I give his shoulder a playful squeeze and note that I haven’t seen him all week. He says quietly that he hasn’t been around; he’d gone back to his up-country home for the week. His mother died after a long, painful battle with “stomach problems,” and he went home to attend the burial. In the span of the next few breaths, he tells me that his father died just four months ago – leaving him, the eldest son, in charge of the care of his three siblings. His face is tremulous, his mild eyes filling with tears.
“I want to cry, but I can’t cry,” he says. “I know I have to be strong. I have to. I have to.”
Already I’d heard about the staff’s misfortunes; one of the guests explained to me that they’re paid Ksh40 – about 65 American cents – for a half-day’s work. The Prince of Peace puts in six 12-hour shifts a week – a terrific burden, even if he didn’t now have a family to look after. Watching him fight back tears under the hostel’s awning, his bony shoulders trembling inside an oversized t-shirt, I feel a cold, hard knot in my stomach. You meet so many desperate souls around this country, people whose lives are a steady string of misfortunes, and you try to make sense of their persistence: how anyone could build a life around such heartbreaks and sorrows. A man in Nairobi once told me that the only thing he knows with certainty is that each new day is a little bit worse than the one before it. There are lots of prayers for better fortunes in a place like Kenya, but this is a place that’s long on faith and short on miracles.
Before I leave I give the Prince of Peace Ksh1,000 – about fifteen bucks: a small fortune under normal circumstances that feels sad and futile today. He thanks me and hugs me and struggles to keep himself from losing it. Upstairs on the terrace, I shed enough tears for the both of us. Then I heave my bags onto my shoulders and trudge through the rain to the jetty, where the ferry is thrumming and full and ready to take us to the mainland.
After six weeks on the coast, I’m ready to make a hasty retreat to Nairobi. It’s a wet, bumpy drive south from Lamu; curtains of rain are draped along the coast, and it’s with relief that I check into my hotel in Malindi, knowing that I won’t be around for long enough to unpack my bags. That night I have dinner with Basilio – the sports agent I’d met all those months ago in Nairobi. Over grilled fish we talk about the difficult year he’s had – a messy divorce; a long legal battle for custody of his kids – and he says with a grateful sigh that he’s finally turned a corner. Things are looking up. We talk about the upcoming elections, and he shares some of his own political designs for the future. He already has an eye toward the elections in 2012, when he hopes to represent his district in Nairobi. There’s too little time to make a serious run in December, but he’s been busily making his rounds – not just in Malindi itself, but in small villages in the bush.
“The other candidates do not go deep into the bush,” he says. “But I want to make sure they know me in all the villages. I want them to know I will help build them schools and new dispensaries.”
In a country where long-term vision always seems to be compromised for the sake of quick-fix solutions and empty promises, his plan sounds like a revelation. Partly because of the personal hardships he’s endured, I suspect, Basilio has deep reservoirs of patience. Things take time – for people, for countries. And as he talks about more ambitious plans for ten or twenty years down the line – to become a minister, to maybe make it as far as the president’s cabinet – I feel a surge of hope that’s unfamiliar after all this time in Kenya. Just this morning, in Lamu, I was desperate about the country’s state. Now I’ve managed, however briefly, to find someone and something worth believing in. It’s a strange, unexpected feeling to grab hold of. And it’s reminded me that most of us can never fully understand what a bold and hopeful thing it can be in a place like this, just to get out of bed and face the new day.
The night in Malindi ends on a high note, but it doesn’t take long for things to take a turn for the oh-shit. It’s not like I have anyone but myself to blame. I’ve lived it up for the past few days, treating Basilio to a nice dinner in Malindi – then treating myself to the same in Mombasa. At Tamarind, in an elegant Moorish building with whitewashed walls and soaring archways, I gorge on red snapper and spicy prawns harissa while the city lights twinkle over Mombasa’s old harbor. Though I’m not the type to bemoan a bit of fine dining, I probably picked the wrong time to splurge on an $80 dinner. With my latest paycheck held up by the inscrutable whims of the banking Fates, I wake up to find 52 cents in my bank account – a development that will send me scurrying for a lifeline these next few days.
