Sights & Sounds Of Trans Nzoia: Rare Wisdom From Matisi

On your way out of Trans Nzoia county headquaters, Kitale town, towards Endebess at the foot of Mt. Elgon on the Kenya-Uganda border; Matisi town straddles the 'highway' over a stretch of a kilometer thereabouts.

Mmh! While scientists in IVY league universities  propose and counter propose the role of luck in things as varied as your cells turning cancerous to how successful you become in life; the lads in Matisi have reduced down this raging debate to this saying.

Like any other peri-urban center in rural Kenya, sanitation may at times be wanting given our propensity to fail to plan for our populations. Moreover, Matisi, like many urban centers in Trans Nzoia is rather densly populated, as most of the available land is reserved for maize and sugar plantations.My estimates would be something like 4,000 people packed over the stretch, tightly hugging the highway, housed in mud walled structures.

There is that odd two storied complex but the shops are largely of mgongo kwe embwa type. Charcoal trading is a mainstay here. The 2kg gorogoro that goes for 50 bob upwards in most urban centers should set you back  25 bob or so. Pray tell, the charcoal source be Mt. Elgon forest.

So are there also numerous small holder dry maize 'warehouses' handling grain from surrounding farms and neighboring Uganda. It is said Kenyans have leased large tracts of land at the foot of the mountain.

  

Just at the edge of the town, just before you get to the expansive ADC Trans Nzoia farms, you can get yourself some Engokho at reasonable prizes from traders by the roadside. Last time I checked, a mwera went for 350-550 bob, jogoo for 450-650.

Just off the Matisi- Endebess road, by the Matisi-Misanga road is this Kinyozi. Going by the penchant for the proprietor to educate the public with uncanny business names, our guess is that the owners of the shop above could also be running this Kinyozi next to he shop. 

Demographically, Matisi is representative of the cosmopolitan Trans Nzoia county. Far removed from the reality around Kenya, there is only one entertainment spot. It's housed in the urban center's only storied building.

Strange as it might be, Trans Nzoia is not particularly known for its entertainment spots. Save for the members only politician frequented Kitale Club, for many years a night out in Kitale town meant crowding up in  the towns only night spot 5 Gb club.