Myra Sherman
Leaving Lamu
I wake up at 4 a.m. It’s December 29th, the day I leave East Africa. I’m at the end of a disappointing exhausting writers’ conference. I expected white sand beaches and superb seafood. I hoped for a tranquil transforming experience.
After five days on Lamu Island I can’t wait to leave. At 2 p.m. I’ll be on a dhow headed for the airport. Ten hours is too long to wait. I want to go now.
I’m exhausted, soaked with sweat and irritable. My $50.00 tomb-like room is unbearable. I feel trapped in its dark close dinginess. Dead insects are stuck in the grayish mosquito-netting enclosing the bed. There’s no closet. The bathroom is narrow and minuscule.
The shower worked when I first arrived, a trickle of cool water against the stone walls. There’s been no water in my room for three days. There’s been no power in my room for three nights. Without electricity the fan doesn’t work. One small window opens in the room.
There is another window in the bathroom but I leave it closed. A local family lives on the roof just outside the window. They cook, do chores and sleep there. They talk excitedly and laugh a lot.
The two adult men look like father and son. They wear white kanzu robes and kofia caps. The three women are swathed in black bui-buis. Only their eyes are visible. The barefoot children wear western shorts and tees. Several donkeys share the living space. They wake up before dawn, braying. Everyone seems happy.
Lamu is a Muslim city. People are religious. One of the many mosques is across the alley from my hotel. The mosque is shabby with crumbling walls. The call to prayer is haunting and beautiful.
My hotel was arranged by the conference. I’m in Old Town, miles away from the air-conditioned expensive resort hotels, surrounded by looming coral-block buildings with peeling paint and narrow muddy alleys. This was a mecca for the slave trade. Now tourism supports the island.
Before we arrived the conference staff told us the island was like going back in time. That during the ’60s and ’70s, it was a hippie refuge. There are still some long-haired weathered men hanging around, especially at Petley’s bar, drinking beer and negotiating with the teenage prostitutes.
Lamu’s streets are winding dirt paths. The intricate and old sewage system drains into them. Donkeys with carts are everywhere. On the shorefront donkeys walk alone and at night sleep unattended in the dirt. There is no escaping the donkeys. Donkey shit is everywhere. So are hovering glistening flies. The smell is nauseating.
My first night at the hotel the donkeys scared me. I had no idea what the sinister, distressing, discordant sounds were. The donkeys’ braying is why I’m awake so early. That and stomach problems. The cramps and diarrhea started after last night’s lobster dinner. It was supposed to be a celebration.
I ate with Ellaraine, a poet from Sunnyvale, who traveled with me from San Francisco.
“To my sister survivor,” she toasted.
“To surviving,” I said.
Then we parted and I left for my inland hotel, carrying a flashlight in the dark, heart pounding as I fearfully navigated narrow alleys, rushing by shadowy robed men hovering in entryways, until I arrived at Janat House, my hotel with the attentive staff and picturesque roof terraces, proudly promoted pool and bar, but horrible room.
I check the time again, 4:30 a.m. I’m facing thirty-six hours of traveling. My stomach’s messed up. I rip aside the mosquito netting and rush to the bathroom. I need Imodium. The toilet doesn’t flush. When I try the sink there’s no water.
I’m having breakfast in the hotel dining room. It’s a lovely open space overlooking a garden. But with no electricity the fans don’t work. At 8 a.m. the air is already oppressively hot and humid.
The staff person assigned to me is inordinately cheery. Habib cleans my room, cooks and serves my breakfast. He’s young and constantly smiles. I tell him I just want tea and toast today.
“No omelet, fruit?” he asks. He reminds me there is gas to cook the eggs with. “Doesn’t matter the power is out,” he says.
“My stomach,” I tell him, shaking my head.
I’m already packed and ready to go. To lighten my luggage I’ve decided to leave things I don’t need behind, to let Habib have them. My gym shoes encrusted with mud and donkey shit, bags of peppered cashews from Nairobi, sunscreen, body lotion and insect spray. I leave my loose Kenyan change on the table.
After breakfast I go to the hotel desk. “I’ll be checking out this morning,” I say.
“But you must wait for the porters,” the receptionist tells me. She wears slinky silky western dresses and has long braided hair. Like all the hotel staff she works twelve hour days. “They’ll be here for you at 2:00pm.” She smiles a lot too.
