Ever sat at that massive deck at English Point Marina when the raucous band isn't playing and just stared out across the channel without blinking? Because if you blink you might miss something happening across Mombasa Old Town, aged and elegant like a wealthy weathered old woman, adorned with jewellery, lore and secrets.
There is nothing going to happen across Old Town. Because it's night. The muezzin has already called out the faithful. There is no movement to be seen from the deck. Just lights. Some blinking. And the great invitation of imagination.
I sat at the Deck Bar recently, nursing a post-dinner Fernet-Branca, turned my chair and faced Mombasa Old Town and imagined the lives there. Families living in ancient buildings with shaded verandahs, timber railings and carved balconies.
Courtyards where old men were probably sitting, drinking coffee from small cups as the sound of children spilled out of wooden shutter windows, now open. Men in the streets frying cassava. Teenagers in kanzus wandering aimlessly, looking for what teenagers look for.
Clutches of young girls in buibui walking home, carrying bread or milk, giggling, ignoring the teenagers who are also ignoring them. Forgotten laundry on lines strung across flat rooftops, still in the still warmth of the evening. The smell of cardamom, samosas, coconut rice.
The air at the Deck Bar is warm and occasionally a cool breeze laps at your cheeks. I wondered - rather childishly - why I don't have a friend in Mombasa Old Town. I want a friend in Old Town. Someone who, when I'm in town, I can sit with on a baraza in the evening, drink sweetened coffee with and ask how things are going.
And maybe, I continued engaging this preposterous fantasy, that person was right at this moment sitting around a big tray with their brothers or sisters, wife, cousins, eating rice with their hands. I sighed, drained my drink and went up to bed.
