Diani Beach

Every year, the girls have a two-week holiday in October. You feel like school is just getting going and then there’s a break. You return from that break and you begin to sense that Christmas break is on the horizon. I realize that, as a child, these periods seem much longer. For parents, it definitely keeps you on your toes to make sure that your kids are occupied during this time. And since families always have at least one parent who is working, it’s not possible that we have vacation time for all of these breaks.

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It's autumn for the northern hemisphere. For us, just below the equator, it’s spring. Whatever that means. If I’m honest, all the seasons seem to blend together here. For me, it’s either wet or not wet.

Typically October falls in the wet category. Except that it’s not that wet, at least so far. We opted on going to the coast for their break rather than on safari since rain is less of a nuisance on the beach. As it worked out, we had almost no rain anyway.

The last time we were in Diani was in February. If we had more money, I wouldn’t mind going more often (a lot of people I know do) but twice a year is not bad. As I have admitted before on this blog, I am much more of a mountain (or safari) person than a beach person and, after three or four days on the coast I start to feel like I’ve had enough. On this break we would be there for four days.

I would need to work for about half of the time that we were there. I’ve done this several times before, including during the pandemic. It’s not bad in that there are worse places to work. On the other hand, it can be annoying to be churning out emails on a laptop, taking calls, etc. while the world around you sucks down copious amounts of alcohol and allows the sun’s rays to turn their skin to a deep red color.

I should say that this particular hotel where we often stay caters to Germans. They probably make up about half of the guests. Most of the signage is in English and German. The other half of the guests are mostly from other parts of Europe. Rarely any Americans or Asians and only a few Kenyans.

The clientele have nothing to do with why we stay there. We like it partly because they have such a nice, clean beach. The food is good and the rooms are decent. There’s a nice game area for the kids. Of late, the Wi-Fi has been great – an important detail when taking video calls. Their partner hotel, which has similar clientele, has a waterslide which was huge when the girls were younger. We have ventured out and tried a few other places, including sharing a villa, but, for now at least, we sort of migrate back to this one given that it’s easy (we don’t need to prepare out own meals), we’ve become familiar with it, and we have even gotten to know some of the staff.  

red-headed agama

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On the first morning, I watched everyone lube up with sunscreen, don their sunglasses and head to the pool. I, on the other hand, found a corner of the thatched clubhouse where there was a functioning wall socket and set up shop. I did have a small ocean view, plenty of coffee, and it was relatively quiet so I wasn’t complaining. I did have an occasional vervet monkey come snooping around looking to steal a snack but otherwise, I was left alone.

When the girls were younger, it was more of a challenge. They would find out where I was working and pop over frequently to ask me to come watch some sort of new skill or trick they learned in the pool. I do miss those days sometimes. Nowadays they seem content to occupy themselves in the pool, play in the waves on the beach, or lounge for long periods of time absorbed in a book (they aren’t allowed phones yet). They do prefer when it’s the four of us (for now), but they’re also very happy doing their own thing.

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On Friday afternoon, we had an opportunity to take a boat to go snorkeling. We hadn’t brought our snorkeling gear but we were able to borrow some and off we went. We headed out to a reef only a couple of kilometers from the hotel. We hadn’t previously been to this particular location, but it turned out to be quite nice. Many of the boats have a glass bottom so you can track the scenery beneath you as well as around you as you head out to the reef.

We shared the boat with another dozen people. I was itching to jump in and as soon as the anchor was dropped, I was the first one in. The water is clear and beautiful, offering fantastic visibility. There were so many colorful fish of various kinds including a moray eel. The guy driving the boat gave me some bread to feed the fish so they came to me in large numbers to eat out of my hand. In fact, there were so many fish that Kinaya was a bit uncomfortable. She returned to the boat at one point but courageously decided to jump back in not too long afterwards.

glass bottom boats often leak, as did ours; it's cool though

We eventually made our way to a sandbar which was just a couple feet below the surface of the water (due to the low tide) even though we were about a kilometer out to sea. The whole trip lasted for about four hours and soon we were heading back at the hotel. We definitely need to do more snorkeling. It’s a relatively inexpensive and fun way to spend an afternoon. 

starfish and urchins

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Another thing we like to do in the evening after dinner is hang out on the beach. Near the equator, and without unnecessary things such as daylight savings time, sunset comes between 6 and 7pm all year round. It’s relatively safe so long as you stay within the vicinity of your hotel and under the watchful eye of the guards. I haven’t heard of people being robbed on the beach here but it probably does happen on occasion, particularly in the areas that are not under surveillance.

