High on herbs, the miraa driver is master of all he sees

By Joseph Maina

The miraa driver wakes up at 3am, shoves a lorry-load of miraa stems into his mouth and leaps out of his Meru bedroom with only one thought in his vegetarian mind: To be at the airport in Nairobi before 3am.

How he ignites the super-turbo-charged miraa vehicle, wears his clothes, whether he brushes his teeth or kisses his wife goodbye is neither here nor there.

Every miraa driver believes it is his sworn duty ‘to maintain the speed, the whole speed and nothing but the speed’.

His pick-up, which he fondly calls ‘mbiikaf’, has been the subject of both intrigue and adoration. Even the Flying Doctors have lately been heard questioning whether air is really the fastest mode of transport.

This driver is the prime, unadulterated definition of the word speed. English dictionaries should rub off the lengthy explanation for this word and instead replace it with a picture of the Kenyan miraa driver.

Camel derbies

The fact that he lives on the wrong side of Mt Kenya is not lost on the traffic policeman. Traffic policemen are trained to stop all cars except the presidential escort, diplomatic vehicles and miraa transport. Any traffic cop who dares raise his hand at an oncoming miraa vehicle — if he can even see it coming in the first place — will be rewarded with a delicious cloud of dust. Keep in mind that the miraa driver is capable of creating dust on a wet tarmac road even five minutes after a heavy downpour.

The miraa driver has been known to amaze every other person who claims to drive a fast vehicle. They laugh at the Safari Rally. They feel that Safari Rally drivers should instead be participating in camel derbies. "As slow as a Safari Rally car," they scoff.

When the miraa driver steps into the pub after a long day’s work, his table is instantly invaded by his numerous adoring fans, chief among them being Air Force jet pilots who forever insist on knowing the miraa driver’s secret. "Tell us the secret, or we will shoot you!" the pilots demand.

Signature fury

The miraa driver shoves a handful of the spice-cum-drug-cum-vegetable into his mouth, takes his time to look at other slow, pathetic, miserable bar folk who are below the miraa food chain and elects to stay mum while chewing furiously. Mtado? Or, more appropriately, ‘Mtando?’ Munch, munch.

You see, when a miraa driver speaks with his signature fury, it is such a rude performance that it would leave even those clerks who take your fingerprints at CID headquarters gaping in awe. Those CID clerks would say in unison, "We have all along been thinking that we are the rudest creatures in Eastern Africa and the Horn region, but we clearly need lessons from this driver guy." If you put a miraa driver in a rocket destined for the moon, chances are high that he will end up on the sun or a star that scientists are yet to discover.

It is rumored that top rocket pilots have also been keenly tracking this driver in the hope of stealing into one or two secrets.

The problem with these rocket pilots is that they have been trying to reach the miraa maestro through email, which he has no time for.

As if he has an email address in the first place! Their emails bounce back screaming Mailer Daemon!

The only person who shares a bond with the miraa driver is Nairobi’s road master, the matatu driver. When the two tarmac celebs meet for a drink, they exchange notes. Nairobi’s matatu driver intimates on the best way to "overlap in the city without giving them a hoot". The miraa superstar boasts about "how to feed countryside highway cops and other road users on dust". This recondite tÍte-‡-tÍte can go on and on, except that the city driver must go home and sleep. Of course, the man from the other side of the big mountain can remain awake for a lifetime, thanks to the never-dwindling supply of greens in his pocket.

X-ray beam

The miraa driver’s brain is divided into various layers. The top layer is the businessman-cum-hustler layer. This is the part that makes him see Nairobi and Meru as being one town: Anything in between the two towns is just a detail that must be ignored completely.

The layer further argues that Miraa is a vegetable rich in vitamins that our neighbouring desert countries are in short supply of. It is therefore only humanitarian of him to make the fresh deliveries ahead of time.

Next is the creepy underworld layer that is feared by everyone from traffic cops to the Air Force pilots. This layer combines with the active ingredients in the herb to create a hoodlum, movie gangster look with bloodshot, wide open eyes that could stare back at an x-ray beam.

Whenever you provoke him, he stares at you in ways that inform you that he is well connected. The miraa driver has many friends in low places that you ‘ndon’t’ want to mess with.

These friends are medical practitioners specialising in skull-smashing, teeth-extraction, eye-piercing and jaw-realignment among many other cosmetic therapies at absolutely no cost.