It's About Time

There’s an article in this week’s issue of The East African about how Kenyan hotels are beginning to try to accommodate single women travelling.

For the record, just in case you’re wondering, this is CE … roll the drums please… 2007!

All I can say is, It’s ABOUT TIME!

Around the time I turned thirty, (yes, that would be so way in the past tense that it’s a dot in the horizon), I took a little time off, got on a bus to Mombasa and then a Matatu to Watamu. Just.

And at Watamu, my tribulations began.

First I approach the gate of posh hotel ‘x’ and the watchman stops me in my tracks and demands to know what I want in scowly “Unataka nini?” fashion.

“I want a room in the hotel”, I say, although I’m thinking to myself that it’s really none of his business, his business is to smile and open the gate wide for this potential guest who might be carrying his next salary in her tiny back pocket.

No room, he retorts, gruffly.

My eyebrows peak in ill-disguised exasperation. Is he the receptionist, I want to know.

No, but there are no rooms.

I make to brush past him and dare him lay a finger on me. (Picture slightly-over-five-foot-me, plump into the bargain, threatening going-on-six-foot, significantly more muscled him.)

He orders me to stand where I am – he will check. He goes into this little room and –of course— I follow. He picks up the receiver, dials no number, talks to himself and then turns back and finds me hot on his heel, fuming. Who does he think he is again?

Long story generously sprinkled with creative name-calling and inelegant tantrum-throwing. Short story—I got to the reception, I said my piece, I couldn’t afford their prices, I left. Picture me smarting, watchman gloating. I didn’t care. I had the right to find out for myself.

Eventually, after a great deal of drama which I choose not to go into here, I found myself a decent place to stay at a price I was willing to pay. But the trials of a single woman are far from over.

At the reception, as I sign in:

Guy at the reception: Will your husband be joining you?

Me: No, just me.

Guy: Oh.

Guy creases brow and thinks.

Guy: Who will be paying your bills.

(seriously, he asks me this. Yes
I know this is Watamu, but seriously, he asks me this.)

Me: (trying to be calm. My feet are aching, the rucksack on my
back feels like a sack of potatoes.) Me.

Guy: Oh. (then,) I can give you this room here right next to me so
that when you get lonely, you can come out and talk to me.

(Said, in the most respectful, helpful way possible with no
sexual overtones whatsoever.)

Me(rolling my eyes): No, I want the furthest cottage that you have available, I need to spend some time on my own.

Guy obviously bewildered: Oh.

Me: Sigh

And then I holidayed happily ever after, for the most part. Thankfully.

Then there was the other time a friend and I took a road trip down south. On account of being two women ‘traveling alone’ (if you’re just women, apparently even if you’re ten you’re unaccompanied in certain minds), we suffered constant harassment and received unwelcome overtures from all manner of lowlife masquerading as men. One particular segment of the journey was particularly distressing. We boarded a bus to take us from Harare to Beitbridge. (For those who know Harare, from Mbare Msika, no less, hardcore travellers us, no?)

On the bus, there was this young boy who was clearly tipsy who sat next to us and began to bother us, hands all over the place and that kind of thing. First I told him politely to stop being a nuisance. Then I furrowed my brow and told him again to quit his nonsense. Then I really raised my voice and told him one two three, but still he wouldn't stop. So then I hit him on the head and I told the conductor that he was bothering us and could he please do something about it.

The conductor listened politely, smiled and, to my consternation, walked away. What’s more, the men who were seated around saw my mounting distress by they did absolutely nothing. They just sat there with smiles pasted on their faces and looked pointedly away. I was horrified. None of these men, that is, NOT ONE of these men took our calls for help against this pest seriously. In the end, out of desperation, we alighted at Masvingo and spent the night there. (Which, by the way, provided a few adventures of its own so some good did come out of it.)

Yet another time, more recently, when I spent an Easter weekend at a hotel at the coast, waiters kept stashing me into the dark seedy corners of their restaurants as soon as they established that I was dining alone. They weren’t being mean, they were trying to help me because they assumed I was self-conscious about dining alone. So every evening I would go through the same routine. They’d take me to a corner, we’d get to the corner, I’d say I don’t like this table, they’d say which one would you like, I’d say that one over there, pointing to a table that was right in the middle of the restaurant, they’d ask me if I was sure, I’d patiently respond that I was, and then, if they didn’t lead the way, I’d do the honours and take myself there.

Call me weird, but I do not mind travelling on my own. I think the optimal number of people travelling together is two. Three is ok, but after that, it starts to get complicated at an exponential rate. One, one is good, although I think two is better, depending of course, on which two.

Neither do I mind dining alone. In fact, I quite enjoy it. And it’s not that I lack company. Sometimes, I just want my space, enjoy my own company. Sometimes I want to travel alone. Sometimes I want to dine alone.

The problem is, when you do, everyone and his family and their pet want to poke their nose into your business, at the very least to give you advice about how to improve your life—because it can’t amount to much. That so brings out the GRrr in me.

So the hotel industry in Kenya is finally getting a clue, taking the single woman traveller seriously. Well I suppose incredibly late is still better than never, right? But, of course I'm the perennial cynic. It's not the single women travellers that are drawing the attention, it's their money. Oh well. At least its something, and something is better than nothing.