Power and Powerlessness

This short story is nothing spectacular - just a simple account of how people with very little resources and with no voice or influence are subjected to abuses of power on a daily basis.

I was travelling to North Eastern Kenya a couple of days ago and was using local transport. This involved taking a very old bus on an 8 hour journey, the latter part on unsealed road. The bus was packed with people and merchandise but I have been on worse!

I had made arrangements so that I had my own place to store luggage in the hold. This meant it was only opened when we got to our destination and minimised pilferage.

About halfway through the journey the bus stopped at a little village and we were invited to get off to stretch our legs and get a bite to eat.

I got off the bus. It was a scorching hot day and the bus was very stuffy so it was nice to be able to walk around and 'freshen' up somewhat.

I noticed that the bus driver was negotiating with some more potential passengers before we took off again. These clients would travel '2nd class' which involved sitting on a crate in the passenger aisle. It was illegal but out here in the remote areas it was hard to police.

A woman dressed in ragged clothes was pleading with the driver. She wore the look of somebody who had seen the harsher side of life. in front of her was a couple of heavy boxes which she clearly wanted to put on the bus.

The driver kept shaking his head and waving his hands in the air. They were speaking in Ki-Swahili so I could not understand what they were saying (to my shame - I spent 6 months learning Ki-Swahili once!). I went over to the driver and asked what the problem was.

'This woman has too much luggage. There is not enough space on the bus. I have told her to wait for the bus tomorrow'

I knew this to be untrue. There was always space on the bus. What he was really saying was that the woman could not 'pay' to get the luggage on the bus and so she was not allowed on.

I looked at the woman. Her head had dropped as she seemed resigned to waiting till the following day. She was already beginning to move the boxes back off the road away from the bus. I wondered how many days had she been asked to do this. I wondered what was in her boxes? Probably some food stuffs that she wanted to bring north to sell or to bring home to feed her family. She looked like a person who had worked hard all her life for so little in return.

My heart went out to her.

I was annoyed with the driver. I should not have been. He was probably on an extremely low wage and so this was his was chance to make some more cash to support his own family. However, I felt it was a real abuse of power. Something I have no doubt happens all the time wherever there is poverty.

Poverty really does limit your choices. The poorer you are the less choices you have in life. And the system sustains itself. The lower down the chain you are the harder it is to move upwards and forwards.

I asked the driver to take the woman on the bus. She could use the storage space where my bags were. It would be a tight squeeze but there was space. I refused to give him any money (on the basis that giving him money would justify what he was doing) and explained to him that the womans fare would suffice. In the end he agreed. It was extra money to him and the space issue was resolved.

The woman was told the good news and her beaming smile made my day. She was genuinely surprised when I offered to help with the boxes (as were the Muslim men gathered around the bus - get a grip lads). I helped her carry her boxes to the bus (they were extremely heavy!) and we loaded them into space next to my bags. She was delighted and shook my hand.

She got a crate at the front of the bus and we continued on northwards. I was at the back and since she had no english nothing more passed between us for the rest of the journey.

It turned out that she had to get off a good distance before my own destination. The bus stopped in the middle of an extremely remote area where there were no houses in sight - just loads of wild banana trees and Paupau trees and other tropical plants.

A little pathway went into the heavy growth and quickly disappeared. I watched from inside the bus as the woman got out with the driver and he removed her boxes for her. The last thing I saw was the woman slowly walking into the jungle with her boxes weighing her down either side.

God knows how long she had to walk like that.

A simple example of power and powerlessness.