Tower of Babel in the city-in-the- sun

This happening of yonder years; when Stagecoach alias Kenya Bus was operating long chassis city service buses on the streets of Nairobi. Very comfortable during off-peak hours, extremely crowded during peak hours. Then conductors had to exercise six-pack muscle maneuvers through the crowded passengers when charging fare.

On this particular occasion, a large number of passengers boarded a Buruburu estate bound bus at Ambassaduer. As the bus departed the conductor started waving passengers to come to where he was in the front area: “Songa mbele, songeni mbele!”

As if on cue, a deep voice boomed from the rear of the bus; “Songa inyime! Songa inyime!”.

Whenever the conductor made his call, the boomer would be heard. It turned out he was agitated the way his chick was tightly squeezed among several male passenger bodies.

Momentarily there was total chaos inside the bus, with passengers obeying both orders; some moving to the front, others moving in the opposite direction.

Until someone realised the problem and over the din of cursing exclaimed loudly: he means “front, front!”

In the boomer’s vernacular: “inyime” means “front”, he was repeating the conductor’s instructions to passengers to move to the front of the bus. However, his plea sounded like the Kiswahili “nyuma”  which means move back.

Everyone burst out laughing. 

This is the beauty of the diversity of the African languages