The stars were bright in Kenya

It was a rational time to leave Kigali. The 19^th commemoration of the genocide was coming up, and the entire country was going into mourning. There was an eerie, dark feeling in the air, as the posters for this year’s commemoration theme “self reliance” sprung up around the city.

Grenade attacks in crowded markets started happening; something that supposedly happens every year - a reminder from genocide perpetrators that survivors are never safe. In the evenings leading up to April 7^th, we would watch military helicopters scanning the hills beyond our house, shining beams of light down and around the city. We didn’t know what they were looking for.

The fear and pain that I come across working with survivors every day was something tangible that now everyone could see and feel.

Work at SURF had been incredibly hectic, and everyone was rushing to get ready for the commemoration week, where our work supporting survivors would become more necessary but also impossible to do, with everyone hiding away to mourn. On the Friday before leaving, I finished two grant proposals for the UK’s Department for International Development and the UN, and felt I had been busy enough to warrant myself a break with three of my friends. We flew out of Rwanda’s tiny international airport the next morning. 

Kenya’s heat was muggy and sticky. The land was flat and arid, lush and green and propped against a turquoise ocean.

If not for the tattered, faded posters on the walls, you wouldn’t know that the election had only just passed. Everyone thought it was going to be a violent disaster. There was some violence, but it was contained to Mombasa around the area we were traveling, and was mostly deemed a success. There was a bombing at a casino a few weeks back, but now everything seemed calm. The tourists and aid workers had slowly started trickling back in. The new president’s inauguration was coming up, and a new government would take its turn.

We knew we weren’t going any further than the beach anyways.

The backpackers hostel in Mombasa was a two-story white house with a pool and garden in the back yard. It was filled with paintings and posters, all things that were random and strange. One was a painting of a man on the beach, lifting the ocean as if it was a blanket with one hand, and holding a rake to move garbage underneath the ocean with the other. Another had a picture of a face with sunglasses used as windows. Kenyan flags and ragged posters hung in doorways - decorations that had obviously been put there decades ago, which nobody ever thought reason to take down.

The bunk beds were creaky and treacherous to climb on. The 3-inch mattress sunk in the middle so that I could feel the wood planks underneath. None of it bothered me. It felt familiar; it reminded me of exploring.

We wandered down cobble stone streets and found hand made leather sandals. At night we drank and laughed, and exchanged stories of countries traveled and places lived among fellow wanderers.

After a few nights we hopped on a tuk tuk and putted our way an hour outside of the city to Diani Beach, where we’d post up for the rest of our trip.

We found a beach bar with couches and from that point on were never more than a few feet from the ocean, a comfy chair and a cold drink. I read my book and let my mind go blank. One afternoon I rode an angry camel that tried to bite me as I leaned in for a picture.

On Lydia’s birthday we went on a mission to find some fish near some ocean. We decided to walk in the direction that we hadn’t been. After a minute we turned a corner and couldn’t see what was behind us or what was before us. It was the type of quiet darkness that you only find in Africa, where all you can see are the stars and the moon and the silhouettes of the trees on either side of the road, guiding your feet. Someone mentioned how bright the stars were and somehow we all started singing,

Stars shining up above you

Night breezes seem to whisper I love you

Birds singing in the sycamore trees

Dream a little dream of me

Much later, we went back to our hut and spent hours throwing peanuts and old limes from gin and tonics to the bush babies and monkeys in the trees. Just as we were getting ready for bed and tucking in our mosquito nets, our house was invaded by the most terrifying spider anyone had ever seen. It was a mix between a scorpion and a spider and was bigger than a tennis ball. It had fangs. I convinced everyone that it was poisonous. It scurried behind a bookshelf, so we tried to drown it out, which didn’t work. We were really just giving it a shower. Eventually my friend Michelle stabbed it with a broom and we were saved. Subsequent Google searches determined that it was in fact, not poisonous.

The next night I was sitting at the beach bar, at the same couch next to the same ocean, watching the sun go down. Our waiter Ken walked by and picked up Michelle’s book on the couch and asked me if he could have it. He said he loved reading. We started talking and somehow it led to the election. His expression turned solemn as he said, “I wasn’t happy with the results. My candidate didn’t win.” He explained that gangs threatened and destabilized this area, so that polls were ineffective and understaffed, and a lot of people couldn’t vote. “Democracy is a luxury we don’t have in Africa.”

I tried to brighten his spirits and highlight the positive aspects of the election. While it wasn’t free of corruption, at least it was relatively peaceful. Democracy is a process; it requires a slow progression of stepping-stones. If there was progress this time, who’s to say there won’t be progress in the next? “Maybe someday soon there will be democracy in Kenya. Maybe one day you’ll actually get the president you want.” He looked at me, as if he appreciated my effort, and slowly shook his head. “Nah. I don’t think so.”

That was all it took. We both knew he was probably right. I promised that I’d try to find him a book and he headed back to the bar to take orders, the crowds were coming and there was beer to be served.  

On our last day in Diani Beach, Lydia tracked down a man with an octopus and had him grill it in a hole dug into the sand. Afterwards I said goodbye to the ocean with much too long of a swim, and the next morning we tuk-tuked it to Mombasa to head back to Rwanda. 

When the plane flew back over Rwanda, I was happy to see the rolling green hills and the iron tin roofs reflecting off of the sun below us. Normally I would be disappointed to be ending a trip, but this time it was sensible and somehow relieving. I am back home, with new energy, and there is work to be done.