Tuesday, 8 July -
This is the “no fish” day. While the events below were intertwined with the entire day, I will consolidate them into this paragraph. Patrick knew I liked fishing. He batted around the idea of my going fishing in a dugout canoe in the ocean. They go out either at night or very early in the morning. It sounded more like a survival ordeal than a good time, so we nixed that. The next plan was to get up early and to be at the fish market at 7 am to buy fresh fish for a grill that evening. The boat captain from last night had told Patrick that the fishing boats come in at 7 am. We drive to the Kilifi Creek and get there shortly after 7. There are a few women cleaning some 4 inch fish. The men bring in the catch, women act as middle men (or middle women) and clean the fish and then take them to the fishmarkets. A man walks up to us with a 15 lb red snapper. He said it was caught off the Kilifi bridge. Patrick says it is a little larger than we need. We want a 8 lb fish. The man says there will be no more red snappers or rock cod in that day. We are sure he is using typical Kenyan psychology to have us buy his fish. Little did we know it was prophetic. Patrick says we will wait. We wait. Maybe one other boat comes in with 4 inch fish. We wait. Patrick starts asking when more boats will come in. He is told they will come in at 10. Patrick tells one man he will pay 140 schillings/kilo for a red snapper if the man will save it for him. The normal selling price should be 80, but this will guarantee we will get one. We go to the conservancy (below). We come back a little late. The man says, “Sorry the boat just went back out. We waited but you weren’t here.” This explanation may be true but it does not explain why he doesn’t have the fish for us. The man says they will come back at noon. We come back at noon. No fish or fisherman. Patrick asks again –“They will come back at 3pm.” We come back at 3pm. No fisherman or fish. At that point we give up decide to have fillet minion for dinner. It turns out the Africans don’t like the fillet because it doesn’t have enough fat. They like meat on the bone. So the fillet is an inexpensive cut.
Wednesday, 9 July-
We checked in for the flight, and were given a coupon for the Swiss Air “First Class Lounge”. We found the place after going the wrong way once. This presaged what the evening was going to be like. The Lounge was a rather mediocre bus terminal waiting room. So we asked the woman were we could get a dinner. This began another set of fumbled communications where she said something about “5th floor, to your left, right, left, right…..Simba Restaurant” We walked. I asked directions. It was a weirdly laid out terminal. You wandered around and then had to carry your luggage up one set of stairs in order to get to the elevator. Why not have the elevator stop at the main floor? We found the Air Kenya Simba Lounge – not be confused (except by us) with the Simba restaurant. The Air Kenya person at the desk again said something about “left, right, left, right …5th floor”. We eventually arrived at the Simba Restaurant (labeled “transit restaurant”), on the 5th floor. The one unalterable rule, that we could glean by observation, was that waiters were not allowed to make eye contact with customers, so getting service or seating was a painful process. We were eventually seated at a table with two Africans. No one came to take our orders. We sat bewildered. Suddenly a cart appeared and a waiter placed a bowl of soup (oxtail I correctly guessed) and a roll in front of me. Nothing for Brad or Dottie. We waited. We waited some more. I ate my soup. Eventually a waiter came over and asked for our voucher. Dottie took over the conversation and said, “Voucher?” She told them the Swiss Air lady had said to come to dinner at the Simba restaurant. Apparently in the exchange, which I couldn’t follow well, there was some discussion of options of paying or a voucher. We got up to go back to Swiss Air to ask for vouchers. It is about ½ mile from the restaurant to the Swiss Air lounge. There are the stairs again, and then a section of fairly steeply slanting hall with vinyl flooring with raised circles on it. We joked that we were slowing down as we trudged up the mountain. The Swiss Air lady said, “no voucher, but you can pay”. Back we headed. Another ½ mile. We go down the inclined hall, past the visa gates, up the stairs, to the elevator to the 5th floor. There is a mob of young Arabic looking Africans. A group of about 8 women enter the elevator. They are then followed by about 12 young men. The elevator holds about 14. The doors never close because the men are hanging out of the doorway. This continues for about 5 minutes. The girls file out of the elevator in a huff. The men were harassing them. The men head to the 5th floor. The elevator returns to the 2d floor, the doors open and there are 12 young men still in the elevator. They exit the elevator. We are now standing in front of an empty elevator with two dozen milling African young adults. I head in, followed by Brad and Dottie. As we head in, the men head in again. Again there are too many people for the doors to close. At this point I am close to loosing my cool. I, and we, are tired, hungry and have been hassled all day. I say there is not enough room for everyone. Dottie and Brad leave and head up the 3 flights of stairs. The doors close and up we go. The men and I get off the elevator. Dottie and Brad arrive. The women arrive on the next elevator. Now a milling mass of queue-challenged humanity is in the hall. We eventually all get seated. All waiters assiduously avoid looking at us. At our table are two ~25-30 year old African men. A drama ensues. One man handed a $100 US bill to the waiter. This begins a set of exchanges where waiters go back and forth, the men talk back and forth with the waiters. There is some exchange about not having change for the large US dollar to Schilling. The men sit. Time passes. Eventually, the men get up and leave. No money has been returned to them. No one stops them leaving. Here is my “just so” story about what was happening. $100 US bills are the most counterfeited currency in the world. I have learned some about this from working with Sunstone that makes anti-counterfeiting particles for the US Mint. My guess is that these guys had counterfeit bills and were trying to pass them. Whether the restaurant knew it or not I have no idea. But the guys left without getting change. So if the money had been real they would have wanted change. That is my story, and I’m sticking to it!
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