Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

I met Safari our first day at the beach in Diani. After attempting to sit in the sun for all of about 10 minutes I headed to the shade where it was mostly bearable. I was sitting reading a book when he came up and sat beside me. We chatted for a little bit, I don’t really remember what about and then excused myself to go lie down in the sand. Later that afternoon he came over and introduced himself to Jacob and I to let us know that he was a tour guide for the area. We told him we weren’t interested but he didn’t really seem to care and just kept talking.

Since we were coming to the same spot everyday we ended up seeing quite a bit of him. Eventually Jacob and Safari became friends, they’d talk each day and slowly we learned more about his life. He has one son, Brian, who lives with his mother in the next city over. Brian’s mother left Safari after she found another (read richer) man leaving Safari as a single dad. He normally works in one of the hotels along the beach, but as it was low season, he had been “let go”.

Being laid off in Kenya isn’t quite the same gig as it is on PEI. There are no EI cheques to collect, and no one helping you find another job. Apparently at these hotels, at the end of each season they fire everyone and then when the next year rolls around you have to audition for your job again. You pay them for the ability to even be considered for the job and you work the first month for free.

Safari did end up becoming our guide for the couple of weeks we were in Ukunda, but it was more of a friendship than a business relationship. He never asked us for money, and I honestly don’t believe he expected any from us. Jacob needed a new pair of sandals since his $2 vietnamese pair had finally fallen apart so in order to save ourselves the hassle (and the mzungu price) we asked Safari if he could go into the city to get a pair of tire shoes (the soles are made from used tires) for Jacob. We of course paid for his trip into the city and then paid him on top of the sandals, and that night Jacob had himself a new set of wheels.

Safari also took us on a tour through the village where he lived. Ukunda is no large city by any stretch of the imagination, but the part that is visible from the two main roads seems relatively modern. What I didn’t realize was that as soon as you left the main road, we were back in a rural village. The houses were made from clay with thatch roofs, people lived off the fruit from the trees, there were chickens roaming around and goats tied up to trees. The women were washing their clothes in buckets and the children were running around with a homemade soccer ball.

I was so excited to be back in what I have now come to consider as the real africa. I love the smells, watching the people, seeing how simple life is and how little we really need. Safari took us to his house where we meet his friends and neighbours. It certainly wasn’t anything fancy – it’s one room in a mud house – but it was all he needed and he seemed content with it.

Over the course of the two weeks we were on Diani beach we became good friends with Safari. When it was coming closer to our time to leave we wanted to be able to give him something to show our appreciation for what he had done for us. We didn’t, however, want to just hand him cash. He was our friend, and it’s awkward to just hand over money. We had found out that he usually runs a small taxi business during the off season but his license had expired and it costs the equivalent of 3 months of his rent to renew it (about $20 Canadian).

We were planning on going into Mombasa proper anyway to see some of the sights so we asked him if he would take us and show us around. We also thought this would be the perfect opportunity to help him get his license taken care of. Our first stop was at the Kenyan equivalent of the DMV, which is impressively much faster than the Riverside Drive version. After only 10 minutes we were squared away and set off for Fort Jesus.

Fort Jesus was built by the Portuguese as a prison and eventually used by the British as a slave port. It was relatively interesting to walk around, but I remember being more impressed by the scenery surrounding it and how excruciatingly hot it was. We had been spoiled spending the majority of our days by the ocean and were now melting being back in the city.

Buying some tea before we left Kenya had been on my list of things to do, and just like anything else, something I had been putting off. On our way back to Ukunda and Diani Beach we found a tea warehouse where Safari managed to get us in to buy some Kenyan tea (it’s amazing) at local prices (even more amazing). Having had enough of the heat and missing the ocean we left the city behind and headed back to our usual hangout, the palm tree in front of Forty Thieves.