Can’t wait for this iconic car race in Africa to return

My fondest childhood memories all have something to do with school holidays for two rather obvious reasons.

One is that, like many kids my age then, there was very little to celebrate about school days, what with authoritarian teachers back in the day who practiced corporal punishment for sport.

The other reason why I could never wait for school vacations is that every school holiday came with its unique package of events, occasions, things to do and games to play.

No prizes for guessing, December holidays was the one that we all eagerly awaited for the most because it was the longest break in the school calendar year.

But more importantly, there were Christmas and New Year festivities sandwiched in between, a time for us kids to gorge ourselves on delicious home-made chapati and chicken that took a whole year of waiting to come by.

Before Christmas there were August holidays, a time we either travelled upcountry or better still engaged in innovative childhood escapades such as bano, duf mpararo and chobo mangoto which in our juvenile minds were perceived to be “masculine”.

Girls our age had their own pastime activities, most popular of which were katii, bladah and kalongo, games which I guess would now appear to be straight out of The Flintstones script to the PlayStation generation that my four-year-old son belongs to.

But without a doubt, April holidays came a close second to December because of two things, Easter holidays – which was like Christmas all over again – and the coming of the world renowned Safari Rally, which at the time was part of the World Rally Championship (WRC).

The Safari Rally was actually widely perceived by competitors and fans alike to be the toughest leg in the WRC events.

I have to confess that while Safari Rally, which coincided with Easter, was such a big hit with the general public, most of my peers were actually never privileged enough to have an up-close view of the speed monsters behind the wheels of their mean machines.

That said, Safari Rally was more than just a rally.

Much like the once popular Nairobi ASK (Agricultural Society of Kenya) Show – which years later was renamed the Nairobi International Trade Fair – the Safari Rally of old was one big occasion that you could never miss.

Even if you missed out on the spectator sections or failed to make it to Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), where the rally traditionally started and finished, the organisers did a great job of ensuring that Safari Rally was always in your face, through live radio commentary on the national broadcaster and detailed daily coverage by the mainstream newspapers.

Whole experience

That largely constituted our whole experience of the Safari Rally as primary school-going kids.

But our Safari Rally experience wasn’t just limited to the bits and pieces of news updates that we casually gleaned from the media. We spiced it up through “active” involvement by organising our own mini-versions of the rally which coincided with the real event.

The fun part of it was that, just like in the real Safari Rally, we had expert “constructors” who specialized in modelling miniature “rally cars” from used cooking fat tins and discarded cloth hangers.

Those are the good memories that Safari Rally’s long-awaited return to the WRC roster, after nearly two decades, will rekindle for me.

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