Safara becomes a music manager out in the open spaces of the Tsavo

When life has forced you into becoming a real hustler in Kenya, you become a Jack of all trades and pretend to be a master of all of them. So, when Noni Mbuguas sent one Angel ‘Ota’ Madoa from the United Kingdom my way, saying I was a music manager, I wasn’t about to come clean and say I knew not much (honestly, very little) about the music business.

Madoa was shooting a music video somewhere in the Tsavo, and I and her music director Michelle Nzula were to catch the SGR train down to Mtito Andei. From there, we were to be picked up from the train station, and transported into the heart of the Tsavo where the music video shoot was to take place.

Come last Friday, and Michelle was at my place with an Uber at half past six AM. As I struggled to squeeze my clothes into my bag, she impatiently burst in, yelling: “We’ll be left by the train, Mike, and have no way of getting into the Tsavo without a driver. Let’s go, bro.”

Seeing my dilemma with my baggage, she emptied her rucksack contents all over my living room floor and shouted: “Put the rest of your darn clothes in there. Move!” I noticed her voice range went from soft to deep when she was excited.

Lord, I thought. Are all music directors always directing other peeps’ lives like this?

After a dash to the SGR Terminus off Old Mombasa Road, with Michelle yelling at the driver to put the “pedal to the metal,” we made it – with an entire hour to spare. Just after we had all put our bags on that line where they do the dog run, a German Shepherd, all noble and calm before, went crazy over my bag.

“Whose bag is this?” one of the cops asked, as I looked up to see Michelle walking quickly away into the actual train station. “It’s mine,” I said, heart pumping and bumping against my ribcage.

Turns out there were a few sticks of bhang (cannabis sativa) in the bag. Briefly, I considered throwing Michelle Nzula under the proverbial bus. But I had a gig to do, and a train to catch, so once a Kipkorir took me aside, I said: “How much?” “Wewe leo unalala ndani,” he declared.

“Sir,” I said, “those are three sticks and I don’t even smoke stundu, I swear. I got the bag to pack my stuff from someone else. And I’m going on honeymoon …”

“10 thousand!” Kipkorir snapped. In the end, we settled on a quick five thao, and as I left, he said: “Happy honeymoon, Bwana Safara. Lakini ata hio ndoa itavunjika!”

“What tha hell, Michelle,” I swore at the music director, once I had joined her in First Class. “Your bag had weed, and almost got me into some serious hot soup.” “Let me buy you a Cider,” she said apologetically. And the five hours flew by at the train bar coach.

At Mtito Andei, we were picked up in those open cars, with tent-tops, by a friendly driver called Moha – and driven fifty miles through bush, scrub, hill, and skies – catching sight of ostriches, giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, and even a cute little dik-dik, which Michelle promptly christened “Kindik-dik.”

“It is of their Kith (iki) and Kin(diki),” I joked, sending Michelle into a gale of giggles. By the time we got to the Severin Tsavo, where the shoot was to be done and where we were staying, we were starving.

A nice chap called Stephen Rollins checked us in, and a kijana called Mzee showed us where to eat our elaborate four-course meal, in a restaurant out in the bush.

Then Moses drove us to the swimming pool and spa, out in the wild, where the music video shoot was taking place, at a very low volume so as not to disturb the animals on the instructions of our German host, Sebastian, some cool dude.

“Hi, I am Madoa,” a slightly above average height young lady, with a stunning presence, a friendly smile, a firm handshake, a white blouse tied at the navel, high heels, and outrageously short shorts said. “And you are my local Kenyan manager.”

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