The further adventures
of Marty and Gillian the motorcycling giraffes
Story 9 Troy the trucking moose pays a visit from Canada.
Its Sunday morning and Marty and Gillian are having a lie in
as neither of them are working today, they were both enjoying the lie in as
they have been working extra hard recently, with Gillian having to cover extra
shifts at the smoothie bar as Gloria Gillian’s boss and best friend , who has
just given birth to a beautiful baby girl (Martina-Jilly) is on maternity leave
and Peter (Marty’s best friend and boss) keeps leaving Marty and Victor (the trainee
window cleaner) to clean all the windows in Nairobi, so that he could spend more
time with his wife and new baby
daughter.
Suddenly their restful morning was disturbed by some loud
banging on the door
“Someone’s at the door go and see who it is” said Gillian to
Marty
Marty climbed out of bed and grumbled
“Sounds like they are trying to knock the door down banging
that hard”
Marty opened the door to find a very large animal with big
antlers, wearing a large cowboy hat and a checked lumber jack shirt with its
sleeves rolled up to show the creatures large muscles.
“Howdy Marty, you didn’t expect me to be at your door” he
exclaimed.
“Troy? Troy the trucking moose, what are you doing in
Nairobi” spluttered a surprised Marty.
“I had the opportunity for a few days of from work, so I
thought I would jump on a plane and come and visit my good friends in Africa”
replied Troy
“Naam kuwakaribisha kwa Kenya, (Well welcome to Kenya), come
on in and make yourself at home.” Said Marty before shouting to Gillian that
they had a very special visitor, all the way from Canada.
Marty, Gillian and Troy then sat down to large breakfast of
twigs and leafs and had a long chat about what they have been all doing since
they last met (at Marty and Gillian’s wedding)
Troy told them all about Kevin the Kayaking monkey (from
Zambia) coming to visit him in Canada and Marty and Gillian told them about
their good friends Peter and Gloria’s wonderful news.
“Oh that’s lovely I am so pleased for them” stated Troy “I
would like to go and visit them and meet baby Martina-Jilly before I go home”
“Well why don’t we go over to Peter’s house this afternoon”
said Gillian, who never misses the chance to go and see the new baby.
So later that day the three headed over to Peter and
Gloria’s house, Marty on his motorcycle with Troy riding pillion behind him and
Gillian following on behind on her pink motor scooter.
It didn’t take them very long to get through the busy
Nairobi streets and they son arrived at Peter and Gloria’s
They knocked on the door and Peter let them in
“Do you remember Troy form Canada, he was at mine and
Gillian’s wedding”
“Yes” replied Peter “how can you forget a trucking moose,
Jambo Troy kuwakaribisha kwa Kenya, (welcome to Kenya)”
“Well thank you Peter, Mary has been telling me about your
new arrival”
“Yes come in and meet baby Martina-Jilly, she is in the
front room with Gloria”
Gillian was already in front room chatting to Gloria about
the baby and bending over into the crib and tickling Martina-Jilly’s tummy with
her little horns. This made the baby chortle and giggle.
Gloria made some tea and cakes for Peter and herself and
fetched some twigs and leafs for Marty, Gillian and Peter and the friends sat
around all afternoon talking about the baby and the different things Troy could
do and see while he was in Africa
Peter the told Marty that he knows that Marty has had to
work extra hard on the window cleaning round
recently and that he should take
a few days off from work to show Troy
around Nairobi and other places in Keyna.
“Yes” commented Gloria “and the same for you too Gillian, I
can get Moira to do some extra shifts at the smoothies stall”
“Oh asante sana” replied both Marty and Gillian
“
“I will need you to work at Mr
Makushi’s transport yard on Friday afternoon though; there are too many trucks
for just me and Victor to clean”
“I’ll be there” smiled Marty
Marty, Gillian and Tory then gave
little baby Martina-Jilly one last cuddle and set off back to Marty and
Gillian’s house to make plans for where they could take Troy and what they
could show him in the next few days.
The next day Marty and showed
Troy all around their home town of Nairobi, including going for dinner at the
Stanley hotel bar, walking through Uhuru park and shopping in Tom Mboya avenue.
Then from Tuesday to Thursday
they set off for a few days camping in the Masai Mara, where Marty and Gillian
introduced Troy to their family and friends.
Marty’s nice, Georgina, was
delighted that Marty and Gillian had come to visit them and was very excited to
meet Troy the trucking moose and sat quietly for hours listening to Troy’s
exciting tales of his adventures he had had while driving his truck all over
North America.
“Ooh Canada and the USA sounds
like they are very exciting countries, I would love to visit them one day”
squealed Georgina in excitement
“They are great places to have
adventures in” replied Marty who then added rather seriously
“But you know there is no place like home and
Africa is also a wonderful place full of adventures”
Troy also really enjoyed seeing
all the other very exciting African animals, such as elephants, hippos zebra
and wildebeests; he even enjoyed watching (from a safe distant) a pride of very
scary lions.
