I felt deeply touched by the simplicity of their love.
“How do you like your new President?” I ask.
“New face, same thing,” he said without hesitation, his dark eyes steady on me.  “I’m not political.  Nothing has changed, even after our independence.  Now, I believe I must change myself and how I relate to people and they will change how they relate.”
I fold away in my memory his dark eyes and lovely smile.  I feel a stranger to this new place and far away from the automobiles, jets, the latest technology, the high-speed this and cable that, the you made it you get to be rich life in America, but his words remind me that when Big Corporations control governments, governments are unable to govern, and that feels very familiar.