Uganda Crescent

It would appear that I've been a bike rider for most of my life...well, apart from the big gap between 1972 and 2009. <ahem>

When we lived in Kenya, it was at Kenyatta College. This is a public university located about 12 miles from downtown Nairobi in what was formerly an army barracks - Templar Barracks. For us kids it was great as we had the run of a fairly safe environment bounded, as army barracks tend to be, by a big wire fence. There were two main entrances, but I don't recall either of them ever being closed.

One of the hangovers from it being a barracks was the rifle range. The Kenyan Army had decamped to Kahawa Barracks next door (Kahawa being the Swahili word for coffee - I'm not sure why that was chosen). Periodically they would come back and set targets up and shoot for a while at the range. The range consisted of a large brick wall, with a pile or dirt (murum) piled up against it. They'd set up targets have a shoot, retrieve all the shell cases they could find, and went back. That meant we could scrabble about in the dirt and retrieve the spent bullets. Not that we had any use for them.

I have a map in my mind of campus in my mind and I often wonder how accurate it still is. This picture above was taken opposite our house. Behind me is Uganda Crescent (Chris Costello and his family lived on the first house on the left), and in front of me is Burundi Drive and our first, of two, houses on the campus.

I am sitting on, and this is testing my memory, my Raleigh RSW15. These small wheeled bikes were the bike of choice. The East African Safari Rally was a big deal and I remember it passing along the road past the campus one year. I seem to remember that every time it was on we kids held our own version. The cars participating in the rally were covered in sponsors decals and our version was to take a few weeks copies of the local newspaper and cut out all the adverts with 'sponsors' logos and sellotape them to the frame of our bikes. We'd then bomb about racing each other.

Our second house was up at the "top" end of the campus in what I guess was the officers accommodation in the army time. We lived about three from the end of a row of houses and there was a field, with a bit of a slope down to one of the main gates. Over time a path had been worn away by people taking a short cut up the hill from the main gate to the houses and student digs, and this provided one of our tests of courage.

I can't believe that the hill was very steep, nor the path very long, but I do remember it ended in a small creek which ran along the back our houses. The grass was cut every so often, but the time just before each cut the grass grew quite high - at least head height - which meant you could see no reference points. The "dare" was to start at the top of the path and let your brakes off and not use them until you reached the bottom.

The campus accommodation was split with the smaller houses (NCO's accommodation?) at the bottom end, and bigger (officers ?) at the top. The shops (duka), cinema, teachers offices, swimming pool, sports fields, and lecture rooms were in between the two sets of houses. A 'cordon sanitaire' between officers and lower ranks in the old days.

Also in the middle was a large gymnasium and a huge, for want of a better name, climbing frame. 'Climbing frame' is a word usually associated with children's playgrounds, but this was way bigger than that. Almost the height of the gym, or at least it felt that way at the top. We called it "The Monkey Bars". I remember a friend of mine falling off - not from the top thankfully - and snapping his wrist. His brother gave him a backie home so his parents could ship him off to the hospital. I'm surprised that there weren't more injuries given the size of the frame and the frequency with which it was used by us.

Across the road from the Monkey Bars was a small compound with a garage for repairing vehicles. Next to the workshop was a massive pile - massive to an eight year old - of old chairs. Metal tube chairs with canvas seats. We used to worm our way inside this huge pile of chairs, right to the middle, and then find a way out. Perhaps it wasn't as massive as I remember, but it does make me think what would have happened if the pile settled and we got squished in the middle.

I have plenty of other memories which I'll share with you if there are further quiet days like yesterday. I'll leave you with a picture of me, my sister, and me mum standing on the equator. One step backwards and we're in the southern hemisphere, on step forward and we're in the northern.

Judging by the picture there must have been an earthquake at the time it was taken, but I don't recall that.