The Semenya question.

THE SEMENYA QUESTION.
Darkness had crept early upon the Taita land, as it always does in September, insidiously and unannounced, like an army of wingless locusts upon a field of wheat. The thick gloom, radiated from the Vuria hills towering in the distance, spread upon the bushy Taita land turning the usually scenic land into one sprawling continuum of impenetrable darkness. The darkness was often marred by harsh headlight glares of cars hurtling down the winding road as anxious parents rushed home from Voi town. The monstrously pot-holed tarmac road was hardly visible ahead as it snaked its way past the bushy ridges and petered out long way off.
The only sound audible from afar was the whining noise of a straining engine. The Mwanedu bus chugged its way laboriously with the driver cursing every time the gear lever got stuck. The twin headlights bathed the road ahead in a weak glare that was not enough to pick out the numerous potholes bedecking the road. Large stretches of road shimmered wetly with the deluge early that afternoon that had washed away a bridge at Kishushe trading center.
The driver through wasn’t worried about the treacherous road. He had been driving on the same road for eleven years and knew it like the back of his hand. He had seen the road when it was as smooth as the thighs of his barmaid mistress until it had come to its current tattered-blanket look. The money for the repair had gone missing seven years ago and the case was still pending in court. The road was only patched up quickly when a high ranked person for the government was coming. The last time it was repaired was four years ago when the president had gone to open a dispensary and ask for votes. After that, the promised equipment never arrived. People said that the president was angry people hadn’t voted for him in the area.
The passengers very quiet. Most of them were dozing on their seat and only awoke to hand over their fare to the conductor before sinking back into the torpor. All were treated to a series of teeth-rattling jolts as the creaky bus took the worn patches on the road at full speed. Some who were awake pleaded with the driver to slow down but a curt response about being late answered them back.
“Funga mshipi,” the tout snapped. The driver accelerated with a huge grin. The area was very insecure. In the last one month, four lorries had been carjacked. One of the lorry driver’s had tried to wrestle with the thugs and was stabbed on the neck. The thugs had disappeared in the sprawling Shelemba bush with the man’s shoes. The driver was not risking a similar fate by driving slowly.
Along the road, a donkey cart with a farmer perched on top, materialized from the dark as the headlights picked them up. Packed to the high heavens with water barrels, the driver would wait until he was almost upon the cart and then honk deafeningly. The startled donkey would bray and dash into the bush bordering the road with the farmer desperately trying to reign in the panicked beast. The bus would hurtle past in a cloud of smoke and noise, driver and his tout hollering with unshackled glee. Some passengers too joined in the merriment.
Inside the bus was suffocatingly crowded. The air was heavy with a myriad of smells; tangy odor of worn seats, reek of old diesel, sickly-sweet aroma of overripe bananas and cigarette smoke. But chiefly among these smells was the nauseating smell of stale cheap beer, unwashed mouths and sweaty bodies. The driver sat squashed in his seat, desperately clinging to the twitchy steering wheel. His cabin, meant for two passengers had somehow accommodated three.
It was partly his misdoing. Cocky in the confidence that the traffic police manning Kishushe roadblock had dashed for cover during the downpour that afternoon, all dangers of being arrested for flaunting traffic rules were nonexistent. And the darkness was an additional blessing. No cop worth his salt would be caught flagging down buses at this late hour; at least not in this backwater road in the hinterland of Taita. So the driver had called to his conductor not to leave any passenger and though the bus had been filled to capacity when they left Voi town, there was always a room for an extra passenger. And there was.
The results were apparent. Each row meant for three people had double the number. Six touts were crowded by the door, heads slightly tucked in to avoid bumping on the low roof of the car. Corded arms gripped the single rail running on the ceiling from the rear of the bus to front in a desperate effort to keep their balance. An old woman’s voice kept pleading with somebody not to step on her tomatoes. Earlier, there had been dark grumbles about the flaunting of Michuki rules but the grumbles had dwindled out to be replaced by heavy uneasy silence. The road was devoid of traffic and the driver was testing the speed limits of the creaky bus.
The conductor leant over the driver’s cabin and poked at the radio which had earlier developed static. There was more static. He withdrew his hand and a young lady, whose head had been mashed in the tout’s armpit, drew in a long shuddering breath. The driver kept on a running commentary about the day’s work and for every inane anecdote he offered, the touts guffawed uproariously. They were not paying fare so they returned the favor by becoming apt audience and recipients to the driver’s puerile jokes.