On Friday morning Marty, Gillian
and Troy said there goodbyes to the other giraffes as they had to get back to
Nairobi in time for Marty to arrive at Mr MaKushi’s transport yard in time to
help Peter and Victor clean all the trucks.
“Kwahari uncle Marty, Kwahari Gillian,
kwahari Troy, kuja nyuma kuona kwangu karibuni (come back to see me soon)”
shouted Georgina
“Yes don’t leave it too long
before your next visit” added Marty’s brother Gary
The rest of the giraffes nodded
in agreement and shouted “kwahari have a safe trip home”
Marty, Gillian and Troy were soon
zooming along the hot dusty roads out of the Masai Mari and heading back
towards Nairobi.
When they arrived at Nairobi,
Gillian told Marty and Troy that she was going to visit Gloria and baby
Martina-Jilly and Troy decided to go with Marty to help out at Mr MaKushi’s
transport yard.
Peter was very pleased to have an
extra person or in this case extra moose to help out and soon Marty, Peter ,
Victor and Troy were hard at work cleaning all Mr Makushi’s trucks inside and
out.
After a while Mr Makushi came out
of his office looking very glum while talking to someone on his mobile (cell)
phone. After he finished the phone call,
Peter asked him if everything is ok.
“Not really, Michael one of my
drives has broken down on an important run, the breakdown service will go and
tow the truck back, but I need to get the cargo delivered and by the time
Michael gets back and changes truck it will be too late as the customer in Arusha will be closed for
the night.”
“Cant you send someone out with
another truck and swap the load over so Michael can continue on his delivery”
“All my other drivers have
finished for the day” replied Mr Makushi shaking his head.
“I am a truck driver” said Troy
“I could take a vehicle out to this Michael help swap the load and get a lift
back with the tow truck”
“That would be very useful, are
you sure you don’t mind”
“It’s no problem or as you would
say hakuna matata” laughed Troy
Marty offered to ride his
motorcycle ahead of Troy to show him the way.
“Yeah anything to get out of
cleaning the trucks” laughed Victor
So Marty set off on his
motorcycle with Troy following behind on his truck, as they moved through the
city streets, Troy enjoyed letting off the trucks loud horn, and smiling to
himself when the people of Nairobi looked in amazement to see a trucking moose.
Soon they left the city and were
one the main Nairobi – Moshi highway, and after a short while they came along
Michael’s broken down truck.
Marty and Troy pulled up beside
the truck but could see no sign of Michael the driver, they thought this was a
little strange as they walked along to the front of the truck and then Marty
looked through the cab widows to see Michael lying across the seats fast asleep
Marty knocked on the cabs windows
and shouted
“Oi kuamka kichwa usingizi! (Oi wake up sleepy head)”
Michael sat up with a shock and
then saw Marty through the window, but h had to rub his eyes to ensure he
wasn’t dreaming when he Troy too next to Marty, Michael ha never seen a moose
before and especially not one dressed in a lumberjack shirt and cowboy hat.
“Oh it’s you Marty and you or
what is your friend?” asked a bemused Michael.
“This Troy the trucking moose all
the way from Canada, and he has driven a spare truck down here for you transfer
you load into , so you can carry on with delivery to Arusha”
So Marty Michael and Troy stared
to swap the load from the broken down truck to the new one, and although there
were a lot of very heavy boxes, with Troy’ help it didn’t take long before they
were finished
“It was very nice to meet you
Troy and thank you for helping me” said Michael as he climbed into the cab of
the new vehicle and set off to Arusha
“Kwahari” Marty and Troy shouted
after him
“Your picking up the Swahili very
well” laughed Marty.
By this time the tow truck
arrived to take the broken down truck back to the yard, but as it was now
getting late Troy decided to go back to Nairobi on the back of Marty’s
motorcycle.
It was too late to go back to the
yard so Marty and Troy went straight back to Marty and Gillian’s little house.
When they arrived they found that Gillian had already arrived home from
visiting Gloira and the new baby, and she had laid out a large dinner of the
best twigs and leafs form the tastiest acacia trees.
They had a lovely dinner and
stayed up long into a night talking about the days adventure.
The next morning it was time for
Troy to catch the aeroplane home to Canada, Marty and Gillian rode their
motorcycles to the airport to see Troy off.
“Well so long partners, thank you
for letting me stay and showing me so much of Africa”
“It’s been great having you, kwaheri
rafiki yangu, na safari salama nyumbani (goodbye my friend, have a save trip
home” replied Marty.
“Well” said Marty to Gillian
“that was an unexpected visit, that turned into another adventure, makes you
wonder what other adventures lie in store for
Marty and Gillian the Motorcycling giraffes
