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that I have to go for a swim in any lake, river, or sea. The Indian Ocean was a new one on the list for me. I floated lazily on my back, rising and dipping in tandem with the warm gentle waves, thoroughly enjoying myself. The Indian Ocean felt almost unnaturally hot there. I could see the attraction for the European tourists. Gangs of local children happily floating around me were using empty plastic water bottles to keep themselves afloat.
    I went to look at a few elephant carvings being sold, laid out on the sand, further down the beach, possible souvenirs to take back to Nancy, Sr. MM, and a few others in Kitui. By coincidence, the woodcarver was a young Akamba man from Kitui, and there was a lady with him selling rope. Akamba actually means ‘rope’ in Swahili, from the days when the Akamba traded rope at the coast, and the Arabs would ask for ‘the rope people.’ It is still a common sight to see women in Kitui stripping sisal plants in the hedges and plaiting them into ropes.
    Suddenly, the respectable looking proprietor grasped my head and whispered urgently in my ear:
    ‘Would you like the services of my sister?’
    ‘No thanks, I’m alright at the moment, the carvings will do fine.’
    ‘Are you sure, she really beautiful!’
    He grinned, whistled, and made a perfect sign with his finger and thumb.
    ‘She promise you good time, and good price.’
    This sort of thing happened to me a few times in really unlikely places as I was minding my own business. It was always ‘my sister, she is for sale,’ followed by a wide-eyed look of genuine surprise that I was not interested.
    The touts, known as ‘beach boys,’ can be a real pest on some of Mombasa’s beaches. So can the stunningly beautiful ‘Mombasa girls.’ It is not uncommon to see an old white man—or woman—hand in hand with a twenty-something African. It is rather disconcerting, but some might say it is a win-win situation; the African gets an up-market lifestyle, at least temporarily, and the mzungu gets … company. I could see the temptation. These women are charming, beguiling, arousing, and can be bought with a beer.
    You do not have to be rich to be propositioned. The night of Leo’s birthday was typical. While we were chatting with the Rastas and Kimanze at a bar, two young ladies came up, sat down beside us uninvited, and began caressing and fondling both Leo and me. There was some suggestion of ‘marriage.’ The Rastas were laughing at our attempts to repel them, and puzzled as to why we were not responding in kind. If we had succumbed to temptation, the Mombasa girls would most likely have departed with our wallets, and probably have left us with AIDS in exchange.
    During the birthday weekend, there was a revealing and probably typical incident that reflected badly on the Europeans. A scruffy Italian in his thirties, whom Leo knew from his time in Mombasa, arrived for the birthday celebrations. A striking Kenyan woman accompanied him. During the evening, a roaring row started between them.
    ‘You give me my money, you think you have your way with me,’ she said. ‘You won’t get away from me, I want my money, you pay me now, you pay me my 10,000 shillings, give to me now.’
    Kimanze leaned over and quietly asked, ‘Is she a prostitute?’
    ‘Think so.’
    The couple left together, but the Italian rejoined us a while later.
    ‘There are two things I hate paying for.’ he proclaimed. ‘One is water, and the other is women. I’m only paying for one of those today.’
    ‘Is that carry-on not a bit dangerous?’ Leo warned him, ‘you might contract something nasty.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured us, ‘I took precautions.’
    ‘Well, at least that’s something,’ Leo sighed.
    ‘I took precautions alright—I didn’t leave her my name and number!’
    Mombasa was the first place in Africa in which I received marriage proposals. (I would later receive more serious ones from women in Kitui.) The ‘Mombasa girls’ would