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Mombasa, KENYA - "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged, to find the ways in which you yourself have changed" -- Nelson Mandela
Moraa Gitaa As I retrace Ernest Hemingway's imaginary footsteps on the pristine white beach I recall his book The Old Man and The Sea and Nelson Mandela's words also resound in my head ... How I have changed since the three years that I was on this very same beach, for a happier though temporary, out of money, occasion and not to scatter my dead friends ashes to the oceans and four directions of the winds as we've just done today ...
The mundane thought of how very few Kenyans have the privilege of strolling on a private beach, which is part turtle nesting conservatory where they get the rare chance of watching them hatch out at midnight, entered my mind ... It has been noted also that the turtles then leave and come back to the exact spot a year later.
We get out of the speedboat. My friends Mum clutching possessively the now empty urn that had kept safe her daughter's ashes. Those ashes that have now been scattered into the deep sea near her favorite spot of dolphin territory to fulfill her last wishes.
My late friend's German husband points out that it's rumored that Brad Pitt, Hollywood star actor, is here with Angelina Jolie, another movie star. ... It's small wonder that when people come from sojourns in Malindi or the South Coast they ask us mere mortals how the rest of Kenya is doing! Maybe that's why Swahili sages said that "Mombasa raha. Kuingia harusi, kutoka matanga. (Com ing to Mombasa is fun, leaving is a very difficult and sad affair)"
My mind slips back a couple of months ...
It was on one of my many visits since her health started failing. I told my friend that I was a Christian now. A proper one -- one who reads her Bible daily -- and she told me that I was just switching from the flights of fancy that is my writings insanity to Christianity, which is just another form of insanity.
We got into a lengthy discussion on what constitutes being a good Christian and just being religious or "playing Church." I recall telling her that I read that Karl Marx said little about religion in his writings, yet he is one of the most famous and oft-quoted writers on the power of religion. To him, religion is the "opium of the masses" and he also opined that "The religious world is but a reflection of the real world."
But then our eyes met and locked. We were trying too hard not to talk of her impending death, yet she was actually on her deathbed. Why do people always try so hard to avoid reminiscing?
Our eyes were still locked and they filled with tears. A somber mood engulfed us and we started talking about our youth, an innocent lost youth never to be recaptured ...
We could see our-selves... Happy-go-lucky in our school bus on an educational tour to one of the game reserves, just about 10 years old then, and belting out our own rendition of the famous Christian Pollyanna Kindergarten song ...
" ... If you're happy and you know it clap your hands... stamp your feet ... shout hurray ... say we are ...
If you're happy and you know it clap your hands,
If you're happy and you know it and you surely want to show it,
If you're happy and you know clap your hands ...
If you're happy and you know it click your fingersWe remembered how we became fast friends, courtesy of a failing quota system. education admission criteria that saw us admitted to a school with a mixture of poor and wealthy students. I came from a middle class family and would still miss out on good lunches from the towns' restaurants because they were too expensive. How much more my friend, who came from a poor family?
We remembered how the other students flashy cars, bikes and motorcycles made her vow to get her self out of the poverty and want she'd grown up with. Every time she missed bus fare to catch a ride on a *matatu (Local PSV'S (Public service vehicles) a cheap mode of transport for the locals - mini vans) back home, she repeated her vow. Every-time she saw other students whose parents worked with the Government and other corporate firms, she reinforced her vow.
Every-time one stared at chicken, fries, hamburgers, hot-dogs, mince pies, sodas, and ice creams in the school cafeteria you were reminded of how poor you were and wanted the good life even more. Every-time one of us couldn't afford sanitary pads or borrowed from the other, the vows were reinforced just like our daily Girl Guides pledge and motto repeated time and time again ...
We remembered how she was the only one I could talk to on a rite I underwent years back ... FGM ... female genital mutilation ... .female circumcision ... whatever ... when I was eleven, a rite I barely understood, but which changed my life and left an indelible mark ...
We reminisced on our youth in high school. We thought of an incident that broke her heart, how one day she'd locked herself in her boyfriends apartment to catch up on some revision while he was at work, only for the door to be opened by another lady who 'also' had a key claiming to be her boyfriend's wife from Nairobi with their two children It became an ugly scene only for my friend to discover that her 'man' had been playing her ...
