Diani - Adham's Blog

Kenya 2022 | Day 10: back to Nairobi ❤️ 🇰🇪

I headed to my last breakfast in this hotel. There I observed the other guests: two Italian families with adults and a few mixed couples. This is a frequent scene in Diani, mostly older white people 👴🏻 coupled with younger black ones 👩🏿 . Somehow, when I see a single white man somewhere in the city, I think that he might be a fugitive. In general, Diani is a good place to disappear if you are internationally wanted by the Interpol.

I checked out and headed to the supermarket 🛒 to get come aloe vera to heal my burnt 🔥 skin. Unfortunately, there is no cream for the wounds of the heart 💔. Maybe only cream brûlée 😂😂😂.

Since the coffee in the hotel was the usual bad (horse piss 🐎 as my brother says, or aqua sporca as Andrea says), I decided to go for a decent cappuccino ☕️. However, Café Apero apologized to me because they had no electricity ⚡️ at the moment. I don’t remember having experienced this before, but I was also not surprised.

The zebra is eating fire and the lion is surprised

I took a small plane from Ukunda airport to Nairobi. This might be the second-smallest airport 🛫 I have been to, after that in one of the Galápagos Islands 🇪🇨 🏝️. We landed gracefully in the smaller Airport in Nairobi. I spontaneously visited some offices to inquire about some new adventure I am planning. Then headed to “Nairoby street kitchen” which I chose just because of the name! When I entered, I was welcomed by a modern and smart-looking young lady that explained the concept. It was a big hanger with many well-designed stalls, trucks, or vibe-full cafés. I was somehow euphoric by the modern design and the creativity. I love to see this in Africa 🌍 . There were also paintings displayed there for sale by local artists 🎨 . I wished I were a bit richer at that moment. I went to some stall and ordered tasty chicken wings 🐔 , as well as cassava roots (called Mhogo). I also found a huge bar on the rooftop with a big screen 🎦.

The African cup of nations ⚽ started two days ago. I have squeezed a couple of games in my not-at-all busy schedule, but today Egypt 🇪🇬 plays against Nigeria 🇳🇬 . I thought it would be cool to watch it with some Egyptians, so I tried to call the embassy in Nairobi. However, all the phone ☎️ numbers were out of service! This also didn’t surprise me! I decided to watch it in the rooftop bar. In that game, Egypt lost and I was sad/grumpy. The team’s performance was miserable. Maybe it is better I didn’t watch in a group after all.

P.S.: using emojis in this post was inspired by Cäcilia. I will probably not do it again 😀

Kenya 2022 | Days 8 and 9: Burnt in Diani

I read the above words on the beach in the morning and decided to go for a beach walk. It was after breakfast around 10 am. Since I didn’t find sun cream, I have bought a hydrating cream from the supermarket. I creamed my skin and thought: there are two possibilities; one is that this cream will protect my skin if it prevents the sun rays. The other possibility, it might contain some oil that will absorb more heat and make my skin worse. My bet was the first theory.
During the walk, I was approached by numerous locals who want to sell me “anything”. Coconuts, souvenirs, safaris, water sports. “aaaahh.. brotherrr from another motherrrr, where are you frrrrom?” I enjoyed the small talk and the jokes. Some of them talked only till they found out that I am not a good client. One guy just rotated around his axis and walked away in the middle of the conversation. Bakari, though, said he would walk with me and just chat anyway. He told me he gets to know tourists and makes friendships with the regular ones. He is told me about his devout friend Rashid, a Moroccan in France who sells drugs and Heroin there and comes twice a year for holidays in Diani. I found that entertaining. He told me how he cares about sending his children to Madrasa, a school for learning religion. At some point, under the mighty African sun, I started to feel the burrrn. He also noticed it and said “brother, you need aloe vera”. He ran in one direction and brought aloe vera leaves and cut them open where a moist gel was inside. I wiped my skin with it. I realized that my theory about the hydrating cream was wrong and that I am starting to cook like a properly marinated and seasoned chicken, well or a lion, hehe. I commissioned Bakari to make me a bottle of aloe vera while I get some money to support him and his family. He got many leaves and sat on the beach extracting the aloe vera into an old miserable-looking bottle. I found it a pleasant coincidence to see the spiky aloe vera leaves, from which we were extracting medicine. Just like the quote above. We agreed, he would take me on a tour of his village and I would like to check the local mosque in the village.

