Mayna and the Baobab Tree

I met Mayna walking home from the beach on Lamu Island. I was stoned in thought on how to best negotiate a dhow to take me down to Dar es Salaam, when he reached into my world to say Hi. I recognized him from the night before - the reggae party at the Civil Servants Club. He had long dusty dreads, but they were now stored away underneath his knitted cap. He rocked back and looked at me, muttering something into his smile, and held out his fist. I still found it a strange custom, but brought my fist against his. It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun giving the skin on his face a leathery texture.

He asked whether I had already been into the dunes. I didn't know what he meant - where were there supposed to be dunes? I was a bit suspicious, but decided to go along. Anyway, I didn't have anything better to do. I followed him through narrow alleys and in between fences and walls until we got out behind the village. And there they were: dunes. We chatted about our day, and the mountains. There was nothing but sand around us, and as we reached the top of another dune, I saw - at the bottom - people playing football on an imaginary field with goalposts. We carried on and the sand was suffused with deep golden dusk, and I saw a silhouette of a straw hut in the setting sun. It was a woven roof with four poles holding it up, and underneath it a bench, and three other Rastas sitting there drinking palm wine. One of them was Mashia (we hustled each other every day in town, dealing in pseudo-politics and talking about Malcolm X and Che Guevara). We exchanged greetings and Mayna and I joined the others.

A woman brought palm juice, and poured it into cups from a dirty mineral water bottle. My face turned when I took a sip. Everybody chuckled. Palm juice is utterly vile! It is made from the juice of palm tree branches - fermented for one day in the sun. It was peaceful out there; no sounds except for the flow of swallowing, satisfied breathing and sighing. The sun set. Mayna told me he'd take me some day on a trip to the mainland - to his farm - and to a big Baobab tree.

But I felt very ill and vomited and stayed in bed the whole of the following day. I thought it was that god-awful palm wine. But it was Malaria.

The next day I felt stronger, so Mayna and I went off to the mainland in search of his farm and the Baobab tree. We took a ferry to Mokowe - an insignificant little village with a pier. We walked through the village and along a dusty road heading toward Mayna's farm. A guy on a bicycle passed us. Mayna recognized him, so they exchanged a few words and some Marijuana. When we got to the farm, he planted seeds picked from the dope he had been given. We sat down on the spot where he was planning to build his house built out of Mahogany wood. He pointed out his vegetable patch, which didn't look like much, but things seemed to be growing out of the ground. And there, as Mayna put it, we 'skunked, mon'.

We continued through the thick Kenyan bush and headed further into an endlessly expanding landscape. We had some water from a jerry can and ate a juicy Papaya fruit we found on the ground. By chance, we met up with his friend who had the bicycle. From there we walked and cycled to his friend's derelict straw hut home.

It was tranquil, two people walking in a line, along a dirt road, and the third cycled ahead or behind or next-to the other two. Every once in a while, we'd swap around, and somebody else had a go on the bicycle. It was silent, except for the heat buzzing with flies, the quiet patter in kiSwahili, and the soft creaking of the bicycle. The road was flanked by thick green bush, with occasional tall palm trees rising above. Some palm trees had no leaves at the end of their branches - only mineral water bottles suspended from them to collect palm juice.

We sat down in the shade in the bush and chatted for several hours, drinking freshly milked wine. They told me they were 'Culture' people, not Rastafarians, as they ate meat.

It was getting late, and we needed to head back to Lamu. We walked back to the dirt road, hoping to catch a bus to the ferry. I was surprised to learn that there were bus stops out here. We had missed all of the busses, though, so after walking several kilometres, and catching lifts with trucks and navy vehicles, we eventually arrived back on Lamu.

I don't think we ever did make it to that Baobab tree Mayna was telling me about.