We thought back to my obsession with reading novels, anything in print and writing. I had the habit of hiding my novels in between huge chemistry tomes and large biology text books, just to appease my insatiable thirst for reading anything in print. How my dad thoroughly spanked me when he found me reading almost pornographic works by Charles Mangua and David Mailu. I think it was After 4.30 and My Dear Bottle.
Our parents never wanted to discuss matters touching on sex or sexuality because it was considered 'mwiko' or taboo. We were left to our own devices. (At least nowadays we hear of students talking of their Guiding and Counseling teacher telling them this and that and Sunday School teachers who are no longer conservative, but conduct 'boy' and 'girl' talks.) We laughed over our many broken hearts -- how I would come to her when I lost a boyfriend because I'd refused to sleep with him.
We went over tales of our escapades at our first disco. Without permission from the 'stiff upper lipped' old folks, we had gone anyway.
There was also the memory of how one of our friends was raped and the next morning cops were at our doorstep, because I was the last one seen with her. I was lucky it was the school holidayss and my parents were at work. Our friend was traumatized, she couldn't talk and was hospitalized. Eventually our parents found out and we got more than a grounding!
Our minds switched back to how another 'rich' schoolmate had a safe abortion. It was illegal, but there she was at a prominent hospital, the operation done by an equally prominent doctor courtesy of her equally prominent wealthy mother. We learnt early that in Kenya anything goes if you have the money. This is one of the many paradoxes of our motherland's rich versus poor policy ...
Against our advice, another friend went to back street quacks who botched the operation using crude methods. Some foreign bodies remained in her womb. We didn't know it. We thought she was lucky to pull through alive. A week later she developed complications and died. Her womb rotted away because she was scared of asking for help ... I remember her dying and telling us never to undertake such a risk.
Another friend died after finishing school because she wanted to get married to her high school sweetheart and their parents refused because of some long standing family feud coupled with the issue of different ethnic backgrounds. She burnt herself. Poured kerosene on her body from head to toe and lit the matchstick. She died a week later. I heard it was a long, agonizing, painful death. On her deathbed, she held the hands of both mothers and told them that she'd died to reconcile them and that the two families should henceforth stop the grudges.
How sisters always stick together. Throughout my teen years my parents were always fighting. I would seek solace in my dear friend's arms and refuge at her home sometimes.
That led to talk of how we finished high school and went through college. In college another sister's fiancé committed suicide. He drove his car off the ramp at the Likoni ferry channel crossing. We had to be there for her. The resultant shock caused her to miscarry. The school years were followed by qur subsequent entry into the job market. Fights with overly amorous bosses. Enter the HIV-AIDS era and another sister's husband died. He never told her he had been diagnosed HIV-positive. He hid his status from her.
Callous doctors revealed it to her a couple of days after the funeral. This happened late'eighties style, with no proper counseling sessions. She collapsed and died from the resultant shock.
Their son and daughter suffered the most. The children were unceremoniously transferred from exclusive public schools and shipped off to live with their grandparents and assimilated into rural public schools. No food. No savings. Their dad had squandered all the family money treating himself. This is the tragedy of our HIV-AIDS orphans shipped off upcountry to grandparents recalled back from retirement to take over roles of care givers.
How excited my friend was when I was heavily pregnant with Tracy, my daughter! One would have been forgiven to think that it was she expecting a baby, but by then she had decided not to have children. She could not risk exposing a child to the HIV virus.I remembered how she was there for me when I broke up with my baby's father. She would constantly castigate me for sitting on my ATM card when I was broke. Or as she fondly referred to using one's sex appeal or favors as "Barclays Bank."
Now, here we are on this beach. It's almost 15 years since she tested HIV-positive, sure proof of what the power of love, a positive outlook on life, good nutrition, healthy eating habits and a cocktail of anti-retrovirals can do.
And I suddenly remember how, as we were reminiscing, I suddenly blurted out to her: "Look where your Barclays has landed you!" We actually bursted out laughing until the tears rolled down our cheeks and she started coughing uncontrollably and her Mum came in to check if she were alright. Her Mum couldn't understand how we could be laughing so hard wehn my friend was almost dying.
I told her "Mum, we are talking about Barclays Bank and you certainly won't understand." As we burst out laughing some more she went out puzzled, shaking her head but with a smile on her lips and a look in her eyes that told me -- "At least you're making her laugh."
A week later my friend was dead.
MORAA GITAA is a mother and aspiring writer living in Mombasa, Kenya. This is excerpted from a memoir she is seeking to complete and is her second feature for your World's Magazine.
© 2005, GENERATOR 21.
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