Swaleh found me first. Not that it was difficult to do. When I first left Joni’s to find my own place every boy in the village wanted to help me locate my new home for a small finder’s fee. You see, there isn’t anything to do in Lamu and there isn’t any way to earn money. Tourists, travelers, Europeans who land there for a moment provide both entertainment and income. I, however, was 21, impetuous, strong-willed and broke.
So I set out to do this on my own. The house I found was haunted and owned by an Indian, pariahs to the locals as they bought up all the small stores and controlled a majority of the commerce in Lamu. Lodi, my landlord, agreed to rent my house to me for $70 a month until after the rainy season when he hoped more tourists would come and be willing to pay a higher rent. My house had plumbing. It had a hot plate. And it had a toilet. Whose pipes lead to the alley in front of the house.
I was in the market buying food when Swaleh approached. Dapper in red, mid- 20s, hair in locks, deep black skin and married. Savvy Swaleh was married to an American who was back home both sending him money and trying to figure out how to move him out of Kenya to the US with her. Swaleh was a pain in the ass but at the same time, I had little choice. I knew no one except Joni. Swaleh also hated the “boy clans” who wandered the island as he thought himself to be better than them. That soon became an advantage to me and I made friends with them when I needed a break from Swaleh. Swaleh, though, is important to my story because he introduced me to Norman, my houseboy. Norman was the cousin of Swaleh’s houseboy (who is pictured seated in the photo with Barbara as the featured image of this post). Norman was a good kid. Very quiet, a hard worker.
For two weeks, Norman kept my house. Which meant he went to the market in the morning, cooked me chapati, washed my kanga cloths in my newly purchased buckets (only I didn’t wear it like the women in the photos…wore it mostly as skirts or halter dresses when we were feeling very scandalous), and swept my floors with our tiny broom. And me? What did I do? I learned how to make paint with egg yolk and pigment which I used to paint dreadful portraits of the locals. I wrote in my diary. I smoked a lot of pot. Realizing that I could easily add Norman’s chores on to my completely empty day and that my funds were very limited, I decided to let him go.
“Norman, I like you, you do excellent work, but I don’t need you any longer. I’ll give you two weeks pay in advance. Thank you for your excellent service.”
Thinking no more about Norman, I set about living in Lamu.
Next: Chewing khat and a French writer named Philippe (part 3 of 4)
All photos courtesy of Trip Advisor. com – I never travelled with a camera. I wasn’t traveling, I was just living.
