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much as I loved living so remotely at Nyumbani, I was already impatient to see more of Kenya. At times, I was beginning to find Nyumbani rather claustrophobic, working and living with the same people in a confined area every hour of every day. I had been working hard since I arrived, and was looking forward to going a bit wild. I even dared to hope for a few creature comforts, such as relaxing under a long pleasurable warm shower, and the opportunity to ring home. Yes, I needed this long weekend break.
    We managed to hit Mombasa right in the middle of Ramadan, the Islamic month of penitential fasting. Hunger and the energy-sapping humidity may have slowed the rest of the population in that overwhelmingly Muslim city, but not Leo’s African Rasta friends. Leo had previously lived in Mombasa for over a month when he first arrived in Kenya looking for volunteer work, and had become friendly with some of the many black Rastas there.
    We rented out a simple but comfortable chalet near the beach. Kimanze had to answer a call of nature as soon as we arrived. He rushed into the bathroom, saw the Western-style toilet in it, and rushed back out.
    ‘How does this work?’ he asked urgently.
    Western plumbing was as alien to him as the African ‘arrangements’ had been to Leo and myself.
    Joined by about eight of Leo’s friends, we stayed indoors for the afternoon and evening, the roof-fan turning lazily overhead. The Rastas were soon getting high on marijuana all around us. These cosmopolitans were so different to the people of Kitui, that Kimanze felt as much in a different country as I did. It was the British, I suppose, who had brought such diverse peoples together under the common name of Kenyan.
    Leo put in an order to one of the Rastas, when the substance was running low.
    ‘Here, can you get me a few hundred shillings worth, whatever you can buy with that,’ he requested, as he palmed him the notes (about three euros’ worth).
    Our eyes popped when, a half hour later, the Rasta returned with a bag full of the stuff for Leo, who nearly had an orgasm looking at it.
    Later, we partied well through the night at a giant outdoor session near the beach, where they played reggae versions of songs that were never meant to have the reggae treatment—‘Stuck on you’ and songs like that, the music surfing on a light breeze from the Indian Ocean. There were no tourists, just plenty of African Rastas. Leo, Kimanze, and I were up on a dance floor that was encircled by lights and speakers strung between the palm trees. Leo’s birthday was becoming one terrific and unforgettable night.
    A few hangers-on kept trying to sell me useless Rasta trinkets. It is against their principles to be employed in a normal waged job; they must earn money solely by being self-employed. They clearly had no problem, though, with not being teetotal like a true Rastafarian. One of them, whom Leo had indicated was not an acquaintance, tried to steal a few coins from my pocket. I seized his hand, the others threatened him and he scarpered. By now, we were wilting with exhaustion.
    After a breezy tuk-tuk ride back to the chalet at around 5am, and just as we were dropping off to sleep, the silence was ripped apart by loud wailing emanating from the minaret of the large nearby mosque.
    ‘Allah Akbar … God is great … prayer is better than sleep …
    Maybe not, though, at 5am after a night out with the Rastas!
    That morning was to be Kimanze’s first ever sight of the sea in the full splendour of daylight. To relieve our headaches, the three of us had opted for a wash and a swim in the Indian Ocean, in a beautiful bay fringed by coconut trees. If ever I witnessed a person being in awe of anything, it was Kimanze at the waters’ edge. For ages, he simply stood there in silence, staring out to sea. I could only try to imagine what was going through the head of that Akamba lad from the arid lands of the Kenyan interior.
    It is one of my quirks when travelling