Hotel Afrique

Where: Mtwapa Island
Double: 12 USD

It’s one of these moments that are so remarkable that you are in fact looking at yourself. Mariam and I are in Mombasa staying at the Comfort Inn on the island Mtwapa. We are here to make a video feature on sex tourism on the beaches. We are now sitting in the Casaurina, a bar near the bridge across Mtwapa Creek. I am seated alone at a table a little bit in the back. My glass of Tusker is smiling at me. Mariam is on the toilet for a while now. Not for a call of nature, but with a specific mission, of which she believes it is the best to do that in the ladies. She is looking for a young prostitute. We would like to meet one to be the host in our video report. Mombasa is a good place to make a report on sex tourism. It’s not the first time I am here, and usually I am a bit shocked by how it actually looks like. It has many varieties, but always comes down to the offering of sexual services in return for financial or other favors. On the table next to me I can witness a common form of it in Mombasa. A grey haired lady in her late fifties is holding a young Kenyan who is in his early twenties. He’s wearing dreadlocks, and yellow sun glasses. The lady is whispering words in the ear of the young man. Her cigarette is pointing to the makuti roof of the bar. The boy smiles from behind his sun glasses. It’s never too dark to be cool it seems.

Money
‘This is Stella,’ says Mariam, and pulls me out my observational state of mind. I have that often when seated alone somewhere. It‘s like another part of my brain takes over. Also in that state I get a lot of ideas. A young lady in a tight black top and nice smile takes the chair in front of me, and Mariam sits down next to me. It‘s almost like a job interview. Stella‘s eyes look joyful and energetic. We offer her a beer. She tells us that she is living from offering her services to the tourists on the beach. From the money she earns she is raising a child. She is willing to participate in our report, and we make an appointment for the next afternoon. We offer her 20 Euros as compensation. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Then I can go home now to sleep.’ We shake hands, and then she is leaving with her beer. To give money to people you report on is a very sensitive matter for me. Being a journalist I principally refuse that, because it‘s not done to buy your interviews. When paying for it you can have somebody saying anything you like. Although after a few years in Africa I did some fine tuning to that principle. The story I used to tell is that my work mobilizes attention for Kenya as a whole, and for the inhabitants in particular, and that after a while money would automatically trickle down in their pockets. In The Netherlands that concept works out quite well, but in a Third World country other rules apply. It’s not sure if my work will be to the benefit of anybody at all. It just depends. In the case of Stella it’s hard to say, and how will she measure it did? What is for sure is that asking her for a report will take some of her time, in which she won’t be able to work. So offering compensation for that should stay well within the boundaries of journalistic ethics. Her child has to eat that day, if we film or not. Mariam and me drink some more beers, and return to the Comfort Inn early. The rooms are basic but adequate. The shower and the toilet are joined in a one small room. Happily the shower is not mounted exactly above the pot (that occurs with an alarming rate) so you don‘t have to squeeze when showering. On the ceiling of the room there is a generous fan, and if you switch it in the lowest gear it keeps sleeping comfortable without catching a cold. There is a mosquitoe net, which carries the usual holes from top until bottom. It‘s amazing by the way how these flying devils are able to find the illegal entrances, and bother you splendidly.

Love
‘Everyday I wake up early to go to the beach to look for a white man.’ It’s the next morning and Mariam and me are on Mombasa‘s Serena Beach with Stella. While wandering across the sand we‘re doing the interview. ‘It’s hard,’ she says, and cautiously avoids the sea weed scattered across the shore. ‘Because we’re many girls here.’ Stella is dressed in tight white trousers, and another black top. She is smiling when she tells about her work. ‘On this beach there are many Germans and Italians. Especially Italians make you work hard.’ Stella is talking openly, and doesn’t look bothered at all. ‚You have to suck their dick, other want only massage. Some of them want to fuck me and my ass, but I don‘t do that.‘ Stella calculates she can make about 30 Euros a day. She‘s telling it in without any emotion. She seems to take it just as a job, and that’s what it is. Mariam is doing the interviews, and somehow I have the feeling Stella is comfortable with that. We continue the walk on the beach.

‘White men, they have the love,’ Stella assures Mariam. ‘And money,’ I interfere there. ‘African men don’t have money,’ Stella continues.’ She is lifting her shoulders a bit, and smiles forgivingly to the camera. ‘What if you have to choose between money or love?’ Mariam asks. Stella is reluctant to answer, but Mariam insists. ‘I think I would choose for the money,’ she admits. It sounds harsh, but understandable. From love only you cannot raise a child. Stella, like many girls and women in Kenya, is a single mother.

