Hotel Afrique

Where: at the beach, halfway between Malindi and Watamu
Single: 60 USD, full board

‘Bon Giorno!’ A waiter is calling me in Italian from far. We’re in coastal Kenya here, and the guy is clearly from genuine African kin. He’s even waiving his hand as a conclusion of his foreign tongued joviality. ‘Nzuri,’ I want to reply, but I can retract it just in time. That would be fine in the Kenyan language Kiswahili, but that’s not Italian.

Just arrived late evening in the Jacaranda Resort in Watamu. The town on the coast is known for its many tourists from Italy. Don’t know why, but they say there are many, even in nearby Malindi. That must have a historic reason of which I am not aware at the moment.

The manager of the resort, an Italian in his late fifties, is smiling very benevolently to me, and so does his wife. The waiter even serves me a fresh mango punch while I’ m being checked in. ‘Welcome,’ says the owner, adding ‘Good evening,’ and then explaining he only knows twenty words of English, and ten words of Kiswahili. That’s not too bad by the way. Think ordering a beer or a coffee should be possible on that vocabulary, and then you can survive a long time.

African

Am writing by the way during a very slow upload of a video file in the Serena Hotel in Nairobi. So you can see that a slow life style indeed can lead to inspiration. Not that I like that, but now it keeps me moving.

‘Here you are, Sir,’ says the waiter at the counter who most probably concluded that speaking Italian to me would not be fruitful. He’s handing out the room receipt.

‘Basta?’ says another waiter, looking at my empty glass.

‘Let’s go,’ say two other waiters who already secured my luggage on their shoulders. ‘Room 42,’ the one confirms with a big smile.

‘See you at the dinner. We‘re serving from eight until ten,’ says the manager, with something I believe was an eager smile. ‘Tonight we have real African dishes.‘

We’re walking on white sandy paths along big white cottages with reed roofs. Some windows are lit behind the curtains. It’s always nice to arrive somewhere when it’s dark. It gives you that wonderful surprise the next morning of where you are. It’s the best when you’re camping out with a tent, and are forced to pitch it in the dark. Can remember that once with a friend on a camp site we woke up on the middle of the way leading to the toilets, even blocking the entrance. It was the noise of complaining people that woke us up.

Wiser

‘Here you are, Sir,’ these so nice guys tell me, and hand me over the big key. They are gone so fast I can’t reach for tip. The room is the type that alights when you put your key in a slot. Usually they’re easy to find, even in the dark. It’s a matter of not closing the door too fast. When inserting it I can hear the air conditioning coming alive. Used to hate these things, until I discovered the newer models are not so bad. You just have to know that the ideal temperature to put it on is between 23 and 24 degrees. That’s all, no waking up anymore because of the cold, or getting a cold, because of you thinking that 19 degrees is still too hot to sleep in. Happily in some respects we grow wiser when getting older.

Let me have the shower. Inside there are many sign boards in Italian, and from the pictures I can deduct that it’s about being friendly to the environment, meaning not using too many towels, and to shower briefly. With that in my mind I step in. I don’t even have to bother because the water beam is so thin it’s almost impossible to use a lot. It’s one of the things you have the check when entering a room, but here there was no alternative anyway. Also there is no dustbin in the bathroom, which is something you need. Don’t ask me for what now, but I know I will need it later. Yes, there it is. I need it for the package of the soap provided by the hotel.

Refreshed by the shower I walk outside to find the restaurant. This resort is huge, and there are signs pointing to a restaurant. So I decide to follow the path down to where I believe the ocean should be. The waves are calling me from deep.

After a while I hear music that sounds like a French chansonnier, but during my descent it slowly changes into Italian.

Masai
The restaurant is on the beach, and maybe because of bad weather the latches are closed. From inside I can hear the Italian songs, and chatting of many people. On the patio there is a demonstration of Masai dance, together with selling Masai artifacts. I know the people who buy will end up carrying them as hand luggage in the cabin of the plane. It’s funny to see this tall wooden giraffes packed in plastic wraps, and tied with sisal rope, but still the ears will protrude. Think only Kenya Airways allow it as cabin luggage. The Pride of Africa cannot refuse the pride of Africa.