In a strange way, the last week in Lamu’s prepared me for the trials ahead. During the long, hungry days of Ramadan – culminating in my day of fasting – I’d discovered just how much my body can endure. Now, with that same asceticism being thrust upon me, I again channel my inner Muslim. Having paid for my hotel in advance, I’m left with Ksh800 – about twelve US bucks – to hold me over until my check clears. For three excruciating days, I get by on samosas – Ksh5 – and greasy potato katlisses – Ksh10 – and five-shilling bags of peanuts. Each morning I check my bank balance; each morning, my stomach grumbles as I realize I’ll have to wait another day. By the time the money’s cleared I’ve shed a few pounds in the sweltering heat, and I throw all thoughts of frugality to the side as I book the first flight to Nairobi, ready for the city’s cool heights and a long-overdue dinner at Annie Oakley’s.
On the morning of my departure the ferry idles by the jetty. It’s a magnificent old dhow with a rumbling engine and a train of barefoot men loading cargo into its belly. Boxes of Sportsman cigarettes and Safari “Fine Quality Kenya Tea”; bags from Fayaz Bakers & Confectioners, Mombasa; cases of biscuits with names – “Hadija Mqee, Shamu” – scrawled across the side. They’ve been piling the boxes in since early morning; now, approaching noon, the captain finally squints his eyes and steps onboard and makes a few gruff little gestures with his hands. Then the passengers pile in: women in hijabs and bui-buis festooned with sequins; young girls with long lashes batting behind black veils; men in colorful, swishing kikoys and embroidered white kufi caps that look like wedding cakes resting on their heads. I wedge myself between a few stacks of boxes and gather my knees close to my chest. A heavy blue tarp is unfurled above us, offering protection from the sun. Then there are a few last calls of encouragement from the jetty, and the boat groans and turns and churns its way out to sea.
It’s a long, slow slog to Paté. I read and scribble a few notes in my notebook and do my best to dodge the duffel bags swinging from a pole by my head. The women are laughing and braiding hair in the front of the boat; in the rear, the men bicker and stare out to sea, now and then scooting to the edge and shifting their kikoys before relieving themselves into the water. For four hours we putter past endless lines of mangroves, stopping at a few ramshackle towns to unload boxes and pick up passengers. Then Faza itself comes into view: a bunch of thatched huts leaning together in the mud, piles of trash and old foam mattresses scattered in the shade of the coconut palms. There’s some commotion on the waterfront as I hitch up my shorts and wade to shore. Wide-eyed kids creep close and reach out to touch my leg hair. A few locals have already materialized, asking if I need a place to stay.
I find a friendly man who, not coincidentally, owns one of the two lodges in town. I explain my plight, and he assures me getting to Kiwayu won’t be a problem. He looks up at the sky and suggests that if I leave now, at half-past three, I can be there and back by midnight – time enough to reach the hotel, chat with the manager, poke around scribbling notes, and ride the tide back to Faza. There’s a brief negotiation with a couple of guys who own a dhow, neither of whom – in an ominous touch – seem to speak a word of English. Unrattled, I agree on a price, then follow the man to his guesthouse, a poured-concrete building surrounded by wild growth on the fringes of town. He shows me to a dank, dusty little room and says I can have it for Ksh300 a night. He says to give a rap on his door when we get back, and even suggests his wife can leave a little bit of dinner on for me. Almost on cue, a man materializes with a bag of calamari, and he’ll pursue me with neither reason nor remorse for the next twenty minutes, still waving his bag as I clamber aboard a dhow and push off from shore.
The wind is listless as we drift from Faza. The locals are still gathered onshore, laughing, smiling quizzically, no doubt assured of their assumption that white people will do the strangest things, often for extravagant fees. For an hour we coast through a wide channel of mangroves; then the ocean itself appears on one side, a broad expanse of sea and sky, a limitlessness that suggests the awesome brush strokes of infinity. The waves have gathered strength, rolling toward us in massive swells, and we pitch and toss atop their choppy crests. I’m beginning to feel sick, more than once grabbing my stomach as we rock precariously from side to side. The guys lay a beam across the prow for balance; one of them scoots far out to its tip, his bare heels dipping into the water, his face sternly fixed on the horizon. Behind me his partner works the rudder, his lanky frame cocooned in a puffy red ski parka, as if he were coasting down the slopes of Chamonix instead of sailing along two degrees from the equator. Now and then there’s a short, tense exchange between them. I look from one face to the other, then back again, then ahead to the thin green strip that augurs Kiwayu on the horizon. It’s slowly begun to dawn on me that they have no fucking clue where we’re going, and that we’re all of us praying that when we reach Kiwayu – an elliptical island that measures a full twelve miles from tip to tip – the way to KSV will be well signposted, like an IHOP on I-95.