The sun is shining nicely on the white sands beach. The Indian ocean waves come and go, and the tourists wander by slowly. Our session with Stella is finished. Mariam and her are swimming now, and I am making general views of the beach and the tourists. It’s nice to see Mariam and Stella enjoying the warm ocean water. They laugh and throw water to each other, like they are tourists themselves. It gives me some thoughts. How bad can a life on the beach be? Tourists are wandering here, silently followed by Kenyans. There are many mixed couples, holding each other’s hands. Yes, it could be serious, that they have a love that lasts longer then the holiday allows. Mariam is finished swimming, and we do some interviews with the people on the beach. ‘I don’t come here for the ladies only,’ says a bald guy from France. ‘But I am not hiding. African girls are beautiful,’ he ads, and peeks briefly to Mariam. ‘The ladies don’t interest me,’ says an older man from Austria. ‘But I like to talk to the people here who are very friendly and welcoming.’ He’s staring at the waves that are coming, and retreating with their hissing voices. The crowns of the coconut trees are beckoning in the never ending breeze, only lapsed by birds that let the sun blink when they pass by. It’s not that time is standing still here. It’s more that it doesn’t matter. That’s maybe how so many people spend ages here. Take the guy from Austria who comes here for seventeen years now, and the seventeen years old boy on the beach who speaks Italian and German fluently. With Mariam we’re meeting a few older beach boys. You see them often with middle-aged and older ladies from outside. They often have dreadlocks and bracelets in red green and gold; the Rasta colors. Don‘t know why, but like Stella they‘re amazingly open.

Drinking
‘Hey, how do you guys survive?‘ Mariam asks, while the camera is running. ‘We come here to sell small things to the tourists,’ one of them tells. ‘But our real interest is to marry a white lady, and move with her to Europe to find a job, and send money to our families here.’ This answer means I will have to film a single white lady on the beach. ‘Yes,’ confirms the other, sitting next to him. He has dreadlocks, and is wearing a Rasta colored cap. ‘Also we do sweet things with the mama Mzee. If you know what I mean. You know, love, love, darling, darling, and afterwards she will give me something.’ The Mama Mzee are the older ladies on the beach. ‘How do you get feelings to sleep with her?’ Mariam asks. ‘You drink,’ the first guys answers immediately. ‘You drink, and when you are super high, you see her as a young lady, and you give her what she needs.’ The other nods. ‘Also me I can do that, because I know where I am going.’ Drinking could work I imagine, but there comes a moment that you wake up sober, and you’re are faced with what you did. Also, how does a woman feel when she knows he needs to drink to get aroused? It makes me sad, and it confronts you with the choices people can make in a state of poverty.

Failing
We go back to Comfort Inn, and I am still thinking. Sleeping for Mariam and me this night is not easy, because there is a reggae evening in the bar next door. The music doesn’t stop, and it is exactly the type of reggae I don’t like. We have the appointment that Stella will come the next morning to collect her compensation. Since the money is finished after a few days, and I take the minibus to the nearest and only ATM from Barclay’s Bank on Mombasa‘s North Coast. Of course the machine that never fails, fails me now, and I am left with no money. There comes the forever question when traveling. How much money do you take on you? The more the better you would say, but in Kenya the crime rate is too high to carry heavy loads of cash. So you have to maintain a kind of balance, and with the ATM failing it ruptured. We called the bank to verify, and they assured that the malfunction was country wide, but that holders of local cards could still draw money. That was not re-assuring, but it gave a funny sight at the bank. Presumingly poor Kenyans still pulling Shillings, and presumingly rich tourists queuing, and hoping that the machine would start functioning. It’s amazing how patient you can be in these situations. In Uganda another day I learned that failing was normal, and you just had to try several times, since connections with foreign banks were unstable. There is some small money left to spend that day, but paying Stella was out of the question. With a bad feeling, and an empty wallet I returned to Comfort Inn. ‘We can borough money from the hotel,’ mentions Mariam. ‘At least today we can eat.’ So we did, and we had to ask Stella to come back the next day for her payment. We offered her a first installment, but she refused. ‘Let me just come back tomorrow,’ she said. Her eyes were not so happy anymore. I guess it happened often before that people don’t give money, and what we asked her to do was just small. That day we stayed mostly in the room in Comfort Inn, and we did with some walks to the forever beach. The 5 Euros we could borrow from the hotel was enough to buy some food. It’s amazing how fast you can loose a relative position of luxury and safety, and suddenly you are struggling just like many do in Kenya.

The next morning I go back to the ATM, which is now functioning. Stella is coming and gets her compensation. It’s like we became friends, and every time Mariam and I come back to Mombasa again, we talk about Stella who we never saw again. The video report we made was received well.

