Virtually Clueless

A request to interview the SOLWODI field co-ordinator in Malindi, Agnetta Gitau, meets with red tape. It’s my last day in Malindi and there isn’t much time. However, in her office behind Co-operative Bank, she tells me that I have to write a letter, which she must forward to her boss to give her the go-ahead to talk to me.

I email the letter from my phone. Then I send her two SMSs and call back twice, trying to hurry her along. Time is running out. But then Lady Luck smiles on me. I strike up a conversation with a man selling cold drinks. While we’re talking, a young local man passes by, holding the hand of an older white woman. We start talking about sex tourism. The vendor tells me how the industry has turned Malindi’s fortunes around, and how some locals have also seen their fortunes change.

“Some of the beach boys have flings with older white women. Then they live on easy street. But they forget who’s holding the purse strings. I know of guys who have, plastered like hell, gone to the homes where they’d been living with their catch and started beating their white lovers and ordering them around. These sods only sober up after they get thrown out, and have to return to their old lives.”

Sex tourism has also brought in smarter players, mainly from the mainland, who mean business. One such person, the vendor tells me, is a very rich man who owns businesses in Malindi. He came from the mainland with his wife and two children. They had nothing, but then a tourist fell for his wife and the married couple agreed that she’d tell the tourist she was actually her husband’s sister, not his wife. The charade has been going on for years.

Over the past five centuries, Malindi has been betrothed to Chinese, Portuguese and Arab suitors, who’ve all come and gone, leaving only a few mementoes strewn around this idyllic place. The Italians are the latest in
this long line of suitors.

The morning after I arrive back in Nairobi from Malindi, I finally get a text message from Agnetta. In a very long-winded way she tells me the interview can’t happen. Well, it’s too late anyway.

 “Sexual healing on the Kenyan Coast” continued tomorrow!

Originally published by Destination Magazine by Josaya Wasonga

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