Love doesn't work like that
Trip Start
Dec 22, 2011
1
30
129
Trip End
Apr 18, 2012
Watamu, Kenya
Friday, January 13, 2012
After a while, a girl needs to go shopping.
And stuff.
Having heard about the local Mitumba I really needed to go and see for myself. What an Emporium! Extravagant heaps of clothes. On the floor. Everywhere.
As you walk in the door, there is a girl attached to an ancient singer sewing machine on your left, treddling away. And everywhere else just heaps and heaps of clothes, or bales of as yet unsorted clothes. Hmmmn. Tasty!
Scrummaging through the various heaps (Nick staying resolutely and safely outside) I found a couple of things and went into the room at the back (also just full of heaps of clothes) to try them on before going back for a second scrummage.
Epic success. I am now the very proud owner of a pair of black cut offs, a pink pair which maybe do look more like PJs but hey, and a top with hibiscus flowers on it. Tight, but sweet.
The nice man said that came to 650 KS, (about £5) so we paid our money and left.The top was something less than 50p, with which I was dead chuffed.
Next on the list of “must dos” was a massage.There is a place next to the supermarket which does massages and beauty treatments. Yay! Off we set.
The setting was different to what one might expect back home, but then an hours massage here was going to cost about £12, and not £40. I mean, for £12 would one expect to have walls? My young lady was pitch black Priscilla, with the pink toenails, whose hands felt like they were borrowed from the Incredible Hulk, but with more strength. Yikes.
Well, I could still move afterwards, and actually felt de-knotted, so thumbs up for Priscilla!
This young lady is 28, divorced with a 5 year old boy. She said she had found her husband with another lady, *clicking of tongue* and she had not responded well to his suggestion that he should just take a second wife.
“Love does not work like that for me” she concluded.
Exactly so.
Shops in Watamu are generally shacks by the roadside. Either cleverly constructed from old misshapen and 5th hand sheets of corrugated iron and cardboard, or the traditional mud and banana leaf design.Shops with assorted trainers hanging like vines, or shirts, swaying in the breeze, or the traditional African fruit and veg stalls where they stack the produce up on the ground in careful towers. The smell of frying chicken on their open BBQs always a temptation.
There are roadside “cafes” like Mama Mercy's New Blue Dream cafe, hairstyling and barber stalls galore with the whole operation carried out on the edge of the road; a cobbler & general leatherwork shack, piles of coconuts, pineapples or mangoes... and each shack lit at night with a single candle. Everywhere are tuk tuks, bicycles, people walking, children running, and men lounging by the side of the road, busy as busy.
In the centre of the village, there is a supermarket. Ahah! The stock here is variable and unexpected. Yes, we have Hob-Nobs. No, we do not have meat or chicken.. well, not today anyway. Maybe next week?
A visit to the internet hub of the village was called for. Yes, she had computers, an internet connection, a printer, photocopier AND a scanner! We were in business.Looking round there were stacks of the sort of computers, screens, monitors and towers I have not seen for decades. And all the accompanying paraphernalia as well.
Obviously she also sold water, pots and pans and even a kid's sit in electric landrover, amongst other unexpected things.
The village also boasts a lot of different churches, a few enclosed “all inclusive resorts” and a couple of banks, with ATMs outside. It was about a week before the ATM was willing to part with any dosh, though, which is also a normal state of affairs, apparently.
Having “done” our shopping, we tuk-tukked back home and were instantly scooped up to watch the sun go down over Mida creek, so armed with a suitable number of beers and a huge bag of chilli crisps, we headed off.Sitting by the edge of the creek watching the sunset, spotting the birds heading off to roost and the crabs being crabby at our feet, beer was duly downed with vigour (and crisps).The outcome of all this was that no-one felt like facing the fridge back home, so Pili Pan it was for tuna carpaccio, camembert samosas, snapper and other goodies. A great location and engaging staff.
Yet another good day.
(Mitumba is a Swahili term, literally meaning "bundles", used to refer to plastic-wrapped packages of used clothing donated by people in wealthy countries. They call it "dead man's clothes, as to them, obviously no living person would let such treasures go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkdfzC7pKqE a Witness programme explains it all.)
