When people talk about Africa they make it sound like the scary Gruffalo from children’s stories. “are you ready for Africa?” friends at home asked me last week with wonder in their voices. “ah yes, that’s just Africa” travellers here quip exchanging experienced nods as they share their stories about delays, break-downs and quick fixes that seem to Western minds either ingenious or insane.
I’m in Kenya in a place called Rusinga Island. Confusingly it’s not an island, but it is on the shores of Lake Victoria and it consists of several small, rural fishing villages that are scattered a few miles between each other, connected by bumpy dirt roads filled with motorbike taxies - or ‘pikki-pikkis’ as they’re called - donkeys and carts, children in school uniforms and people carrying heavy containers on their heads. “This might not look like the road but it is” says Dave, gently pointing out that I’m walking in the middle of it and risk being run over. It’s him who’s brought me here: for the past two years, that I’ve been with Dave, his close ties to a local primary school called Alekii have become well known to all his family and friends. This time Dave has been here for two months already and we have one more to spend here together.
As for me this is my first time in Africa and if I’m honest I’m glad to have some previous travel experience to my name. Not because there’s anything scary about it but it is just so damn different. We spend a day in Nairobi and on first impressions the city feels loud and impatient, with large, ugly birds hovering above it like fatalistic kites in contrasting silence to the busy streets below. The lack of materialistic stuff is more obvious than anywhere I’ve been. On arrival to Rusinga each pikki-pikki has to pay a small bribe to the police, just to get there. When we arrive, the power has been off for days not just from Rusinga but the whole county, and on my first visit to the outhouse a bat flies out of the toilet hole, upset by me peeing on it, hitting me in its panicked exit, making me scream and swear.
But my greatest surprise isn’t Africa, it’s my boyfriend. In two months of distance relationship, while I’ve taken upon myself to enjoy the great British summer for the two of us, my London-loving other half has transformed into a respected and much-loved village brother complete with banter in the local Luo language and a tribal nickname; he’s called Silual which means Brown. Although I have been aware of the affection the people here have for Dave and vice versa, it’s truly touching to see it for myself. Next week I’m looking forward to meeting the toddler David Jackson, who was named after Dave when he first came here two years ago.
Our two different summers meet in the middle in the banda-hut that is our home for the next two weeks; we are staying in a charming eco lodge that has a bed and running water. While Dave welcomes these creature comforts with excitement and happy smiles I find it hard to sleep amidst the cicadas’ night concert; the bed feels hard and on the first night the hot water isn’t actually working. I know I’m being treated like a princess and try to smile at my spoilt thoughts rather than be cross with myself for not adapting straight away. And soon my worries disappear, leaving me feeling happy and calm, like I’ve always been here and the distance between me and Dave was just a snap of fingers. If I encounter another bat I’ll still scream but maybe now after the first shock I’ll shrug my shoulders and nod knowingly: “Ah, that’s Africa.”