‘Hello,’ I hear a bright voice. A smiling lady is gesturing to a plate of welcome juices and bites. I am not amazed to discover slices of pizza with green pepper. They’re great, and I decided to skip the juice, and to head directly for my beer. That Hello by the way could either have been Italian or English. So I find myself back on a comfortable zebra patterned sofa. Enjoying my Kenyan beer I hear the people admiring the artifacts. The Masais dancers have stopped jumping, and mingle with the crowd. Judging from what the people are speaking they’re all Italian. It‘s amazing to find a community of one nationality in a holiday resort on the Kenyan coast. Also every sign board I saw so far was in Italian. My memory does not easily swallow foreign words, so I already forgot. Except one line from many years ago. It was in the train my friends and me used to take for holidays. At the windows it would say ‘E pericoloso sporghesi,’ meaning ‘It’s dangerous to lean out’. It’s nice how small things from today invoke these memories from the past. It gives a feeling of background, which proves very important from time to time. No wisdom with any memories.

Beer
The crowd in the patio is getting thinner. The people are moving to the restaurant, and so do I. Inside all the tables are already taken. I really have to look around for a place to sit down, and I find it right at the entrance. The good thing about it is that I am very near the beer keg. The first thing I do is serve myself a glass. Don’t like to eat without having some drink in advance. Taking slow sips I look around. The restaurant is built in its own big hut, and has a circular shape. The reed roof is supported by a wooden pillar in the middle. That’s the place where one of the rotations of the buffet is displayed. There I find the salads, and all types of cakes which are soaked in sweet syrups. Not my cup of tea, and staring to the right wall I see two guys wearing high hats. Creating my way there in between the people eating, I discover they serve spaghetti with margarita sauce and parmesani cheese. It’s a long time I had that in Africa, and the guys are preparing it on the spot. With a full plate I return to my table, feeling I was just rewarded a trophy. The spaghetti was very good, had the right taste and bite, and the sauce was soft and not too salty. Only Italians can make it like that, wonderful.

After another beer I decided it was time to check the African dishes that were promised by the owner, on the far side of the opposing wall. There they have dishes that resemble Swahili kitchen, but are far from it. So there is pilau, fish and beef stew, spinach and cabbage. Nothing wrong with it, no way, but it is what I am eating almost every day traveling through East Africa. So let me just decline this opportunity.

Training

‘Spaghetti!’, the owner cries out when he sees me eating a second plate. ‘The African food is there!’ So I explain why.

“Yes, yes,’ he says. ‘We trained them three months in Italy to make the best spaghetti.’

Now, that’s something. Home made spaghetti from Italy on the Kenyan beach. Even though there was African food tonight, it tells something how far you can go in recreating home in a holiday resort. The music, the language, the sign boards, the food. It’s little Italy on the Indian Ocean. Only the view is different from home. It’s like changing the programme on your television, but eating the same pringles with it.

Went sleeping soon after the spaghetti, because I had to get up early to do editing on the room. Then early morning it occurred to me that my plugs didn’t fit the sockets. The British three pole plugs seemed absent, but small two way sockets were fitted on several places. That could only be the Italian type, imagine. Happily I noticed that the bed lamps were connected with normal plugs. That’s odd. Why only the lights? This was the second Italian encounter, after having had another kind surprise at the bar. ‘One coffee, please,’ I asked the waiter earlier this morning, of course he served me an espresso. They are small, but go very nicely with the view and the breeze on the beach. Also yesterday’s beers were banging inside my head. These things happen on the way. It’s a long time ago I had disturbing feelings with solitary drinking. Some times I am tired of these compulsory chats in hotel bars, with always very interesting people you’ll never see again, even when you exchanged cards. It just depends on my moods.

