Where did the waters run to?

Where did the waters run to?

I was expecting that knock on the door for over thirty minutes on this Thursday.  I was not surprised when the knock came at about 10.30am.

“Nikekuja kuten-neza rumu,” the lady said after I had opened the outer metallic door.  The inner wooden door had been open since morning, so were the two windows in the one-room residence.  Full ventilation is the only way to survive the coast, though the temperatures are not that bad for the first time in a long time.  The windows have nonetheless remained open from the day I stepped into the room on Tuesday.  They stay open even in the night.  I felt cold for the first time yesterday and I almost woke up at night to close them up, but I did not.

I was seated by a small square table just next to the door, when this knock came.  Behind me was a window on one of the walls running along the bed.  To my right was the door.  To my left was the bed, then the TV just next to the headboard.  Straight ahead was the kitchen sink with a fridge standing next to it.  Beyond the wall of the kitchen sink was the washroom.

The lady made two steps into the house and stopped just next to where my small table was.  I had not resumed my seat, but instead had decided to stand next to the TV, now facing the door.

“Sawa, nipe dakika tano hivi, niondoke,” I responded.

The lady remained standing, a crumbled bedsheet at hand.  I was not sure if this was the replacement she was bringing along, or if this was among the sheets she was removing from rooms.  I had already been informed that the room would be cleaned every other day.  Having arrived on a Tuesday, I knew that Thursday would be the cleaning day.  The lady was however not going away for the ‘dakika tano’.  Maybe cleaning time was surely a strict cleaning time with no bargain and no negotiation.  It is good that I had already put on my Tshirt and trousers since morning.  I just pulled my shoes from next to the TV cabinet and put them on.  I wondered what would have happened if I had to do a full dressing, with madam standing on that door.

I would be out of the room in a flash.

“Niende na kifunguo, au nikuachie?”

“Nenda tu nayo.  Nitawacha mlango wazi,” she responded as I left the corner room and started my walk towards the front of the block, then out of the compound.

I had intended to take a walk to Naivas Bamburi, then decide whether to try out a walk towards Bamburi Cement, Mitamboni.  If I made it there, then I would be going to the public beach.  There was no fixed plan for the morning, apart from getting to Naivas first.  When I got out of the compound and in my absent mindedness, I took a right turn on the T-junction just next to my residence.  I knew that Naivas should have been about a four minutes’ walk, but this was not to be.  I soon realized that the road did not look familiar at all.  I had walked for over five minutes and there was no Naivas yet.  If anything, the road was getting narrower as if heading towards homesteads.  It did not take long to know that I was lost.  How could I have missed my route to the simplest of places?

I decided to make a U-turn after about ten minutes of walking.  I would not have minded getting lost on any other day, but not today.  I was not in the mood to walk about aimlessly.  I wanted to decide on whether I am making it to the beach or not, that was the day’s agenda and that is what I would have to pursue.  I walked back to my starting point in another ten minutes and continued straight ahead past the junction next to my residence.  The very T-junction where I had turned right instead of left.

I was at Naivas in less than ten minutes and went straight ahead to the T-junction next to that superstore.  I knew that I had to turn right onto that Old Malindi road and keep walking to a road bend.  From that bend I would have to make another right turn and keep going until I get tired, give up or get to the factory.  That is what I did.  I was soon at the junction where Bamburi matatus do their U-turn.  I kept going and could have given up my walk had it not been the seeing of the unmistakable Bamburi cement factory just ahead with its massive structures.

I walked along past the ‘Mitamboni’ and got to the main New Malindi road.  This road is familiar as it goes to Mtwapa.  It runs next to the ocean and hence has many hotels lined up along it.  I have been to several of these hotels in the course of business.  I could even see Milele Beach hotel with Milele church standing next to it as I approached that main road.  Matatus were beckoning passengers on that junction, with Haller park running the length of the road just next to the Bamburi factory.

