Nema

I had just run on the treadmill. My clothes were soaked through. I was weighing my options between a swim in the pool or a cold shower.

I looked to my left and saw Constance and Nema walking down the beach. Constance wore a gold-chain necklace, tight jeans. Her hair was in exquisite and perfectly placed long braids. She had a soft smile on her face, high cheek bones. She carried her small mobile phone in her slender left hand.

Nema was wearing a worn t-shirt that showed the face of a woman who had run for Kenyan Parliament in 2013. The t-shirt was stretched, faded from the Mombasa sun, and Nema’s hair was much like mine, dancing wildly in the humidity. She looked like she had been walking for miles. Her feet were cracked, her legs scratched.

Nema motioned to me, holding an imaginary water bottle in her hand, tossing her head back quickly and pretending to drink. I realized she was motioning for the water bottle I held in my own hand. I had just filled it with delicious, cold, filtered water at the gym. Nema walked toward the rope that separated the luxury resort where I was staying from the public beach where she meandered.

I handed her the water bottle, and her hard facial expression broke into the most glamorous smile.

“Asante (thanks),” she said quietly.

We made acquaintance, and of course, as a foreign object of great interest to the girls, they asked if I wanted to hang out. And of course I did.

I gave Constance my contact and told them to return to the same spot tomorrow.

I had expected to receive a “What’s App” message from Constance if our date was still on, but never did. The next day, I walked outside to relax after conducting an interview in Mombasa. And there she was. Nema was sitting, alone, in the bright sun, near the rope divider, motioning again, fake water bottle in hand. Her hair was dancing even more wildly than yesterday, her face harder, and her legs covered in sand.

As I approached, there it was again, that glamorous smile – perfect white teeth and bright eyes – a different person than the moment before. I asked if she still wanted to hang out, and she said, yes, strongly, affirmatively. So, I took her hand and we ducked under the rope, both of us smiling brightly.

One lone security officer stands post between the public beach and the resort, and I soon saw he was following behind us, quickening his steps to catch up.

“You can’t bring her in here,” he said.

“But this is my Rafiki,” I said, my face hardening like Nema’s. I had been proud to use my favorite of the Swahili words I had learned in Kenya. Rafiki means friend.

The guard started to look stressed.

“She is just a girl,” I responded to his facial expression.

To settle the dispute, he called in his comrades. Three more security officers headed our way.

“I want to take her swimming,” I said.

They smiled, amused by my adventure with the teen, not taking me seriously. So, I then left the negotiations to Nema. After a few minutes of conversation in Swahili, they returned to English.

I was granted public places in the hotel only, and no more ducking ropes. Nema had to come and go from the front entrance where the majority of the security guards are posted. There would be no swimming.

The deal had been brokered.

Nema and I ate dinner together, next to the fake waterfalls falling into a pond covered with lily pads. She stared at her fellow African ladies with full make-up, polished nails, and nannies to watch over their plump and rambunctious children. She listened as a man with whom I shared a taxi from the airport complained insensitively, as he walked by, that the beach here was too dirty for his little girl to build a sandcastle.

“You need to visit South Coast,” he said. “Much cleaner there.”

I showed Nema my iPhone. Her eyes were wide with delight. We opened Spotify, which unleashes the world of music to anyone with access—a new world for Nema. I asked her about her favorite song—“Despacito” by Justin Bieber. She ate her plate of chicken and fries ravenously. We listened to Bieber sing. 

“Turn every situation into heaven…oh yeah…”

For the most part, Nema was quiet and hard, but sometimes she opened up and relaxed. When she did, I learned that she has been in and out school, sometimes with the school fees to go and sometimes not. She loves to play football (soccer). I learned that she never knew her father. Her mom died from cancer when Nema was 11. She lives with her auntie who sells some sort of Swahili food by the road. She has four brothers. Her family is Islamic. She is not interested in boys. One of her brothers builds beds for a living when he can afford the wood. She sleeps on a mat on the floor.

I asked her what happens when she doesn’t have her school fees. She said she “hustles."

The word “hustle” could mean many things, and English is Nema's second language. But somehow I knew: that was the hard look. Maybe "hustling" is how she got back to her spot on the beach the next day. I couldn't be certain. She told me she had taken a Tuk Tuk. In this area, it is quite well known that Tuk Tuk drivers are men, and they are men who accept sex for their services. Thirty percent of teenage girls, here, become pregnant before they become adults, and sex work for many young girls is a way of life.

Now, I am making assumptions, like I am forced to do when I write about my experiences as I travel. But I was not about to ask Nema her full story. We had only just met. I didn’t want her to go there, to break her short-lived smile. I wanted her to love the moment.

I closed out our bill, and I could  hear a sort of desperation in her voice.

“When can I come tomorrow?,” she asked.

I know myself. I’m too soft, too trusting, but I needed her to smile again.

“Same time, 4 pm.”

I sent her home in a taxi with Minnie, a large Kenyan woman, with a nose ring like mine and an infectious laugh. I asked Minnie to pick her up again tomorrow and to bring her back to the same spot.

I slid the door closed to Minnie’s taxi. I slowly waved goodbye. Nema's smile disappeared, but I knew I would see it again tomorrow.

Nema wouldn’t be taking a Tuk Tuk tonight.