Hotel Afrique

Where: Shanzu Beach

In a good hotel there is always a cat jumping around on the premises. You often don’t hear them coming. They’ll surprise you by a tail softly embracing your lower leg, and then that look in the eyes, continued by a slow blink of both eyes ending in a pinched mew. It’s very hard then to refuse them a chunk of that juicy steak that you’re just about to enjoy. Also with cats friendship comes at a price. In some places cats grow really fat by using there full set of animal charms.

I am thinking about this when seated in the empty dining hall of The Dolphin Hotel on Shanzu Beach in Mombasa. Some ten crying cats are surrounding me, and there are more coming from all sides. They really grasp my legs, and the brave ones dare to jump next to me, and cuddle my sides with their heads, meanwhile purring and purring. Did you ever notice that purring is not connected to breathing? Whether they are inhaling of exhaling, it continues without the slightest interruption.

Welcome
It’s a very warm welcome in this hotel where there is not a living soul to be seen. In the restaurant the tables and chairs are removed, there are no charming waitresses, nor a chef with a high white hat passing by to greet you, and attending you on the specials of today. It’s amazing how well a big smile rhymes with that funny high hat. Maybe that’s why they wear it. Otherwise I don’t see the logic of it, apart from constraining dandruff which is my view quite rare in Africa.

The elegantly curbed pool is also deserted. Still there is water inside, and it has a deep green color, which means it has not been in use for long time. It starts to rain softly, and the drops are creating wrinkles on the surface. I look around me to the blue hotel buildings. All the windows are shut by wooden doors. The plastic chairs on the balconies are unused. Funny how always in these places you can still hear and feel the activity that used to be here. People talking to each other, children shouting and diving in the pool, people lying on sun beds, slowly leaning over to take their drink from a table. Waitresses who urge you to take another beer, long before the one you’re drinking is finished.

Too bad I just lost my phone in public transport, otherwise I wouldn’t have resisted to take a picture of this frozen emptiness. Think I am surrounded now by fifteen cats, but suddenly some of them flee in that low way of running cats can do. From far I see a guard coming. He is dressed in a green uniform with a nice cap. In his hand he’s holding a wooden club.

Fine
‘How are you, Sir?’ he opens our conversation. Of course I am fine, which is interesting in a country where many people are definitely not fine. Still they will say they’re fine, unless you insist. Then you will get too many stories about how bad things are nowadays. Like often in this life the question is already the answer.

‘Fine,’ I reply to the guard. ‘How do you like my friends?’ He stares too me a bit confused, and the cats do the same to him. They seem to have found my back pack now, which looks to be under heavy attack.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ the guard interrupts the stream of my consciousness. ‘Sorry for that,’ I reply. ‘There is no room for me here?’
‘The hotel is closed, Sir.’
‘Why?’
‘There was violence in Kenya after the presidential elections. Many people died, and the tourists left the country. So the management closed the hotel.’

Calm
As a journalist I did a lot of reporting on the post elections violence, even from Mombasa. Over thousand people died all across Kenya. It’s end of July now, and the country is relatively calm again. The tourists however did not come back by the masses.

‘We saw you coming, Sir, and I wanted to tell you it’s dangerous here.’ The guard tells me the premises are often frequented by thieves how try to steal things from the hotel, even looking for shelter here under the many stairways that connect the buildings.

‘And from the beach nobody can see what happens inside here. They might even attack you.’ The guard is slowly tapping his stick against his left hand palm, and the cats are jumping back.

‘I see,’ and I decide to relieve the guard. The cats are now clawing in my backpack. There are over twenty now. That attention is even too much for a human being. Then it comes to me why all this devotion. This morning I bought a few roasted fishes to have for lunch later. That should be the explanation, and waiving my hands I liberate my back pack. The cats run in every direction. Waiting for their next victim, it seems. I almost feel sorry for them that nobody’s going to throw chunks of juicy steaks, but I cannot surrender my fish. With a long bus drive to Nairobi looming it is rewarding to be selfish.

The guard and me walk to the path which leads back to the beach.

Some days later I do my searching on the Internet on the Dolphin Hotel. It was regularly visited by German tourists I read in many reviews. The rooms were a bit basic, although the air-conditioning and the mosquito nets were okay. The last reviews date back from late December 2007. Wonder which day it closed its doors. The reviews also say that the food in the restaurant was very nice, and that explains this thriving cat colony that was left behind. No Dolphin Hotel anymore for them, or me.