How wrong are those who frequent Kenya and think that all beach boys are the same! And what do those who reject for party taken the knowledge of people apparently (and also in fact) very different from each other lose.
I, too, in thirty years on the Malindi and Watamu shoreline, have encountered tireless pain in the ass, eternal lazybones, sellers of all sorts of illegalities and so on.
But I also met Anthony Furaha, known as Toiota, and some other handsome characters like him.
That is why I am happy to keep trying, because as the Brazilian poet said, "life is the art of encounter".
My serene awareness yesterday suddenly turned into great sadness when the news of Anthony's death reached me.
I hadn't met him on the beach, he had spontaneously introduced himself to one of the monthly Malindi cleanings we organise. He grew up in the Jacaranda Bay area where he started to work with tourists, especially organizing safaris and transfers, thanks to two Italian friends, Andrea and his daughter Anastasia, he started to keep "his" beach clean.
Those who knew him well didn't just meet Toiota, so called because of that curious unwritten law that every beach operator must have a nickname easily assimilated by Italian tourists, well-known bad chewers of other idioms. Those who wanted to go further and frequented him, appreciated the passion with which he not only carried out his choice, but the resourcefulness with which he activated so many "colleagues" of the beach, sensitized those who work and walk on it, and inevitably came into contact with many tourists who shared with him the respect for African Nature.
Daniele Tiritò, General Manager of Jacaranda and Jumbo Resort, remembers him as follows: "With respect for so many others who pass through our hotels on the beach, Anthony was special. One of the few who, when there was an initiative, you didn't even have to call him, he came first because he already knew it. With him we put the bins in the area, we set an example and he was the first to give it to his people, teaching respect for tourists and not disdaining any work during the off-season, even putting himself to work as a simple labourer to bring home the loaf of bread. A beach boy from another era that we will miss very much".
He was not unique, Toiota, and perhaps not even rare fortunately, but his desire to get busy was supported by the need to make the community in his small village live as well as possible, as he had told me. A sense of responsibility combined with a leader's attitude that was a counterbalance to his posed manners and the smiling humility that struck me from the beginning. So if there were no tourists on safari, he would start cleaning the beach and in the meantime he was "marketing" for the fishermen who catch octopuses, selling them to Watamu and the surrounding area, without almost earning money personally.
I am convinced that even the many beach operators who did not choose his way of acting now mourn and regret it. It would be nice to do something in his memory, something clean, nice, useful. Just the way he was.
Hi rafiki, the earth will welcome you with grace, just as you respected it.