It was a bald man next to the driver who brought up the topic. He was flipping through the day’s paper, peering at the photos using the reddish glow of the fuel gauge on the dashboard. His eyes were arrested by a gold and green photo of a figure, arms raised in celebratory gesture. There was a very unfeminine scowl on the figures face. He cleared his throat in readiness to start a conversation.
“This Semenya is a man. It says so here,” he tilted the paper for the driver to see. The driver’s eyes flicked from the road being swallowed under his bus to the newspaper and back to the road.
“Is she the one who won 100metres?” the driver asked, his tongue swirling in his mouth, looking for remnants of miraa juices to swallow.
The bald man chuckled with superior knowledge.
“No. she won 800metres!”
There was a brief silence then, a deep voice floated from somewhere behind.
“She is a man. She neither has a bust nor a bum!”
Heavy meditative silence followed that verdict. A different masculine voice, slightly reedy and breathless came from somewhere.
“How can a woman be a man? It’s a contradiction of terms.”
Then everyone was trying to talk, coming up with a version on how a woman can become a man.
“It’s a curse!” the old woman screeched in a shrewish voice.
Some passengers tittered loudly. Another more hesitant voice ventured that a surgery could be done to change a man into a woman. Enraged uproar of hearty disapproval met this suggestion and the owner went mute.
The old woman’s voice tore through the air again.
“It’s a curse, I tell you!”
The driver found the whole debate irritating. He tried to fine–tune the radio but the static was still on. He gave up, spat on the floor and stepped on the gas pedal. The engine whined in protest.
“It’s all a matter of biology,” a well modulated voice intoned from somewhere. The voice had a note of finality but the conductor asked him to explain further. The voice sounded a trifle irritated maintained it was all biology and nothing else.
A sage who had been following the talk with half an ear leapt a mile ahead.
“If she is a man, then the medal should be given to Chelagat.” He was a fan of sports and knew all the sports’ personality. It was good to awe people with his superior knowledge about sports stars.
“Chelagat? Who is Chelagat?” A score of voices asked in succession of spontaneous unison.
“The Kenyan woman Semenya beat!” the voice declared triumphantly.
The declaration was answered by amused laughter.
“It’s not Chelagat! It is Jenojepskei!” A new modulated voice offered in judicial tones. There was a contemptuous note in it at how ignorant people were. Kenyans! No voice rose to challenge that allegation; indeed, grunts of approval sprouted from all over the dark.
A drunken man, somewhere on the right belched loudly.
“It…it’s pretty silly to spend…belch…spending millions to find out if she is a man or a woman. I can do that service for a hundred shillings only.” This voice was met with scandalized rebukes, curses and clicks of disgust at the prurient undertones contained in it while the touts cooed with lecherous approval. The drunken man sank lower in his seat.
A pastor seated next to the man with the newspaper listened to the debate and felt a pang of sadness at the unfairness of it all. When there was a lapse in the talking, he turned slightly in his seat to address the larger body of passengers in the bus.
“She is a God’s child. We are just sore that we lost the gold medal.”
A voice drawled sneeringly from the dark.
“Pastor, where does your patriotism lie? You sound like an Al Shabab!” there were amused cackles and then silence.
Sounding unperturbed, the pastor‘s detached voice went on.
“My allegiance and loyalty is to God.”
“Amen!” jubilant voices chanted followed by loud laughter. The pastor felt a small prick of sadness prick his conscience. It was unfair to lambast any of God’s creatures no what strange affliction beset them. He looked ahead, through the windscreen, at the road ahead trying to block the sounds coming from behind him.
A female voice, shrill with indignation, took over.
“We deserved that gold medal!”
The old woman’s voice rose higher above the din in a shrill, higher than ever.
“She must have eaten a gizzard of a guinea fowl as a child!” After a second, “I tell you it’s a curse.”
“It’s all biology,” the judicial voice spat.
“We deserved the medal,” the shrill voice snapped.
“Is she really a man?” A voice sneered.
“I just need a minute to prove whether she is a woman or not,” the drunk voice slurred.
“We are all children of God,” the pastor’s voice stated.
“It’s a curse!” the old woman maintained shrilly.
And the overcrowded bus careened dangerously down the potholes-adorned road, in a carjackers prone area, carrying passengers debating about Semenya puzzle.