After more than two hours at sea, we’re close enough to Kiwayu to make out some figures on shore. There’s a small crescent of beach framed by palm trees, a few thatched huts set back on the sand dune. Two men are watching us curiously as we drift near, giving little indication that a luxury resort is lurking anywhere past the palms. I ask the way to KSV, and one of the men – a slight, light-skinned guy in a loose button-down shirt and white kufi cap – stares grimly up the channel. The Kiwayu Safari Village, it seems, is not – contrary to common sense – located on Kiwayu island, but on the mainland across from it, a few miles from our beachhead. With neither the wind nor the tide in our favor, it would take hours to slowly tack our way there. I blink dumbly at the beach, then at the water, then at the captain who’s trying to sort out the confusion with the man onshore.
“You can perhaps walk instead,” the man, Shahari, offers helpfully. He squints toward the mangroves fringing the coast on the mainland and says, “It is only two hours from here.”
This is the part in the pleasant African tale where the white guy loses his shit. I have a few angry words for the captain, who, I suggest, could’ve sorted out certain minor details before leaving Faza. He tries to place the blame on me instead – he’d gotten me to Kiwayu, after all, even if the Safari Village is nowhere to be found – and a heated exchange ensues. Shahari – translating with remarkable poise, given the circumstances – struggles to keep the peace, no doubt letting certain choice phrases get lost in translation. In the end, about the only thing we can agree on is that if the captain wants to get the full Ksh2,500 fare out of me, he’ll have to pry it from my cold, lifeless hands.
I’m standing knee-deep in the water, trying to weigh what are admittedly limited options. Eager to get back to Faza before nightfall, the captain’s already starting to hoist anchor, and I decide that the only thing that would make this improbable odyssey even more ridiculous would be to head back to Faza with him, only to try again in the morning. I pay him Ksh1,500 and send him on his way. Shahari, soft-spoken and gentle, tries to placate me with reassuring words. It’s only now, with the sun’s golden light flooding the mangroves, that the bigger picture comes into view. If you’re going to get stranded anywhere for the night, after all, there are certainly worse places to do it. And as Shahari shows me to a small open-air banda looking out onto the sunset, I suspect that getting lost isn’t always a bad idea.
So I’ve had to alter my route, turning down narrow alleys and dodging heaps of donkey dung, going ten minutes out of my way just to avoid the bitter pills of rejection I’ll have to dole out like Pez. But in the end, the matter’s settled for me: two young Brits, Adrian and John, who I’ve shared a few laughs with on the terrace at Casuarina, have already negotiated a deal with Captain Alee – one of the friendlier touts I’ve met around town. Sparing myself the haggling and the heartache, I decide to tag along – a move that meets with no small number of hostile stares as I wade out to his dhow on a sunny, mild morning.
Captain Alee is a cheery, grinning guy in green Speedos and a yellow t-shirt with his own name emblazoned across the back. He squats and mans the rudder, tacking us lazily into the wind, criss-crossing the channel while puffing frantically on a pack of L&M’s. The sun is strong; I can already feel it burning my forehead and the back of my neck, and we happily tear off our shirts and sink into the waves when we get to Manda Beach. Afterward we take turns casting fishing lines into the water. I arrange the prawn on my hook with such delicacy, you’d think I was making seafood cocktail. John catches an ugly, pucker-faced thing that Alee eagerly grills up. We eat fish and rice and halves of passion fruit, then rub our stomachs and go for another swim. Nearby a group of guys are unloading bags of cement from a dhow and hauling them to shore, where a new hotel is being built. Their chalky faces look ghostly: grim apparitions with their backs straining and their muscles caked in cement and sweat, wading out into the water.
The Brits have made fast friends with Alee and his crew, and by the time we get back to Lamu, he’s invited us to join them later in the week, when the island’s dhows will be racing in a twice-yearly competition. It’s an odd turn of events, only slightly more improbable than the fact that I was racing camels just two months ago. On race day the crews work busily through the morning, mending sails and chipping at prows and making adjustments to the masts based on some inscrutable calculations. One by one they cast off for Manda Beach, where the crowds are already gathering around the starting line. We hoist the sail and puff out into the channel, the sun scattering brilliant spangles across the water’s surface. Onshore there are shouts and calls from the jetty: dusty, barefoot men unloading cargo boats; young guys in cheap sunglasses and knock-off soccer jerseys hustling for customers to ferry to Shella Beach.