Double: 25$

It’s the kind of hotel where you look at each other like saying: ‘How did you end up here?’ I am in the Royal Hotel in Ndola in Zambia, in the middle of the defuncted copper belt. My wife Mariam stayed in Lusaka to visit her sister. Myself I decide to take a bus trip. Sometimes I like to be alone, just to get my mind straight. It really works like a head cleaner. There are some thoughts and ideas I’m not getting in company. You need the calmess and quietness of being alone. The hotel is in the industrial area of Ndola. The reason I came here was a small article in the Daily Mail of Zambia. One of the few English language newspapers. It said that a school at the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Site in Ndola was opened. Dag Hammarskjöld? Wasn’t he a former secretary-general of the United Nations? In the cyber I did some googling, and yes: he was and I came to understand that the honourable man died in a plane crash in Zambia. Washed away my croissant with the remains of my coffee, and I went off to the bus station. That one is located opposite to the main train station in Lusaka. There they keep a steam engine locomotive of Rhodesian Railways. It sounds fascinating, and after indepence in 1964 the company was renamed into Zambia Railways. So when Dag Hammarskjöld crashed, Zambia was still under British colonial rule and named Northern Rhodesia.

Caterpillars
’Ndola? 40.000 Kwacha,’ says the guy in the shack where they sell bus tickets. That’s eight US for a four to five-hour drive. ‘The bus is there,’ he adds. His hand is pointing at a green bus. The diesel engine is already on, and people are getting in. ‘The bus leaves when it’s full.’ That system is common in African countries I travelled. Wonder why we don’t do that in The Netherlands. You don’t have to wait in a crowded terminal, and you can spend your time seated, doing anything you like. When the bus leaves, the next one comes and this cycle continues the whole day. Off we went to Ndola. The place is situated in the Copper Belt of Zambia, which is about in the middle of the country. The industry made Zambia a thriving country, until the international copper trade collapsed. Now Zambia is under heavy IMF and World Bank support. On the way to Ndola you can see the defunct copper mills. The meaning of the word Ndola is hill, which is easily referring to the copper mines. The bus ride was without any hinderance. Roads are good in Zambia. The only thing that disturbed me, were the dried caterpillars that are a national delicacy in Zambia. When the bus stops for our calls of nature, vendors hold up trays of caterpillars. They’re yellowish and have dark round heads. I know I should try, but please next time. Keeping myself on a diet of roasted peanuts. Mariam once told me that ladies get beards from eating caterpillars.

Copper
Ndola is a quiet provincial town. It’s like that because of the decline in the copper trade, but still it reflects grandeur. Main Street is called Broadway, and along side there are modest skyscrapers. Examining the square concrete shapes I get the feeling they are erected during the socialistic era in Zambia. Looking for a forex I bump into the Copperbelt Museum. The vitrines holding tools and fragments of copper ore are covered with red dust, the light is faint. A group of school children is standing still. Their teacher tells great stories about the past.
Got myself a room in the Royal Hotel, for 15 US a night. Had my dinner in the underground restaurant. It is huge with a flagstone floor and wooden details on the walls. The place was almost deserted. The waiters are in the majority, and they seem used to it. Next to me there was a middle-aged Indian man, talking loudly to a guy holding banana boxes. On another table there was a white fellow with a black lady. Waiting for our orders we were staring at each other, with that look in the eyes, saying: ‘How for God’s sake did you get here?’ I had chicken with cream sauce, and it was delicious. After dinner I spent time in the bar, drinking a Mosi Lager, the best beer Zambia has to offer. On the wall there are trophees of giant kudus. There are some guys wearing overalls with logos on the back. I imagine they are labourers of a copper mill. For the rest there is nothing that remembers of the copper trade. Had a decent night sleep in a small and well equipped room. As in many middle class in Africa there were many many rooms. Just wondered if they would ever be fully booked. Maybe only when some kind of NGO is holding a workshop or a seminar on things like capacity building, sensitisation, community building, you name them, and I meet these functions quite often on the way.

Custodian
‘It’s very far!’ cries the taxi driver next morning. He asked 60,000 Kwacha and we agree on 50,000. The Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Site is ten kilometres away from Ndola. On the map I saw we are close to the border with The Congo, specifically the Kantaga Province. We left Ndola and now we are driving through a densely forrested region. ‘It’s here,’ says the taxi man when he is turning into a dirt road on the right. ‘No you can’t walk it,’ he laughs when I suggest it’s not that far from Ndola. That should keep our agreed price undisturbed. We drive through the forest. Not the place you’d expect for a monument. Strange that forests anywhere in the world look the same. To my estimation we could be in France or even Germany. ‘Take your time,’ says the driver, and it’s if he falls asleep right away. In front of us there is a gate and a sign board reading ‘Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Site’. The trees here have been removed, and in the middle of a flag stone circle there is a stone post holding a copper globe on top. Except a staring gardener there seems to be nobody. He smiles, leaning on his rake, and says: ‘He is there.’ Then he proceeds raking. From a building further down a man in a suit emerges. His shoes are shining bright, and proudly he walks to me. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he says, reaching out a well-manicured hand. ‘My name is Musialike Nasilele and I am the custodian. How can I be at your service?’ His eyes are shining strong and sure. Slowly I introduce myself and that I am interested in this part of history. ‘You are most welcome,’ he says. When I tell him that I would like to take a video, his eyes are blinking. ‘For video you pay a fee of 300 US Dollar.’ The entrance fee is 3 US Dollar. ‘You show me some proof in print,’ I tell the custodian. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Come.’ We are walking to the building where he came from.