Arrival

The editing went well, although I was limited in my movements. Since the only fitting socket was near the small bed table, I had to put the laptop there. So it was not that luxurious as a real desk, but it didn’t bother me too much. The editing got finished in a few hours, and then it was time to head back to Nairobi to go to the Serena Hotel to do the uploading. After having checked out I called a taxi. Waiting at the reception I witnessed the arrival of a new group of visitors. The owner with his huge smile is directing some boy to start drumming and singing, and then a bus enters the compound. Italians with tired eyes from flying alight. They’re luggage is taken out of their hands, and they’re being served a drink. ‘Benvenuto, benvenuto,’ say the owner and his servants to the ones listening. It’s amazing. The group most probably came with a direct chartered flight from Italy, and after a transfer they enter another Italy. It almost makes me wonder why you would leave home, but I understand knowing the white sands beaches and the green blue ocean. Also it’s a lot cheaper.

The taxi comes, and we take the long path through the forest from Jacaranda to the main road. It’s normal that when you pass by as a white guy that the children will jump up, and start greeting you. ‘Ciao, ciao, ciao! That’s what they say here, and ‘Caramela, caramela!’ Meaning sweets translates the taxi driver. We’re on the way back to Kenya. Ciao!

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.

‘What would you like for breakfast, sir?’ The eyes of the lady at the reception are peeking seriously behind the bars of the counter. It is ten in the evening, and my stomach is full from the beef stew, or rather the few Tuskers I enjoyed with it in Trendz Bar.
‘How can I think of eating when I just have eaten?’ I gently ask her. She lifts her shoulders a bit.
‘It’s okay,’ she says and wants to take back the form she just handed out.
‘Okay,’ I said, and started to make a choice for the next morning. Toast, fried eggs for me. Boiled eggs for my beautiful wife Mariam. So I was ticking the options, and returned the paper. The lady studied my choices.
‘Would you like sausages to it?’ she adds with big eyes.
That night we slept well, ensured of a copious breakfast in Mid-View Central Hotel, Nairobi. The hotel is located in a huge white building on Latema Road in city centre. The street is notorious for its many thieves, and most obviously: the matatus. These are the Nissan mini buses that carry passengers all over town, and even Kenya.

Westlands
This day I have been working from the room, and through the window came their continuous hooting, accompanied by conductors shouting kumi, kumi, kumi! Meaning ten Shillings for the ride. At my windows the matatu to Westlands – Kangemi, mbau, mbau, mbau! seems to be based. That means twenty Shilling. Think that these two words must be the most commonly used in Kiswahili. Imagine all these conductors shouting them every minute and every second of the day all over the country. If you write that on a single line, it could easily span from Cape Town to Cairo.

Kanjo
Though the goings on Latema Road are dictated by the hour of the day. Early in the morning the matatus start off, and they will be gradually be overtaken by the hawkers, selling anything ranging between oranges, tissues, sweets, and mobile phone accessories. They have their own way of shouting something like Bei mia, bei mia, bei mia or Bei hamsini, bei hamsini, bei hamsini. The first sentence meaning ‘for hundred’, the latter ‘for fifty’. The hawkers on Latema Road regularly get chased by the city council police, because since a while hawking in city centre is only allowed in certain areas. So from time to time you see the hawkers packing their stuff, and run of like they are chased by wildebeests. That’s when the kanjos are near, the Kikuyu word for city council police. Kanjo is colloquial for Council. These guys are tough; they arrest and beat the hawkers. If you suffer from a perverted humor, you shout Kanjo on Latema Road. Surely you will see the hawkers jumping in all directions.

Noize
The next phase in the cycle of Latema Road is Trendz Bar, near the crossing with good old River Road. The music starts around six, and the volumes easily overrules the matatus and the touts. It’s great to sit here with a beer, over viewing the Mid-View Central Hotel, and to see the sun downing. That’s just what I am going to do now. It’s also a save place to drink. The volume of the music is so loud that you can sustain it for one and half our at the most. Then to bed next to my beautiful wife Mariam, waiting for Trendz to silence, until the early morning matatus give you your wake up call.

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.