We drift lazily toward a mangrove swamp, and Mohammed – manning the rudder in the red-and-black-striped kit of AC Milan – steers us in the general direction of Manda. We plow into a sandbar, just barely submerged beneath the gray-green waves. Half of the crew jumps overboard to push us free; it’s an inauspicious omen. By the time we’ve cast off again into a stiff breeze, two other dhows have given chase. One of the crews is giving us hell, taunting our guys in Swahili. John and Adrian look unflappable; Captain Alee looks grim; Abdul – a gruff, menacing kid with wild eyes – stares vaguely into the distance, plugging green stems of miraa into his mouth and working his jaws with manic intent.
We coast toward the mangroves and stop to tack; the crew works quickly to switch the sail’s direction, but a pulley breaks free from the top of the mast, whizzing down and plunking one of the kids on the head. He staggers to the side, blinking and wobbling boozily back and forth. There’s a flurry of action around him, as the sail ripples and flaps and the crew rushes to repair the damage. When we’ve righted our course there are some sympathetic words for the wounded, who rubs his head and looks seriously concussed. Then we resume our slow zigzag to Manda Beach, where most of the other crews have already alighted onshore.
There’s a festive air on the beach, with Ramadan just hours away and a local ex-pat – an eccentric old Brit – shelling out for the celebration. He’s sitting in the shade of a coconut palm, his legs propped up on a plush pillow. The soles of his feet are dusted with sand; beside them is a narrow vase filled with plastic flowers. He nods softly and blinks into the sunlight, his pink face like some wrinkled old petal faded with age. He offers us drinks, sending the barman back toward the house. A young Kenyan woman in tight white pants sits close to him, swishing a glass of white wine and cooing into his ear. Her hair is pulled back in merciless plaits – long, thick knots that look like they might be of great use to some salty old mariner. The Brit looks up, as if noticing us for the first time, and mumbles something. I lean closer.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I smile and tip my head in appreciation and say, “I’m doing great. It’s a great day. Thanks for the party.”
He wrinkles his pale-pink face, twisting his lips and shaking his head. Gesturing for me to come closer, he slowly, carefully mouths the words again. “Are. You. Gay.”
I straighten and squint into the sun and take a sip from my gin and tonic. “Um,” I say. John and Adrian look uncomfortably into their drinks, then stare off toward the waves. Kids in tight white briefs splash in the water; little girls in party dresses scamper around while their mothers give chase. The Brit murmurs something over his shoulder, and two muscular men suddenly appear, lift him like a sack of cornmeal, and whisk him off toward the house. I finish my gin and tonic and lick my lips. Turning to John and Adrian, I admit that I have no fucking idea what’s going on here.
We walk along the beach, stopping to play soccer with some locals – bare-chested, nimble-footed guys kicking up clouds of sand. After a few sprints I’m huffing and hunched over, while Adrian and John string together a few neat passes and bodies fly every which way. Some of the guys are quick to show off their skill: corralling the ball with their chests, dribbling with their knees, sending powerful headers that sail into the waves. Afterward we sit in the shade and eat from a great platter of rice. We scoop up tender pieces of meat with our fingers, drinking fresh tamarind juice that tastes like orange Fanta and talking tactics for the race.
Alee calls us over to the boat, and before long the crew has pushed us out to the starting line. There’s a great jockeying of dhows, a flurry of confused instructions about which way the race is actually sailing. Already we’re at a disadvantage, packed into the rear of an unruly group of boats. Most begin to sail off before the signal’s given, and soon we’re all of us barreling forward, the wind at our backs and the water spraying up on either side. Some of the crews are singing and calling out to each other; Alee sternly fixes his eyes on the sails ahead of us, already plotting his strategy.
It’s a strategy that strangely involves hanging back and drifting away from the pack and looking forlornly at the shore, as if he’d rather be sipping some tamarind juice and ogling the girls in the water. We’re struggling to keep pace, and by the time the other dhows have rounded the buoy and begun the second leg, our chances have all but vanished. We reach the buoy and turn back, sailing into the wind; a cargo ship putters by, weighted with great bricks of coral rock and still managing to leave us in the distance. We tack too soon and take a poor line back toward Lamu, already conceding a huge advantage. The other dhows are far ahead, chasing each other in a neat line, like follow the leader. They’ve headed out to open sea, where they’ll loop around another buoy before heading back to Manda for the homestretch. Our sail flaps listlessly; the wind dies and leaves us rocking on a gentle swell. Alee looks at the crew with pluck and indomitable resolve and says flatly:
“I think we will give up.”
He shakes his head and pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket. We steer back toward shore, where a crowd’s gathered to greet the winners. There are some handshakes and words of encouragement for next year, then we pad down the beach toward our effete, pink-faced host, hoping for gin and tonics.
