September 14, 2005

At breakfast, we talk with a German man who has brought his grown daughter on vacation. A bright, spunky and very tall German guy updates us on his plans for the day. He’s backpacking across Africa and arrived with his girlfriend, who was with him when we first met them at the Annex Malindi. She had to go home, though, to return to work, and he’s continuing on the adventure alone. But always with a smile on his face. Over the last two days, this tall, happy man has easily made friends with everyone at all three resorts. After breakfast, I pack and go to the office, to meet the shuttle that’s due at 10am. A Swiss couple also climb on board and they’re anxious to make it back to Stone Town by Noon, before the bank closes. Otherwise, they have no way to get or exchange money for their trip.

We stop at the adjacent resort and onboarding passengers fill every seat. Everyone speaks English though they’re from all over the world. I feel very lucky that English is so widely spoken. We’re all friends by the time we reach Stone Town and the couple does make it to the bank on time. When I return to Annex Malindi, pulling my suitcase through the rocky doorway, Tanika accepts my offer of 8,000 shillings for the night. Yippee! Now I have enough money to buy water and a snack this afternoon and dinner at the barbecue this evening.

Once settled in and rested, I decide to walk through Stone Town, taking different routes and photographing the architecture. I stroll, really examining the buildings from every angle. A cemetary catches my attention. Though it’s behind walls, glimpses of tombstones peer through holes and breaks in the wall. As I look and ponder certain shots, three pre-teen boys surround me. Not wanting to appear afraid, I smile at them. One boy holds his hand out and says something. Though I don’t know what he’s said, I do know he’s asking for money. I shake my head “no” and walk on. I don’t have any money on me, so I say, “hapana pesa.”

The boy then asks me to photograph him. I don’t really like to photograph locals because they often ask for money. I hesitate. He then insists, so I snap his picture. Again, his hand comes out and again I say, “Pole sana, hapana pesa.” This translates in English to “I’m very sorry but I have no money.” This angers him. The boys walk a few yards away and pick up rocks, which they begin throwing at me while shouting, “Fuck You!” “Fuck You.” They’re pronunciation isn’t perfect, but I understand clearly what they’re saying. Unnerved, but trying to remain clam, I spot a view of the cemetary wall and Indian Ocean I’d like to shoot. Just as I get ready to snap it, the boy sticks his head around the corner to shout at me again. He is accidentally caught in the picture. “Nooooooo,” he screams angrily.

I turn toward a busy interior road, to get away from the boys, when three teenage boys approach me on the path. They’re walking with their shoulders back, kicking trash in their path, trying to appear big and important. I take no notice of them, just hoping they’ll pass without incident, when the first guy kicks a box that hits my right shin. They bend over laughing and the second boy kicks a glass soda bottle, which knicks my ankle.

They move away, in the direction the younger boys had walked, still laughing and still trying to look big and important. This outward hostility is interesting to me. I wonder if it’s the way all Zanzibaris feel toward tourist, but only the children have the courage to demonstrate their animosity. Most locals are not kind or warm or respectful. They’re attentive when trying to sell something, but otherwise we get the cold shoulder, as though we’re not wanted. Yet, Zanzibar is the richest, nicest place I’ve visited in Africa and tourist dollars pouring in with every planeload of white people has brought this prosperity to the island.

Michelle and I were wrong to think we could come here and let our guard down. In fact, being on the island been much more stressful than living in Kisumu. I’m really looking forward to going “home.”

Back at Annex Malindi, after showering and packing for tomorrow’s flight, I hear Suzuki’s happy voice ringing up the stairway and reverberating in the center courtyard. He finds me in my old room. “Ah, you made it back. Excellent,” he says.

“Yes, and you’re still here,” I say.