“I can carry my own bags. Besides, I want to leave earlier. The dhow leaves at 2:30 p.m. I don’t want to miss it.”
“No, it’s been arranged by the people you came with.”
Arguing seems pointless. I leave my bags and tell her I’ll be gone a couple of hours. I head for the shorefront. I’m sweating. My clothes are already wet.
I stop at Bush Gardens Restaurant and take a table by the street. I’m the only customer. There are several men behind the counter but they ignore me. After what seems like too long a wait I go to the counter and ask for service.
I don’t know why I’m being ignored. Does my tension show? Do they think I’m strange, an aging wrinkly woman with a gold nose ring and burgundy hair, wearing a black camisole and yoga pants?
Twenty minutes later I order a banana shake, hoping it will settle my stomach. It takes almost an hour to prepare. I tell myself I have nothing else to do. I’m better off killing time here than at the hotel.
I stare at the Indian Ocean. Now that I’m leaving I can admire the brightly painted red dhows, small children playing in indigo water, the sound of an unseen woman giggling, the pungent smell of cumin and sewage. I try to take it all in, figuring I’ll never come back.
I want to be positive but a lot of this trip has been hard for me. I feel old and tired. I’m not as flexible as I used to be.
When I traveled to Israel in my twenties everything was an adventure. I met a brown-skinned sabra whose family came from Yemen. I didn’t care that he gambled away my money. We slept on the beach in Eilat. We had exciting Dexedrine-fueled sex and guzzled Maccabee beer. Sometimes we smoked hashish or opium. I lived on falafel sandwiches and Turkish coffee. I lost weight and loved being skinny.
When he left I should’ve been devastated but wasn’t. Thirty years ago, with my life ahead of me, it was easy to be flexible. Now I’m more rigid and need control. I don’t have time for misery or mishap.
I don’t notice the waterfront hustler until he’s standing by my side. Uninvited he sits across from me.
“I have a special for you, special for ladies staying at the Lamu Palace,” he announces with a suggestive smile.
The Lamu Palace is one of the fancier waterfront hotels in Old Town. It’s where several people from the conference stayed and for the extra $15.00 per night I was sorry I hadn’t.
“I’m not at the Palace,” I say.
“No problem. You want massage?”
“No.”
“But this is special massage. You understand, just for the ladies?”
“I’m not interested,” I tell him. “And I don’t want company.”
“No problem. Don’t worry,” he says, and saunters off.
He’s young enough to be my grandson. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry but I’m glad this is my final day in Lamu.
When I pay the bill it seems like the waiter is leering at me. I feel myself flush with embarrassment. Then my stomach cramps and I don’t care.
“Where’s the toilet?” I ask. He directs me to the rear of the restaurant, across an open storage room. The toilet is clogged and the floor is wet. I have terrible diarrhea.
I leave the restaurant and head one block inland to the main street, hoping to find a drugstore. After walking up and down the crowded alley, jostled by donkeys and strolling three-abreast men, I find a pharmacy. The clerk takes me to a side room and reaching into a large bin shows me a handful of capsules.
“For your stomach,” she says.
When I ask what they are she shrugs.
“Do you have anything in a sealed package?” I ask.
She takes me to the main part of the store and brings out a local equivalent of Imodium. “This is more expensive,” she says.
I buy the medication but don’t take it. I don’t know what it is. I’m afraid of the side effects. I’m afraid, period.
By the time I return to my hotel it’s noon. Habib is waiting for me with the receptionist. They both seem upset.
“You left your belongings,” the receptionist says. “We need the room.”
I look at Habib. “What’s left is for you. Take what you want and throw out the rest,” I tell him.
He doesn’t thank me. He doesn’t smile. His face is a mask.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say.
I’m embarrassed by my thoughtlessness. The cliché Ugly American, assuming he’d be grateful for my garbage.
“I’ll get the things from my room,” I tell the receptionist.
“Habib will do it,” she says. Her voice is cold.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My voice is shaky.
Their eyebrows lift with mistrust. Their smiles are gone. They disappear behind the receptionist’s counter.
With the conference over, the hotel has emptied out. I wish I’d left the day before, with everyone else. But a few of us had flights scheduled a day later.
With no place to go I head for the pool. A man and woman who arrived last night are the only ones there. They’re in their thirties and wearing full safari gear. Her large silver hoop earrings have turned her skin black. I wonder if she knows. They both look hot and uncomfortable. The pool-waiter brings them a menu and they decide on spaghetti.
