Issah, 32, years old - Shimoni, Kenya

We started navigating from the coral reef to Wasini Island where lunch was waiting for us on a restaurant by the beach.

The Japanese family was sitting in a very composed fashion on the bench by the stern, right in front of me. They were all wearing perfectly fresh outfits, the hair combed, the backs straightened.

They were exceptionally beautiful, all of them. The father, a young man with full lips and a sharp jaw line, the wife, a delicate white orchid, the little boy and girl, in their cute marine numbers.

All the remaining travellers found their spots towards the bow of the boat.

One of the two Canadian girls had managed to lay down across the deck and wedge her foot on the mast. She was sound asleep before the anchor was lifted up.

The waters started to get troubled just few minutes from our departure.

My friend greeted several boat dives with a full volume “Whoooah”.

I told her to shut up, that she was scaring everyone around us.

Two minutes after I asked for a life-vest.

The sea was so bad that the old Dhow was jumping up, down, left and right to the very edge of itself every split second. And all of us with it.

While the German girl started to weep in fear, the Japanese family was still composed, combed and perfectly immobile, scattering around discreet looks of depreciation towards the rest of the panicking travellers. The Canadian girl was still asleep. Her sight made me let a giggle out right before I realize that the boat would have not hold. The waves were so high that the coast was not visible anymore and the Captain had swapped his calm expression for a silent tension that built with every new hit.

I made my friend promising that everything would have been okay. She did.

And few minutes after it was.

We clapped our hands to the Captain. Issah. 

Ashley, 7 years old - Shimoni, Kenya

The waters were slowly getting higher to come back to flat few hundreds meters away from the coral reef.

We threw the anchor and got ready for snorkeling.

Couple of minutes before getting in the water, I’ve chickened-out and decided to stay on the deck, keeping company to the Indian family and the German boy, which, despite is arm tattoo reading CRAZY BOY, was looking at the Ocean in fear, holding a firm grip on the wooden board of the Dhow.

Little by little, after about twenty minutes, few people started to make their way back on the boat. The Australian lady and her daughter Ashley dried off in their towels sitting next to me.

“How long are you guys staying in Kenya for?” I’ve asked.

The lady replied:

“I don’t know”

“Oh, lucky you, big holiday, ha!”

The lady looked at me and adjusted herself more comfortably on the boat.

“I trade my story for a cigarette. Quick, before my husband get back on the boat”

I promptly pulled out a pack of smokes and handle them over to her.

“I cannot leave Kenya” she started.

“My husband and I live here since a long time because of his job. Couple of month ago we were getting everything organized to move back to England for good. Two weeks before our departure I was driving to the local shop. It was very dark and my car hit a guy on a motorbike. I stepped out of the car with the intention to call the ambulance, but all of the sudden, there were lots of locals gathering around us, grabbing the guy on the pavement and throwing him in a car. I tried to protest, asking not to move him until the ambulance was there, but nobody listened to me. He died on the way to the hospital and the police got me in jail for four days”

“And then you went to prison again, for another two days” the little girl intervened.

“Yes, darling, and then they got me back again for another couple of days. Now I’m waiting for the trial, if they find me guilty, and they will, I’ll have to serve ten years in prison”

At that point most of the travellers were back on the boat, but the Australian lady didn’t seem to mind. She kept on talking to me in a lower voice, explaining that the guy that got killed was not wearing an helmet, that the streets are not illuminated at night and that the government took her passport away from her.

“They will find me guilty, I know that. It all comes down to money, I’m already in debts because of this and the only thing that they want is even more money. I’d be ready to pay it off, but there is also the fact that I’m white and they are pulling up the white-person-against-black card. I have to find a way to leave this country”

“What is the prison like in Kenya?”

“You do not want to know”

“It’s hell of a situation”

“Yep”

She paused. Then added: “The guy was not even wearing a helmet”

“Daddy is back” Ashley said.
The Australian lady threw away her cigarette before the husband could see her smoking. 

Charo, 32 years old - Shimoni, Kenya

In January 2015 I took a boat trip with a friend to Wasini island.

We packed a rock-sack with some fresh clothes, a bottle of water, digital camera, sun-screen, a few dollars, and we started our journey in a bus towards the port of Shimoni, about an hour away from Diani Beach.

By the time we arrived to the pier, the bus had picked up along the way a German couple on holiday break and a Japanese family residing in Nairobi.

At the pier, we all boarded a Dhow boat, where more travellers were waiting for us on the benches: two girls and a boy from Canada, a Scottish-Aussie couple with their daughter, an Indian family of five persons. I’ve counted the number of people on the boat: we were nineteen people and four staff members.

We left the port to a tranquil sea, enjoying some beverages, fruits and Kenyan doughnuts that were nicely arranged in colorful plastic baskets on the deck by the crew.

Half an hour of navigation and we were in the open Ocean, eyeing the sea turtles and dolphins that were peeping up from under the waves, snapping photographs and chatting away among us.

One of the sailors approached me to find out whether I was married and how many cows my boyfriend had to pay off to my father for his blessings. His name was Charo.

We discussed for a while about the terms and condition of marriages in our Countries and he explained to me that his plan was to find a permanent job back in his home-town, Malindi, so that he could afford to buy two cows and find a girl to make a family with.

“You speak Italian very well” I said to him.

“A friend of mine teaches me. He goes to Italian classes, come back home and repeats to me what he has learned. I need to find the money to go to the Italian course myself, so that I can get a certificate and find a job in a big hotel in Malindi”

“How much does the Italian course cost?”

“Twenty euros per month. It lasts one year. But then there is another fifty euros to pay for the final test and the certificate”.