He spent Monday and Monday night at an archaealogical dig on the island, meeting with scientists and then having beers with them at a shack bar. He’s excited about the dig and tells me if he had seen the dig a year or two before, he would have become an archaeaologist instead of an Indian Ocean Trade Historian. We go to Freddy Mercury’s bar to watch the sunset. Suzuki reveals his boyhood dream during the 70s was to be a wrestler, like Dusty Roads. He watched wrestlers from the U.S. on TV, imitated their moves and dreamed of traveling the world where he’d wrestle in exotic locales, like Zanziba. But then, one day, Hideaki realized his height was a hindrance. He doesn’t need wrestling, though, for he is like an anthropologist, the way he’s interested in cultural practices. I tell him about the Luo tribe live in the Lake Victoria region. I tell him about the Luo customs that increase the rate of HIV/AIDS.

“Like what?” he asks, leaning in over his beer.

“Like wife inheritance, where a widow is ‘inherited’ by a male member of her dead husband’s family. But before she can take the new husband, she must be cleansed by having sex with someone from outside the family. And usually the guy from outside the family is HIV positive, which means she becomes infected, too, if she was’nt already infected by her husband.”

“Oh,” says Suzuki.

“And….” I say, studying his face to see if he can handle what I’m about to say, “if the woman happens to die before she’s been cleansed, then someone has to sleep with her body before she’s buried.”

“What?!!!” Suzuki jumps in his seat. “You can’t be serious.”

“Listen,” I tell him. “I heard about that practice and didn’t believe it until I asked a very close friend, who is Luo. I trust him. He said some Luo still follow this custom of sleeping with the dead, but only those who are in remote rural areas, who haven’t been exposed to other cultures.”

“But, how?” Suzuki is just as stumped as I was when I first heard of this.

“Okay,” I say to Suzuki. “My friend said he knew of a woman who died and her family wanted her to be cleansed. She actually lived in Nyalenda, the slums of Kisumu, which is how my friend knew her. He lives in Nyalenda. So they asked around and could find no one to do it. Then, they talked to a guy who wasn’t quite right in the head. He was easily convinced to do the deed. But my friend said that afterward, the poor guy was never the same again.”

“How did they know it was done,” Suzuki asks.

“That’s exactly what I asked my friend. I mean, the guy could spend the nighttime with the body then simply say it was completed. But, no, they put two other men in the room with him, to watch.” Suzuki’s face says it all. His nose is curled up like he’s just smelled something rancid.

“Tragically,” I tell him, “the guy who performed the custom was practically ostracized by community members and his life went downhill from there. Though he wasn’t quite right before the deed, he definitely declined mentally afterward. At least that’s what my friend said.”

Because Suzuki is interested in cultural practices, I tell him about the Luo fishing culture in Lake Victoria. There are no large, commercial fishing fleets in Kenya’s part of the lake. Fish are caught by men using poles or nets. These men will wade out into the lake and stand on rocks, casting their lines. A typical fisherman can handle four lines in the water at a time. But really good fishermen can mange up to six poles at once. They hang a plastic bucket around their neck filled with bait. The line strung with their catch floats off a belt loop.

Soemtimes, three or four men will crew a wooden boat, about 18 feet long, and they’ll go out early, early in the morning, before the sun comes up, and they’ll return with a boatload of fish. But these men who fish do not take the fish to market. That’s a woman’s job. And the woman gets a supply of fish because she is on the fisherman’s “list.” He has a list of women who have sex with him regularly. Those are the women who get the fish to take to market. If someone new comes into the fishing community, whether it’s a man or woman, they are assigned to a mentor of the opposite sex. This person indoctrinates them into the fishing business and becomes their sex partner. Many of these men fish early and have all day to lounge around, drinking. This practice amongst the fishing community spreads HIV at a rapid rate.

Polygamy also spreads HIV because a husband can spread it to all his wives. I tell Suzuki many of the men also have girlfriends in addition to their wives. And most women, even if they’re married, also have boyfriends. Plural. More than one girlfriend or boyfriend. And they are usually sexually active with each partner. For Kenyans, having multiply sexual partners is an engrained part of the culture. Even education on the spread of HIV isn’t powerful enough to fight these cultural norms. If all of these people are having unprotected sex, then the likelihood they are transmitting HIV is very, very high, especially in Western Kenya, especially in Kisumu, where the rate jumps to double the national average and sometimes to eight times the national average.