We’ve never had any issues and it’s such a wonderful way to cap off the evening. The stars are amazing, all the way to the horizon. There are the distant lights of the occasional passing ship. Small crabs dart back and forth on the beach. We often make some sort of modest sand sculpture.

Hotels on the coast typically offer some sort of entertainment every evening (traditional dancing, acrobatics, karaoke, DJ, etc.). When the girls were little, it was a thrill for them to be out at night and they would often get pulled into the entertainment when there was a call for volunteers. Nowadays they’re less interested. As good as the entertainment is (particularly some incredible acrobats which we did watch this time), it hasn’t varied significantly over the years.

colobus monkey surveying the hotel

On Sunday morning, we would have time for a short swim before heading to the tiny local airport. It’s notorious for not having air conditioning nor enough seating. Thankfully we weren’t there long and our flight back to Nairobi was on time. For the girls, they had another week of vacation to go. For me, I would return to the airport at 4am the next morning to fly back to Mogadishu. Ugh.

Mogadishu

In my professional life I have had to navigate varying levels of bureaucracy. The worst of all was when I worked with the European Commission in Brussels. It was as if the Commission had absorbed bureaucratic impediments from all member countries to produce a system that was so convoluted that it was able to put all other suffocating bureaucracies to shame.

Since I’ve been in Africa, I’ve seen some impressive displays of needless red tape. In Tanzania, the first Swahili phrase I learned was “labda kesho” (maybe tomorrow). In many African countries, expediency often accompanies a bribe, which I am notoriously unwilling to pay. Nor do I want people paying on my behalf. So I often end up being subjected to some impressive delays for visas, work permits, etc. It’s a shame, really, since the rich generally pay and the poor take it on the chin. They can never pay and the system generally eats them alive.

While I was in Ethiopia, my Kenya visa expired. I hadn’t noticed before traveling and I have staff who are supposed to keep on top of such things. Anyway, it required me to get a tourist visa in order to get back into the country. It delayed my return by a day but, in the end, I was able to enter and begin the process of applying for a new 2-yr. visa. Because they needed my passport, I would be grounded for a few weeks until it was done. Tired of traveling, it was the first time in my life I was happy for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn slowly.

trying to make sense on four hours of sleep

Alas, the process, for some strange reason, only took about two and a half weeks and I would soon need to be returning to Mogadishu. Don’t get me wrong. I like what I do and I’m always happy to be around my team. I just get very tired of the travel back and forth as well as the time away from family.  

visiting one of our partners; I look freakishly tall like a circus character

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Back in Somalia, I jumped straight into coordination forums, meetings with local partners, etc. It’s bliss if you’re an extrovert. For me, it’s draining. I’m glad when I’m doing it. I just get tired of it easily. 

on the scenic drive to the Ministry of Health, blown up hotel on the right, blown up Bank of Somalia building on the left

I often have trouble getting a good night’s sleep when I’m in Somalia. It’s better than it used to be. In my early days, I would spend the night with my ears peeled listening for sounds of gunfire or distant explosions. Such things were more frequent then and I wasn’t as accustomed to it as I am now. Part of the problem is that there is a military base/training facility not too far away and so you need to be able to distinguish between sinister and non-sinister sounds, either by direction or loudness. It’s harder than it used to be now that the neighborhood has an increasing number of tall buildings. The sounds tend to echo more and it’s harder to tell where they are coming from.

many building still show the scars of past battles

Anyway, the other night I was not sleeping well and, at about 1:30 in the morning I began hearing the sound of a camel. By the way, after several years of being around camels I realized that I didn’t know what the official term is for the sound a camel makes. I’m sure Somali kids learn this as children much as I learned, “What does a cow say?” According to online sources, it’s a 'grunt'. While I know camels grunt, fitting for what seems like their perpetual smugness, often times the sound is more of a bray, and can be confused to that of a donkey. On this occasion it was definitely a bray and it went on for several minutes.

Finally, I got up and went out on my little deck (something I don’t do often when it’s daylight for security reasons). I looked down at the compound across the road from us and two guys were trying to coax one of their two camels to move to the near side of the compound. They were desperately pulling on two ropes and the camel was fighting them with all he had. Eventually, they were able to get him to a tree where they tied him up.