Around 3 pm, we walked to the village for around 15 minutes. I think this has accounted for more of my cooking time, which I realized later in the evening. We walked through some fields until the humble houses started to appear. This reminded me of the Kibera, the slums, except that the houses were dispersed and seemed to be spacey. No electricity or water infrastructure, though. The families there, which were mainly the women and the children, were lying on the ground outside getting their siestas. Some houses were made of metal and some were made of mud. The mosque was built out of concrete and had some water infrastructure, which was not working because the pump needs electricity, and they don’t have electricity in the village! I asked Bakari to take me back to the beach. He wanted to take me to his house, but I have seen enough. Already now, every time I meet someone here, I wonder if they live in slums. I wanted to go back to my luxury and to aloe vera.

A photo of aloe vera (from the internet)

For the evening, I joined Keisha and Hasani for dinner and a bit of music. However, the party was kind of ruined since we got the news that one member of the previous party a few days ago tested COVID-positive. Shit! I went back to the hotel. There, there was a game room with table tennis and billiards. I found a girl who works there, playing against some smart-looking African young guys. I came to know that they were from Rwanda. It was a pleasant time before I retreat to the bed.

The next day I was mostly indoors. I kind of wanted to isolate myself in case of COVID, I wanted to avoid the sun, and I was doing some remote working for my research. I now understand the feeling of home-office, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you can also be doing it on the beach somewhere else in the world.

Diani was some little paradise and I loved my time here. But now I was saturated with the sun, the ocean, and the sand. I decided it is time to leave the coast side and booked a flight for tomorrow to Nairobi.

Kenya 2022 | Days 6 and 7: Diani’s Animals and Meeting Theo

My trip to Diani, a little beach town on the southern coast of Kenya, was a one-hour Matatu ride. This ride was studded with observations that are followed by a usual question: why? Why is this cow here? Why is this guy collecting dirty draining water in a bucket? I saw so many wonders that I don’t know how to document here. Seeing Africa or India or countries with some significant amount of Chaos is something that can’t be replaced by stories.

I headed to the backpacker’s lodge called “Stilts”, which is located in the forest. As soon as I entered, I started seeing black-and-white colobus monkeys everywhere. They looked elegant and were around the whole place. I have initially booked a tent (see photo below) as a new experience for me. I have camped in my youth several times in the desert. Camping in a forest is novel to me. Jenny at the reception welcomed me and in the process asked me if I was “sure about the tent”? They also have tree houses. They showed me both options. While I was making the tour, I heard snakes. “Bakari, are these snakes?”, “yes, but they are the green ones, they are not dangerous”. Given the circumstances, I opted for a treehouse. Back to the reception where Jenny said “you don’t look like a tent person”. This is true. Not in a forest where all these animals can play tag with me. Well, I also discovered later, that the green snake is called the “eastern green mamba” and has a rapid-acting venom.

I would have slept there (Photo from booking.com)
but I slept here (Photo from booking.com)
because I was afraid of this guy (photo: wikipedia)
Colobus Monkey in the forest (photo from internet)
I took this photo

I spent the afternoon at the beach, mainly reading and interacting with the locals. I got twice the same comment that they were happy I was talking to them like a friend since many white guys completely ignore them. To be honest, I also understand the white guys. If you are asked 10 times in 100 meters if you want to buy coconut or souvenirs, you would also not be nice all the time. However, I spent around one-hour bargaining with Frank on the price of a coconut. Frank knew I wouldn’t buy it, I knew I wouldn’t. But I got the feeling that people here appreciate good fun.

At 7 pm daily, the Stilts backpackers feed bushbabies (Galago). What are these? They are some weird nocturnal animals, that have super-cute big eyes. They come every day at 7 pm for their usual meal, which are some bananas offered by the hostel and its guests. This was one of the cutest things I saw in a few years. However, we came to know that they pee on their hands. I am happy I didn’t touch them!

The night continued with me getting in touch with Hasani and Keisha, which I met in Nairobi. They told me about some beach party in the Soul Breeze Resort. I arrived earlier than them and was approached by Luciana, I think she was a prostitute. She asked to sit with me, gave me a couple of compliments and asked where I was staying. I said, “in a treehouse”. Do you want to show it to me later? I said “no”. After she was leading the conversation like a green mamba, I interrupted her stating that I was uncomfortable with this conversation and that she had to leave my table. I was soon rescued by Hasani and Keisha.

There we had dinner and bounced on the tunes of Afrobeats and came to meet more and more friends. After the party, we moved to another hostel for an extended party, where Hasani and I were literally the last men standing at 3:30 am. I think Afrobeats is included in my DNA.