Funny, for a culture that’s so sexual, you’d never know it by watching them on the street. People dress conservatively. The men hardly ever wear shorts. It is uncommon to see a woman wearing tight pants. In public, men and women do not touch. Even those who are married do not hold hands. Men hold hands in public. It’s quite common and quite natural for men to show each other affection by walking down the street while holding hands. But men and women do not show affection in any form while in public. Behind the scenes, however, sex rules much of what the Luo do. Of course, it’s not just the Luo with these practices. Most tribes practice polygamy and have sex outside of marriage. That’s not to say everyone in those tribes do these things. Many people exposed to other cultures often cease such practices, such as selling their daughters into marriage by demanding a dowry from the groom’s family. Others are even standing up against wife inheritance. There have been changes. And there will be changes, but certainly not fast changes.

Suzuki finds Kenyan culture fascinating. Of course, he’s interested in cultural exchanges across the Indian Ocean between East Africa and India and Arab countries. Naturally, Suzuki wants to learn about cultures inland. Not just indigenous tribes but sub-cultures like the Sikh Indian community in Kisumu and other Kenyan cities. But the sun has set and we leave Freddy’s to walk through the seafood stalls, selecting barracuda, shark, white snapper and chips (fries) for dinner. Afterward, we stroll by the merchant stalls and talk to a friend of Suzuki’s, Jumas. He has a rack of shawls (pareos) and printed kangas, the two large squares of cloth women wear wrapped around their upper and lower body. Suzuki is interested in buying kangas. He negotiated with Jumas earlier this week and I was able to buy two brown and block kangas for 2,000 shillings, or about $2 USD, before my funds began to run too low. I plan to use the brown and black kangas as the backing for the pinwheel quilt top I’m currently sewing.

Tonight, Suzuki is shopping for kangas to take back to Japan. Jumas models the pieces for us, wrapping his very skinny frame in a black-and-white patterned kanga. Then Jumas wraps Suzuki in a black and turquois set. They look very smart (and totally adorable, eschewing concerns of looking manly in this ancient patriarchal culture). Suzuki buys both sets.

The shawls are gorgeous and feel silky, though they’re woven of cotton. Of course, I’ve spent all my money on dinner, with reserve for the ride to the airport tucked in my room. I also have 1,300 Kenyan shillings in my wallet, about $19 USD, but I didn’t convert it to Tanzania shillings because I’ll need some Kenyan currency when I re-enter the country. Suzuki says, “Pick a shawl for you, Cindi. I’d like to buy one for you.”

I’m touched by Suzuki’s generosity because I really do want a shawl to take to Kisumu. Of course, I protest. He insists, earnestly, and we look at the shawls, stroking them and inspecting the color of their weaves. Suzuki has a genuine interest in all things, including people, and I so enjoy being with him and watching him interact with the Zanzibaris, speaking Kiswahili flawlessly. When he walks me back to Annex Malindi, I’m rather sad our time together on the island is over. We exchange email addresses, so we’ll be in touch. I leave tomorrow morning and Suzuki will leave in a week’s time to do more research in Oman. Then he’ll travel to Bangkok for a week’s vacation (I tease him about the “research” he’ll be doing in Thailand) and finally return home to Tokyo.

When I enter the building, the electricity is off. Candles illuminate the reception room where the young man on duty has placed a mattress in the center of the floor, complete with a sheet and a pillow. He jumps up to welcome me and hands me a candle, leading the way up the stairs. His English isn’t very good, but somehow we always manage to communicate. He has placed a candle at the top of the stairs and it brightens the entire central courtyard area. I leave it burning on the stone step after he’s returned downstairs.

There’s a mosquito in my net, biting me regularly, and I have difficulty locating and killing him. The taxi will be here at 5:30am and I have no alarm clock, so I sleep lightly.