All the while I’m wondering why this noisy activity needs to happen in the middle of the night. Soon I figured it out. A third guy comes out of one of the sheds with a large knife and moves around to the front of the camel. It doesn't require a Somali to know what was coming next.

Soon there was silence and for the next several hours they proceeded to butcher the poor animal. I couldn’t help but look at the other camel just a few meters away. He had to know what was going on. He kept his head turned in the opposite direction, never once looking towards what was happening to his peer.

camel on the left looking away

I went back to bed but when I woke up at 6am, they were just finishing up. Likely they do this sort of thing during the night when it’s not so hot and the meat won’t spoil as quickly.

I had had camel the previous night, though I feel like things like this are slowly putting me off meat. Carnivores are always happy to eat meat so long as they don’t think too much about how it arrived on their plate.  I don’t eat as much meat as I used to. In fact, we are mostly vegetarian nowadays with chicken or fish occasionally. When I’m in Somalia, I sort of eat what is put in front of me and that often ends up being meat. When I travel and/or when I am invited to someone’s house, I always try to be flexible.

I remember being in Cote d’Ivoire many years ago during my first trip to Africa. I was in a small village in the northern part of the country. The community had organized an event and I was one of the guests. Just before the speeches began, I asked if I could use the toilet. A guy pointed towards a pit latrine behind a nearby mud hut. As I came around the back of the hut, I ran into a group of young guys just as they were beginning to slaughter a goat. I spent much of my youth working on farms but making eye contact with a goat just as he was taking a knife to the throat was new for me.

I understand that whole cycle of life thing and I certainly don’t condemn carnivores, particularly while I still am one (for now), but I get the sense that my feelings on the subject are evolving.

Dikembe

This past week saw the passing of a couple of famous US sports figures. One was a professional baseball player named Pete Rose. The other was a professional basketball player by the name of Dikembe Mutombo. I say US sports figures because the Congolese Mutombo not only became famous in the US, he became a US citizen in in 2006.

I was a big fan of Rose in my younger days. He was an intense and talented athlete that, through a very long career, ended up being one of the greatest players of all time. He also, in the end, turned out to be a bit of a schmuck. I had forgotten, or was not aware, how terrible he was until this week when I read some accounts of his storied career. The contrast between Mutombo and Rose couldn’t be more striking.

Mutombo also had a long and amazing career as a professional athlete. Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a man of considerable integrity who spoke something like nine languages and gave of his time and wealth to help those less fortunate. His list of humanitarian accomplishments exceeds those of his basketball career. And he literally, and figuratively, rubbed off on me. I should explain.

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In autumn of 1991 while working at a boarding school in western Switzerland, I received an invitation to visit the family of one of my students in Denver, Colorado. I should say that it wasn't uncommon for me to receive invitations like this. One year I went to the small country of Andorra where I stayed with the family of a student. The dad and I became relatively good friends and on one occasion he gave a friend of mine and I the keys to his Land Rover to tour around the country for the day. Another family invited me to stay with them at their chateau/vineyard in the south of France for a couple of days. And there were some other notable invitations that I will write about some other time.

André and I weren't very far apart in age and ended up being good friends. He was also mature for his age and I was conveniently immature for my age. Though his family was rather comfortable financially, his father was a Swiss Ambassador to the US and his mother was an American business woman, he seemed very level-headed, particularly compared many of his “rich school” peers. 

* * *

Part of what was behind the invitation was that André's mother had tickets to a Denver Nuggets basketball game. Thanks to the internet, I had help in pinning down that the date of the game was Dec. 28 of that year. But I didn’t need the internet to remember their opponent – the Boston Celtics. It was one of the most famous teams in NBA history featuring Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale among others. I should say that I was on board with going to the Nuggets game even before I learned who they were playing against. The Nuggets, on the other hand, were not a huge draw. Mutombo was only in his second season as a professional (though already well-known) and they were not playing very well.

The plan was to fit the visit into my Christmas travel that year. I would fly from Geneva to Idaho to see family for the holiday, then head to Denver on Dec. 27^th, attend the game on the 28^th and then carry on back to Switzerland on the 29^th.