I turned left and did not even walk for five minutes before I saw the entry to the public beach.  However, something had changed.  It was cleaner than usual with very few people walking thereabout.  I saw a few traders with their wares laid out.  The road was immaculate with hardly anyone walking on it.  The traders were neatly sitting off the road on either banks.

“This is not the public beach!,” I self-talked as I kept walking towards where the waters should be.  I had reduced my pace since the ‘reception’ so far had been strange.

I got to the end of the road and saw a sign pointing to my left reading ‘Pirates’.  There was a barricading tape just ahead of the road that I was using.  The tape was running the full length of the approach, for about four hundred metres of blockage.  I would soon be hitting that tape and either cutting it through to go over or I would have to come to a stop.  I decided to come to a stop.  The road had reached the end.  

Usually there would be no tape, and I would just be crossing over the open grounds to access the big pool that I could even see some four hundred metres ahead.  The vast waters were also not very visible since I could see a boundary of ironsheets lined up along the beach and blocking large parts of the coastal waters.  The presence of policemen sitting next to those sheets was the clincher – the beach had been closed!

Who comes to Mombasa and does not go to the beach?  Why even come to Mombasa is you cannot step into the waters?  What a disappointment.  I made an excuse like answering the phone and made my U-turn.

“Sh! Sh! Shhhh!,” I heard a chant on my back.

I pretended not to hear and kept walking back, phone on ear, talking to no one.

“Heyi, Bwana we!  Ni itie huyo jamaa!  Sh! Sh! Shhhhh!,” I heard once more.

And coast people before the social being that they are, soon someone next to me on the road would be tagging me and asking me to look back since I was being called.

I forced myself to look back just in time to see some guy in shorts coming to my direction.  He looked like a trader or an idler of sorts.  I stopped and waited for him.  My phone was still on my ear, talking to no one.

“Wauza simu au kamera.  Tumekuona ukiwa nazo tu, na unatembea.  Twaweza kukupa mnunuzi.”

“La hasha, siuzi chochote,” I responded and turned back to resume my walk towards Malindi road.

I was not myself after that disappointment of not accessing the beach for the first time in forever.  It must be this corona thing.  The very virus causing this COVID19 disease that had now affected* 207,148,607 caused 4,362,027 deaths worldwide.  Kenyan numbers were now at 218,713 infections and 4,302 deaths.

*Source: worldometers website

I walked through the motions of tracing my four kilometre walk back to my residence.  The matatus from New Malindi roads asked me to get in to be taken to Kiembeni as they headed to the Old road past Mitamboni, but I refused.  I was burning the calories of disappointment on this one.  Soon I would observe that the Old Malindi road remained as narrow as expected, with shop entrances being literally on the road edges.  Occasionally a matatu would make a stop in the middle of the road, where else?, and cause a traffic jam as vehicles behind the stopped matatus would honk on for long.

But that is not all, I even saw some trader sweep her stuff straight into the road and did not seem to give any damn about this.  I could not fail to notice some interesting names along my way as I headed back.  There is this building labelled ‘House of mzinga – shots bar’.  I was just shaking my head before I saw the ‘Sipper reloaded’ bar… and all these were touching the road.  I would at some point get to ‘Stage ya paka’.  Now, this stage?  And the way a cat has many lives?  Life could have not been complete before seeing how graffiti was already cropping up on walls and surfaces with 2022 campaign slogans, with calls for people to vote for someone as the MP for Nyali or MCA of Kiembeni.

I thereafter spent a relaxed Thursday and just prepared my data items in readiness for a meeting with the data person on Friday.  The free internet was quite unstable on this Thursday causing me lots of downtime, but things happen.  My computer kept going off forcing those long power presses for it to revive, but life continues.  The Friday was uneventful, apart from getting to town in a matatu that was arrested just as we reached town.  The charge… having no seat belts.  Who puts on seat belts in the city in a public vehicle?

WWB, the Coach, Mombasa, Kenya, August 14, 2021