I call the waiter over and order a glass of white wine. It takes a while. When I drink it my stomach feels better. I order another. I feel light-headed. I can’t wait to leave.
At 2 p.m. I go to the hotel desk. There’s no one to take my bags. I decide to carry them myself.
“No, the porters are coming for you,” the receptionist says. “No reason for worry.”
I’m too tired to argue.
Ten minutes later two porters arrive. They’re streaming sweat. They take my bags but say we have to wait. The couple by the pool is coming too. They pay for their spaghetti. They go to their room. I’m afraid of missing the boat and. pace anxiously around the courtyard. Finally at 2:20 p.m. they’re ready.
The porters put our bags in a wheelbarrow and we leave. The porters are jogging, telling us to rush. By the time we get to the shorefront and the dock we’re all dripping and breathless.
A crowded dhow is at the floating dock. We rush down a rope ladder to the boat. The porters come too. “For your luggage,” they say.
There is one person from the conference on the boat. I don’t see Ellaraine who’s also leaving today. We speed along the water getting sprayed as the boat tilts from side to side. Finally we arrive at the Lamu airport.
The porters insist on carrying my bags. The dirt road is hot and dusty. When we get to the outside waiting area one porter asks for 500 shillings. When I give it to him he wants another 500 for his friend. I don’t see the couple from my hotel paying but hand over another 500 shillings. It’s only fourteen dollars. I don’t want to argue. I just want to leave.
I finally see Ellaraine arriving. Her fancier hotel had a private boat. I’m the only one from the conference flying Air Kenya. The others are on Safari Link and go to a different area, leaving me alone.
Chattering vacationers surround me. One middle-aged woman is covered with mosquito bites. Others look tanned and relaxed, dressed in expensive resort clothes.
My stomach cramps. I go to the outside toilet. I’m dehydrated but afraid to drink. I have a headache. Probably the wine wasn’t a good idea.
The waiting area has narrow wooden benches and an open thatched roof. I hear people talking about the weather, saying the heat is unusual.
“Thank god for the hotel air-conditioning,” one man says. He has a British accent.
“That’s so,” his friend answers. “Old Town was hard hit. No power to most places, rolling blackouts at best.”
“Why we never stay there,” the first man says.
I didn’t know the weather was abnormally hot. Would I have felt better, knowing? The staff at the hotel, the waiters at the restaurants, the shopkeepers…were they all suffering too? While the resorts used up their power. Didn’t the locals care?
What do the Muslim families think of the tourists who vacation in their city? Do they resent our money and privilege? Flaunting our wealth, buying clothing and trinkets we don’t need. In and out of the main street stores, bargaining over pennies, buying, buying.
Before giving up on shopping I went to Ali’s, the most popular store for clothing. A musty cubicle of bright fabric crowded with western women waiting for the handsome young proprietor. He had curly hair and wore a black Rolling Stones t-shirt with gauzy white pants. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat.
“I make you Swahili dress. Sexy, beautiful,” he told a well-preserved American blond.
She ordered four dresses in sheer gold-threaded fabrics—turquoise and scarlet stripes, purple, emerald and lime. She took a handful of his cards.
“I’ll give them to my friends,” she said.
He shook her hand and smiled. The two older men sitting in the shop nodded. Were they his relatives? Or maybe the real owners, watching the charismatic Ali work his magic.
I bought two shawls I didn’t need. I felt nauseous from the heat. The big toe on my right foot was blistered. As I left I heard Ali and the old men laughing.
My whole time in Lamu I felt sorry for the locals. I pitied their poverty. But maybe I was wrong. Their families are intact, they have religion and tradition. They seem content, even happy. Maybe they felt sorry for me.
Perhaps with time I’ll think about this trip differently. Without the blinders of culture shock, be able to appreciate the place and the people. Maybe return someday, with the confidence of a returning visitor.
But I’m not there yet. I won’t be for awhile. I can’t wait to leave Lamu.
When the plane arrives I want to scream with joy. Instead I get my bags and cross the dirt field to the plane. I can’t wait to be home. I’ve had enough adventure.
About the author:
Myra Sherman was a finalist in the 2006 SLS-Kenya Fiction Contest and the 2006 Moment-Karma Short Fiction Award. An excerpt from her novel in progress, “Mother Mary”, was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Best Start 50 List for June 2009. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and her non-fiction in Ars Medica and JMWW.