Tuala and the arrival of the Chinese (II)
2020/10/8 18:29:00 本站

It was always interesting listening to people talk about the coming Chinese visitors. This one time I went to the Grocery store which was next to a liquor store, outside the liquor store was a bunch of guys having some drinks and relaxing. 'You know the Chinese are going to move into this town of ours and build their houses here ?!' one of the guys said, his friend disagreed and said that the Chinese were only here to work. 'Guys, you have to watch your dogs, keep them in your compound make sure they aren't running around.' Another man said. 'Why? 'He was asked. 'You don't know! In China, dog meat is a delicacy.' Everyone broke out in laughter. I was just standing a few meters from them and I couldn't hold my laughter as another guy joined the conversation with his story too. ' I heard they will build a school for karate and all the martial arts things; they have already purchased a piece of land.' Everyone just looked at him skeptically not believing him. After listening in on the conversation I left there with so many stories that were popular all around our small town a lot coming from stereotypes some believable, some just downright stupid. What was for sure was there would be a huge labor force needed and people had already started applying, this was going to be a good thing as Tuala had a lot of idlers people who had one time jobs and idle the rest of their time and end up becoming thieves.


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Around the end of 2017, we started seeing pickup trucks driving around Tuala painted on them were some Chinese characters that we obviously couldn't understand, they were finally here. They mostly came around our estate and walked around looking at houses and making markings in forms of lines of white dust and placed tiny red flags in the ground, I asked my father what exactly they were doing around every day for a whole week just walking around and he told me they were making a plan trying to see where exactly the railway would pass and also whose houses were going to be demolished for the railway. By this time there were already a couple of new houses as compared to when we came to Tuala. There was a rise in population and houses but now a lot of the new houses that had only been there for less than a year were already facing the risk of being demolished and the owners relocated. This situation brought about a lot of problems; this was another case altogether. People always starred when the Chinese came and parked their cars and walked around, kids could even follow them around happily shouting the names Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan hoping that they would get a glimpse of the martial arts the saw in movies. After a month of Chinese frequent visits to our estate, rumors started popping up, these rumors were rumors of which houses were going to be demolished, our house was one of the rumored houses to be demolished, when I heard this news from my dad I wasn't so happy, neither was my mom. 'Now where I was going to move to. ' she worried. We were already so comfortable and at home in Tuala.

 

Of course, the government of Kenya was going to compensate but still, we weren't too happy, if this was two years ago after we just moved there I'd be all for the Chinese demolishing our house but not now I was already home. Finally, a notice from the government was sent out to our estate which was showing the houses and pieces of land that were on the railway path, and indeed our house was amongst the houses. There was a lot of mixed feelings to this news, some were not happy, and some were over the moon, thinking they'd make a fortune off the money they would get from the government compensation. Knowing our government my father was also not so happy as he said the government will probably give less money to people as compared to the actual cost of the land and the house built, and that would not be so good for us.


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A week later though there were new rumors that the railway route was going to change so our house might not be affected, my dad said. And truly a few weeks later we noticed the Chinese back and walking around the estate, they were remarking, the usually put little red flags into the ground with the white dust lines to mark an area. They did this around the estate and other parts of Tuala for around 2 weeks then they disappeared again and a few days later notice from the government was sent out again and the rumors were right the initial plan for the railway path had changed and our house was safe. We were all in relief as other families were now in distress. As the following weeks passed the reality of the railway and the Chinese came to pass we started seeing huge trucks and lorries and tractors moving into the area to a piece of land that seemed to be the main work station for the railway workers which was just close to our house, every day we saw new huge lorries coming into our town and big tractors and a lot of trucks carrying equipment we had never seen, this was now December 2017.


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When January came, it began. the beginning of the making of the railway started with the workers clearing the path where the railway would pass and now houses had to start being demolished. One by one house started taking down, this was something that always attracted people, we would always go to the site and stand a few meters away as we saw someone's house coming down, a huge tractor did this job as a Kenyan sat in the huge car and controlled the machine and hit the walls as if they were made of paper. Bystanders always watched some wishing it was their house because of compensation money, some worried asking if the owner had been paid. 'Some have and some haven't' I heard a bystander saying.

 

The ones who had not been paid are the ones who had not agreed with the Kenyan government that was supposed to compensate. As my dad had informed, it was happening. Other pieces of land that did not have houses built on were easier to pay off and a huge digging tractor came to the site and dug up the area. The problem was some house owners had given the amounts they used to build the houses and the government also had people who would come and do their inspection of the house to gauge how much it would have cost to build and many times the figures were never matching and this brought about the issues. Many house owners blocked the Chinese from demolishing their house but the Chinese building company was patient and understanding and helped the owners settle the disputes with the government. But because of these problems, there was a delay, the Chinese and the local workers wanted to finish building, but house owners had already gotten court orders to stop the demolishing of these houses till an agreement was reached.


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By the end of February Tuala had a new energy in it, first of the population had slightly gone up because of the many workers who had been employed some from neighboring towns. Tuala had become very active as compared to the Tuala we were used to. The roads were always super busy with trucks and lorries and pickups carrying workers and equipment other with rocks that had been dug up and were being transported to another location. There were also uniformed workers almost everywhere, they wore blue uniforms and all had yellow protective headgear, most of them were Tuala residents, many people in Tuala had benefited a lot from the Chinese headed the project, many had gotten jobs. Tuala was so active now and even business was doing better since the town was more alive now.


In the first week of April, we had visitors to our house, it was a Chinese gentleman and two Kenyans, their job was to come into our house and look at the state of our houses before the railway construction happened, the reason was to monitor any damages that would possibly be caused by the construction. I couldn't understand how exactly these damages would happen until they told us, there was going to be the use of heavy explosives soon. I was shocked. Heavy explosives! 'Why would they be using explosives to build a railway?' I asked my father and he explained to me that the Tuala area was such a rocky area and underground was very rocky and digging through rock isn't the easiest thing. So, they had to blast rocks in the ground so that they could dig.


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The first time this happened my father came and told us if we wanted to see the Chinese blasting rocks and of course we wanted to see this. We walked a few minutes to the place where this was going to happen, when we got there we were not the only ones waiting to see this, we found a small crowd already gathered, we were given a limit as to how close we could get which was not too close as the explosives we were told would cause rocks to be thrown around and dust as well. There was always an announcement before the explosive was detonated. The builders would move in the estate with a loudspeaker and announce that they were going to blow up some area, so they evacuated that particular area until the explosion happened obviously to avoid injuries. They even went door to door to houses that were close to this activity and asked the people inside to stay outside just in case something went wrong, and someone’s house collapsed, or an unstable ceiling came down.


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(To be continued.)