* * *

André’s mother worked for a sports entertainment company that had ties to the Nuggets which is where the tickets came from. It turned out that they had four tickets and André and I would be accompanied by his uncle and, to be honest, I can’t remember who the fourth person was.

His uncle drove us to the game. We knew we would have decent parking given that André’s mother gave us a VIP parking pass along with the four tickets. Sure enough, we ended up parking in the same lot as the players, adjacent to McNichols Sports Arena. We were off to a good start.

* * *

Once inside the arena, we had to find our seats. None of our crew had ever used these season tickets before so none of us knew were we were going. Also, the numbers on the tickets were a bit cryptic and didn’t give us a clear indication as to where our seats were. We approached the event staff as we entered and a guy motioned us to proceed down into the lower section. I was thinking that this keeps getting better. I hadn’t attended many professional sporting events by that time and I certainly had never been seated in the low section near the action.

We continued to walk down the steps but our ticket numbers still didn’t correspond to anything we were seeing labeled on the seats. As we reached the bottom, we showed our tickets to another event staff who told us to “come this way” as she proceeded towards the floor. We were getting pretty excited thinking that we would be in the floor section. But it would get even better.

The woman escorted us onto the hardwood to four folding chairs that were at the end of the Denver bench. Unless we had Nuggets uniforms, we couldn’t have had better seats. I remember at the time thinking that, as a sporting event experience, it’s unlikely that I will ever do better than this. So far that’s still the case and I don’t see that changing.

* * *

We had to determine among ourselves who would get the seat next to the players. We quickly decided that, since there are four quarters and four of us, we would rotate each quarter.

As the players warmed up and we were soaking it all in, a guy came over, introduced himself as the General Manager of the Nuggets and welcomed us to the game. Then a lady came and asked us what we wanted to eat or drink (something that would continue throughout the game). Then the GM came back and said that he was going to try to arrange for us to meet Larry Bird, but no promises.  The whole thing seemed a bit surreal.

What we found out later was that the tickets we were using were held by the Nuggets organization for real VIPs (celebrities and so forth). I’m quite sure that the GM didn’t know who we were nor did it matter. Whoever was there was usually important and protocol was to treat them well. On this occasion, for whatever reason (maybe the holidays?), no famous and/or rich people were on hand and four nobodies would fill the seats. Which is strange given that the Celtics were in town. Anyway, we were loving it.

against Parrish and the Celtics but not from the game I watched

Throughout the game, Denver surprisingly maintained a lead. Bird was struggling a bit and we found out later it was due to his sore back. Though I was indifferent about who was winning, it’s always nice to be in an arena where the hometown fans are happy. It added to the ambiance. We did speculate, however, that if Bird played poorly and/or the Celtics lost, it might impact our chances of meeting him. In the end, our speculation proved to be correct.

* * *

I remember that I was given the seat closest to the players in the fourth quarter. In retrospect, it turned out to be the best option. As the final quarter began, the seat to my left was open. There was one more chair than there were players on the bench. But midway through the period, Mutombo was whistled for a foul as he was defending Parrish. In addition to being upset about it, it was his fifth foul and he was pulled from the game to prevent him from getting his sixth and final foul.

Happily, the angry Mutombo went straight to the open seat at end of the bench – right next to me. The trainer tossed him a towel and handed him a water bottle. In his frustration he slammed the towel on the floor in front of him and unexpectedly turned to me and shouted in a Congolese accent, “He’s all over me! He’s been all over me all night!” I was caught off guard and honestly don’t remember how I responded. I’m pretty sure it was some sort of wide-eyed awkward mumble of affirmation. The guy was 7’2 (2.18m) and angry. Agreement seemed to be the sensible option.

He continued to grumble as his sweat increasingly dampened the left side of my jeans. That turned out to be our only “interaction” and within about fifteen minutes he was put back in the game. 

Admittedly, I followed his career more closely after that. It wasn’t easy given that there was no internet back then and NBA basketball was difficult to track from Switzerland. He had an impressively long career, particularly for a big man, playing for 6 different teams over 18 seasons and retiring in 2009. It's sad that he's gone.

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Fun fact: Mutombo’s full name was Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jaques Wamutombo.

Another fun fact: Mutombo moved from the Democratic Republic of Congo to the US at the age of 21. Next year I will begin my 21^st year in Africa. It could be that we’ll end up with a similar amount of years on the continent. Crazy thought.