Ukunda-Ramisi Road, Mombasa suburbs, Kenyan coast. Last
time I was on these shores was a year ago this month: same beautiful
half-stormy humidity, same high seas. This week, our family stayed at the
tourist beaches in the south. Even though nothing beats Old
Town/ downtown, I was glad not to walk the same roads and alleyways as before,
glad not to revisit old loves and losses.
Mombasa City in July twenty-twelve is restless, roving, people suspicious of everyone else around. Hard to explain, but the people is palpably more riled-up than last summer -- I could feel it in every conversation and in the airwaves, against my skin. The air is charged right now, electric and large.
When I was a kid, the beaches were swarming with tourists from the wild west -- Italy, Germany, England, Canada. Resorts and lodges were maxed out, restaurants always at capacity. Siku hizi, the white sands of Diani are mostly empty. We passed one old resort on the beach that was completely shut down and crumbling and hollowed out by sea-winds – a three-hotel operation called Alliance that we stayed at once when I was like ten. Now it’s a Colobus Kingdom: monkeys climbing water-worn stone pillars and bannisters, unafraid of humans. Vines and moss swallowing the pool-tables and staircases. A wooden zebra statue in the bottom of the pool. Every pane of glass is still intact and the hotel’s old tide-tables are still framed on the wall. It’s a weird, desolate ghost-site: smelling of salt, full of wind.
All of Diani feels like a slim shadow of its older days, so much quieter and humming with poltergeist sea sounds. Dad has this hypothesis that the government overtaxed beachside business-owners until they couldn’t keep going – killed a major revenue-source by demanding too big a cut of the profits. Less spectulatively, tourism took a nosedive after the 08 elections and hasn’t recovered yet. Plus, there's been major and protracted fallout from the bombings earlier this summer in Garissa and parts of Mombasa. The US embassy is still issuing travel warnings, and Harvard just sent me an email saying Kenya is on their “red-flag country list."
Mombasa City in July twenty-twelve is restless, roving, people suspicious of everyone else around. Hard to explain, but the people is palpably more riled-up than last summer -- I could feel it in every conversation and in the airwaves, against my skin. The air is charged right now, electric and large.
When I was a kid, the beaches were swarming with tourists from the wild west -- Italy, Germany, England, Canada. Resorts and lodges were maxed out, restaurants always at capacity. Siku hizi, the white sands of Diani are mostly empty. We passed one old resort on the beach that was completely shut down and crumbling and hollowed out by sea-winds – a three-hotel operation called Alliance that we stayed at once when I was like ten. Now it’s a Colobus Kingdom: monkeys climbing water-worn stone pillars and bannisters, unafraid of humans. Vines and moss swallowing the pool-tables and staircases. A wooden zebra statue in the bottom of the pool. Every pane of glass is still intact and the hotel’s old tide-tables are still framed on the wall. It’s a weird, desolate ghost-site: smelling of salt, full of wind.
All of Diani feels like a slim shadow of its older days, so much quieter and humming with poltergeist sea sounds. Dad has this hypothesis that the government overtaxed beachside business-owners until they couldn’t keep going – killed a major revenue-source by demanding too big a cut of the profits. Less spectulatively, tourism took a nosedive after the 08 elections and hasn’t recovered yet. Plus, there's been major and protracted fallout from the bombings earlier this summer in Garissa and parts of Mombasa. The US embassy is still issuing travel warnings, and Harvard just sent me an email saying Kenya is on their “red-flag country list."
Speaking of Kenyan elections and our luminary leaders, here's a rhymed
update on the latest Raila/Miguna gossip (incited by Miguna's Peeling
Back the Mask):
presidents and PMs be grievin society
Mista Odinga be achievin notoriety
he's tellin Miguna to just leave quietly
expire in July like a bag a Chex-Mix
don't mind how you exit
long as you expedite, Fed-Ex it
cause his voting body's shrinkin like it's anorexic
the only way to get more power is to flex it
deflectin these rumors like a Plexiglas shield
Kazi Kwa Vijana, he feelin it
Triton gasoline, he dealin with it
corn a the country, ain't stealin it
Raila is affirmin the "freedom of expression"
cause his next big scandal is the General Elections
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