#Year_2018.
The day I took this selfie will never detach itself from my mind. Well, walking is one of my hobbies. It makes me relinquish stress and gives me time to meditate and think.I feel closer to nature and more at peace when I walk for short distances. My walk stops a little distance from the road, in a river bank or a little deeper into some "forest." Here I watch the water flow downstream, carrying with it leaves and twigs from upstream. It's a very sensual, cooling experience. The chirping of the birds, the fresh air
from the green environment gives me time and space to enjoy nature far from the tugs, fights, car horns, garbage smoke and the shenanigans of the shopping center in which I was born and raised up. That aside.
This day I was taking my usual evening walk along Nyoka-nyoka road that connects Karwinu and Gacharage through the hilly, fertile lands of Murang'a South. Maybe I can give a succinct description of my mother land. Coz it's from it's beauty and it's imperfections that my world views, attitudes and perceptions have been shaped from my early childhood.
This nyoka nyoka road derives it's name from it's snaking orientation through the hilly Murang'a county landscape. It is a newly laid tarmac that has beautiful white lines on it's periphery and a yellow line at it's centre. It has small block like reflectors embedded in the road surface. These reflect beautiful colours at night once car lights hit them. Road rails run all along the road. They are fitted with white and red reflectors too that add to the valor of the road and substitute for its daylight beauty and minimise chances of cars flying over the cliffs at night.
At one time I was hired by SS Mehta & Sons Road Construction Company in it's construction when I just completed my secondary education. I doubt my grandpa would recognize the area would he wake up from his grave. He bade us good bye around eleven years ago (may his soul rest in peace). This road was a mess. It was a mass of potholes, noncompacted rocks that bayed for blood from the toes of the barefooted pedestrians and careless motorists. It was ugly.
To cut the long story short, bulksome rocks had to be blasted with dynamite explosives to create a way for this road. Other places had to be filled with soil to make good gentle curves. Right now the road that could rest for the whole day without a vehicle from the city driving over it is one of the busiest roads in Murang'a county. In fact, the Murang'ese take their farm produce to Thika and Nairobi markets via Nyoka-nyoka. Top national dignitaries use this road to reach out to Wanjiku in the county and in the neighbouring Nyeri county. For bike racers and Safari rally drivers from Nairobi and Kiambu counties, nyoka nyoka their favourite track.
Back to my #tbt, this road gave me an inspiration through an experience that I will never read in any motivational book. That for a transformation from inactivity, ugliness and uselessness to beautifulness, appraisal and usefulness, change is a must and it's inevitable! This process of transformation is painful. You have to blast the attitudes that pull you down like those bulky rocks. You have to fill yourself with good attitudes and beliefs to make your life easy and help avoid unnecessary failures. You have to accept to be dug into so as to make a better version of yourself. Transformation is a painful metamorphosis you have to undergo to be successful.
©️ Gitau Wa Kung'u
No comments:
Post a Comment