Crash
‘Please sit,’ he says, and starts grabbing through a pile of files. ‘There is it,’ he says and gives me a paper that bears the logo of the Zambian Government. ‘I mistaked,’ he says when he shows the rates. ‘It’s 500 Dollar. It’s the first time that someone comes to film.’ His eyes do not look greedy, but at least eager. ‘You have the money?’ I tell him that I didn’t travel all the way to Ndola to pay that huge amount for a bit of filming. ‘You are going to earn money on us. We charge for that. How much can you pay?’ Gently I tell him that there will be no filming at all, some pictures at the most. ‘Let’s go,’ he says. ‘We’ll start the tour.’ We are walking to a hill with a hut on top. ‘This is the spot where the body of honourable Dag Hammarskjöld was retrieved.’ Routineously he tells what happened in the night of 18 September 1961. ‘It begun with the independence of The Congo from Belgium. The leaders of the Katanga Province lobbied for separation because they still had strong ties with big Belgian industrial companies. The region is rich of uranium and copper. The newly formed government refused. Belgium sent in troups to stop the rebels in Katanga, who had their own army of mercenaries. A war was looming and Secretary-general Mr. Hammarskjöld took a personal interest and travelled to The Congo.’ Although I read the whole story on the Internet the custodian manages to grab my full attention. ‘He decided to have a meeting on the 18th of September with the leader of the separatists. He left from Leopoldville and embarked on a course that took him to Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, where the peace talks would be. It was a covert mission and the DC6 had to fly a secret route. We still don’t know what exactly happened, but that night the plane crashed at this site. There are two assumptions. One is that is was pilot error because he had to land with no lights. The other is that the rebels shot the plane to halt the peace talks. We still don’t have the funds to do a full investigation.’ We walk to the centre of the monument. There on a pillar is a copper plaquette with the name of the late Hammarskjöld. On top there is a globe also made from copper. Around the pillar there are stones laid by visitors. Kofi Annan and Joseph Kabila were here in 2001, also Nigeria’s president Obasanjo. ‘The most visitors we have are diplomats.’ I ask him how many tourists come here. ‘Sometimes four a day,’ he says.

European
‘The only survivor of the crash was Sergeant Harold Julian,’ the custodian continues. ‘He reported that Mr. Hammarskjöld was saying ‘Go back go back!’ Also he reported there were sparks in the sky when they tried to land.’ It must have been really something. Flying in the dark with no headlights, searching for an airstrip somewhere in a forest. Who knows what happened inside the plane. Shouting, panicking? Then finally crashing into the trees. On the Internet I read that it took days before the search party found the wreckage. ‘Harold Julian died in a hospital a few days later. We are left with assumptions and there is no money for a full investigation. With the monument we try to keep his remembrance alive.’ Suddenly the question strikes me why the Zambian government seems to pay a lot of attention to this crash site in the forest near the Katanga border. ‘Mr. Hammarskjöld was a white European and he gave his life for African independence. We want to remember him as a great man.’

Receipt
We do an interview at the gate of the memorial site, and then I am finished filming.
‘What about the fee?’ I ask. The custodian waves his hand. ‘I realise the promotional value of what you do. The film you are making will attract visitors. That is worth more than 500 Dollar,’ he answers, and is quiet for a moment. ‘Still you have to make a donation.’ We walk to the museum building, and inside he shows me a carton donation box. ‘That money is not receipted,’ he explains. The money will always be to the benefit of somebody, I think while I put 50,000 Kwacha, the equivalent of 10 US Dollars. ‘When I leave you take it?’ I ask. ‘No,’ the custodian replies. ‘They come every two months to collect. We use it for the upkeep of site.’ It seems a splendid example of government induced corruption. At least the guy is wearing a nice suit.
It was an impressing experience that is still on my mind. The year was 1961 and the United Nations were just in place. The secretary-general did not have many means to enforce solutions. Sanctions were not developed yet; there were no peace keepers. The best thing he could do was dropping by and talk a way out. Imagine Kofi Annan going on secret missions. Still he does go and talk to the leaders and listen to them. In that respect nothing much has changed.
That evening I had a good sleep in the Royal Hotel.