During this night, I had the pleasure to encounter Theo, a Kenyan psychiatry resident on holiday, showing Diani to his visiting Nephew. Once Theo knew about me being a neurologist, we had a looooong conversation about the human brain and what makes us human. This was Theo’s specific question, actually. This very interesting conversation extended to free will, consciousness, and divinity. As Theo says: “choose a delusion and stick to it”. Theo told me about the difficulties of the healthcare system in Kenya. There are in total around 4000 doctors in the country, which is 1 doctor per 10,000 people! Just for comparison, Switzerland has 40 doctors per 10,000 people. We exchanged contacts, and hopefully, we will meet again in Nairobi before I leave Kenya.

The next day I left the Stilts backpackers to a 5-stars resort :D, I know I combine contradictions in my traveling as I do in life in general. But for me, everything makes sense. I spent Saturday as another beach day. Probably the highlight was playing a beach football game with some local tribesmen mixed with a few tourists. We agreed to meet again tomorrow.

Kenya 2022 | Day 5: Mombasa’s Beach and its Queen

When I landed in Mombasa, I was warmly welcomed by many taxi drivers offering to take me to the hotel. I flashed the Uber price in their faces, 1000 shillings. They wanted 1800. Just before I ordered the Uber, one guy named Nickolas accepted 1000. He wanted to call it a night after this ride. The first part of the 18 km drive was silent. For some reason, unknown even to me, I asked Nickolas what was the most important thing in life! He immediately said: “relationship to God”. He elaborated by telling a story about that rich, famous, and proud politician who used to brag all the time until he got cancer and was whining with regret in his last moments. I tipped Nickolas generously, and he smiled a unique smile that was not about the money, but rather “destiny, again”. His smile put me in a good mood for the evening.

Bahari Beach Hotel is a kind of a beach-front resort. I slept bad and woke up around 7 am to have breakfast facing the ocean and the palm trees that decorated the view. What made palm trees a sign of relaxation and holidays? It is conditioning. Where I grew up, in the Arabian desert, we had a lot of palm trees and no water. I think I started having this connection when I moved to Europe.

I spent the day completely inside the hotel. I always thought that such an activity would be boring for me, well it wasn’t at all. I started with 2 hours working out in the gym, then I went to relax on the swimming pool reading and playing online chess. At some point came to me a tall, strong lady and offered a massage for a good price. She had such power in her elbows that dissolved some knots in my back muscles. Feeling completely tired but hopeful for a better mobility, I went back to the pool side.

Some minutes later, Bella the DJ approached me and asked if I want to play ping pong. Her job was to mobilise the lazy guests, hehe. I challenged her and told her to drink two glasses of water as a reservoir for all the tears that she will shed after losing. We played a couple of games as well as billiards. Bella gave up. Then there was the dinner buffet and a dance-show by some Masai tribe. Here is a 30 seconds video that won’t add much to your life but shows the ambiance with Bella.

The resort had a few customers, the majority are German couples. Some are younger with children. Most of the time I chatted with the waiters and the hotel staff. I love the people here. The vast majority are friendly and happy people. This might be one of the friendliest destinations in all my travels. You know, there is the friendliness of the customer-support guy that is bound by your transaction. Friendliness here seems different and more sincere. I observed the people in the street while riding the taxi. The ratio of people smiling or laughing is far higher than any place I have been to in Europe. This made me question many things. Well, I like living in Europe, but people here don’t seem to mind the hard conditions very much. I have been to Tanzania and had similar impressions, but not to this extent. I am eager to visit other African countries to know more.

The next day I checked out after another lovely breakfast. I took an Uber to Mombasa downtown to stop in a supermarket and get some sun cream. This might have been the first time in my life to buy one. It was not.. since they didn’t have it. I asked a lady working there, and it took her a couple of seconds to process what that was. Still they didn’t have it. I thought, well I will just buy any creams. What did humans do before sun creams?

Mombasa was a busy city that shows a clear presence of the Muslims. It is Friday. Through my passing by, I heard multiple sellers reciting Quran while waiting on their goods. Even one blind guy was reading a Braille version of the Quran loudly. I think maybe he was a beggar. What also caught my attention was the many beautiful graffities about COVID. Later I googled this to discover that this was supported by the government. I post a couple here and leave you with a link that shows the rest of the graffities..

https://lifeinmombasa.com/mombasa-streets-arts-001-covid-19-awareness-edition/

I took a Matatu to Diani beach, which is now becoming one of my favorites.