R&R

Today I discovered the hammock.  After a couple of failed attempts to climb into it without my kindle, bottle of water, room key and ipod spilling back out, I managed to wrap everything up in my sarong and get the balance just right.

Suspended, I lay in the hammock, a sluice of sun cutting through the green canopy. 

Lost in thought, a branch fell with a thud next to me and I looked up to see a monkey trotting across the branches overhead. I don’t think it was the same one which broke into my room a few days ago, but perhaps one of the three who recently stole some bags of crisps from another room. It ran quickly and lightly down and sat in the saddle of the trunk, put its head on its hands and stared at me, as I watched it. More gathered and soon there were five, some just a couple of arms length away sitting on the grass pulling at branches and gnawing at what looked like large pea pods. The cat, Mary, wandered past, they paying no more attention to her as she to them. 

It’s strange being here, in this place. The room and the hotel are beautiful, stone floors, wooden furniture and everything covered in sunset orange fabric. The beach is palm fringed, white sand and at night when the tide comes in and the waves crash noisily against the shore, the moon rises, scorched red like a sun and there are the most amazing amount of stars. Beautiful, right? Shame about the boys on the beach, and their incessant attempts to sell you something, including their bodies. Even this morning, when I went for a run, I was followed, by a running beach boy: “Jambo Jambo,” he said as he slid into pace with me. I pointed to my headphones and shook my head. Of course, we all know, he knows, I can still hear him. “Hi, you want to go on a tour. I take you to see the dolphins. Want to see Masai Mara; I take you to see village. You want buy sarong...”. 

The only good thing, I guess, is he made me run a lot faster .. just to try to get away!  

What I wonder though is he must have had some success with this method, otherwise why continue? So who buys tours this way; who would stop to have their photo taken with a man dressed as a masai mara warrior, on a beach? Don’t they find it somewhat incongruous? Makes for good pics though I suppose!

I rented a bike, and rode down the southern coast for a few hours, until the road turned into rutted mud and it hurt too much to ride. Then I had a massage, by Maggie, who told me my leg muscles were flat, and that I was lucky because a lizard pooped on me during the massage. 

I leave tomorrow, just as I am beginning to find my routine .. and my people. But I guess that’s the way it is. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone on a beach holiday on my own and done nothing. The last time, I think, was 20 years ago, when I was travelling. I had my journal back then. Now, I’m finding it hard to think of my laptop as my journal. I keep thinking I should be working, should be answering emails, thinking about my project ... those 200,000 South Sudanese girls I have to save.   

Nairobi, where I spent my first two days, was different. It’s a city. It’s a big and bustling capital in a still developing country. There are highways, and there is rush hour traffic, but there are also few rules of the road beyond “don’t give way”. Buses swing into lanes, as if cars will magically disappear, but they don’t, and I was even advised by one taxi driver as a bus loomed upon us, on my side, “not to look scared”. 

It’s urban and high rise, and people are poor but working hard, making money so they can set up a business. Doing what? I ask “buying; selling” is the reply. Still a market mentality. Everyone has heard of South Sudan, if only because of the stories of Kenyans killed there. 

Don’t worry, I say it’s not just the Kenyans the South Sudanese dislike, but the Ugandans, Ethiopians, Eritreans and mostly the Lebanese. 

I met a friend at a bar the first night in Nairobi, and was at first surprised when the taxi pulled into a strip mall, shops centred around a parking lot. I had expected a garden. But it’s like that there, these small American strip malls, just off the highway with boutiques, coffee shops and supermarkets (selling ryvita and quinoa!). People mostly drive or take taxis - crossing wide highways which seemed so at odds with our small Juba streets -  but on my last day we walked around one of the more residential areas, climbing hills with colonial looking apartment buildings and banyan trees rising up out of the earth. At times, it felt a bit like Hong Kong, back in the 80s.

The giraffes were really all I had on my to do list (other than hunt down ryvita). There’s a centre that supports the endangered Rothschild Giraffe. The giraffes have acres of ground to move around in, but are enticed to the viewing platform by food. When I got there, about 11am, “Daisy” was hogging the platform. “Be careful, she headbutts,” one of the guides there told me, just in time for me to flinch away from Daisy’s massive head swing. I offered her a handful of pellets and her ridiculously long grey tongue whipped them from my hand, without so much as a thank you. I moved on to chat to Edgar, who loved having his furry horns stroked. “Edgar is the best kisser,” I was told, and was then enticed to put a pellet in my mouth and see. So now, I’ve been tongued by a giraffe.  

Not everyone can say that.