I left early this morning to go join the gym.
As I passed by the resort I saw my friend Valentina climbing to the top of the reception attic, like a circus tightrope walker, painting the casuarina beams.
"Vale you're crazy! Come down or you'll kill yourself!"
"I can't, I have to finish. Mr. Jasco will be by soon to check and if I don't paint them properly he'll make me do them all over again. And then I have to run down to the beach and paint the whole outside wall. What a bad day!"
Poor Vale, they must be understaffed.
I say goodbye and go straight ahead.
I phone Claudio at Rosada to reserve a table for me and my friends tonight, and he answers me transfixed.
"Claudio are you okay? You're out of breath."
"I'm beat! I've been shoveling seaweed off the beach since 6 a.m. this morning ... and I still have to put one hundred and forty mats on the sunbeds, all by myself!"
"But what happened to your eighty employees? Have they mutinied?"
"You can't understand, this is the end of the world."
What an exaggeration!
I call Mara at the Blue key to see if she'll meet me at the beach later that we'll give my tan a boost, but she replies that she has absolutely no time.
"I have to bake 7 more cakes and polish the china set properly, because Mr. Edison has invited all his relatives here to have tea at five."
"Ha ha, that's a good one! But if you don't even know how to turn on the oven!"
She doesn't answer me and hangs up; maybe she's offended.
Something doesn't make sense to me: my friends are making fun of me. Am I on candid camera?
And while I'm driving to the center I start to look around and what I see makes all my hairs stand up.
Oh my God! It's not possible ...
There are only white people riding boda-bodas, and also driving piki-pikis and tuk tuks!
Some of them I know well: they are builders, hoteliers, restaurateurs of long standing.
There's also Walter, pulling a cart full of pineapples, and Beppe behind him pushing it.
On the street corners I see curvy old blondes with rubber tits selling mangoes and bananas, sitting on the sidewalks breathing in the exhaust fumes. Other white women wander the alleys with large baskets full of fish on their heads.
When I get to the exchange square, I don't see the usual sun-baked and dusty Arabs coming towards me, but there are the three brothers Simone, Alessandro and Giancarlo sitting on the bench, counting money and asking me if I need to change because the euro is strong today.
Ommammamia!
I'm really starting to get anxious.
Something is really wrong.
I immediately phone Angelo at the diving center, who here in Malindi seems to me to be the most sane and solid person and I hope he will give me a rational explanation of what is happening.
"Angelo, have you also seen what's going on in town?"
"No Claudia, I haven't seen anything. I've been loading tanks in the boat since dawn and I've even come up with a hernia! But if I don't hurry up, Mr. Kazungu will come by and kick my ass!"
I'm sweating, was there a revolution last night?
A coup in Malindi that turned things upside down?
I call Robi in Watamu to see if everything is in order there.
"Friend here in Malindi everyone has gone crazy! Is everything okay in your neck of the woods?"
"Claudia I can't answer you: Katana just brought me two hundred sheets to hand wash by noon! I'm in a hurry ..."
"Do you have to wash them all by yourself?"
"No, Gavi and Tony are also coming soon to give me a hand, as soon as they've finished polishing the galana at the restaurant for good."
This is just too much. Toyland is gone: this really is the end of the world.
I'm over the gym and head home.
At the gate there is not the trusty Kamau to open, but Nicola dressed as an askari.
And in the garden his father dressed as a shamba boy pruning the hedges.
I go up to the house and find the house boy Mungo lying on my white sofa smoking a cigarette and ordering me to bring him an ashtray.
Then he points out that I'm late and that there's a mountain of stuff to iron and five piles of dishes to wash.
His nine children are chasing each other around the house and playing at throwing my entire collection of CDs at each other; his wife is wearing my new clothes that he just brought back from Italy and since she is four sizes too big for me, she has already taken them all off.
I am about to faint and decide to run away.
I run down to the beach and there I find not even one beach boy, but hundreds of desperate wazungu like me.
We are all on our knees in the sand with our shiny eyes turned to the sky to invoke the All Father.
"God enlighten us! Give us a sign that you are there and still watch over us!"
The clouds open and we hear his powerful and good voice.
"Tell me children what is troubling you?"
"Lord, what have we done to deserve this tremendous punishment?"
"My guys, I don't understand, explain more."
"We were living the good life here in Malindi, we didn't miss a thing; maybe some of us indulged in a few vices, but we all loved each other so much, really you know? And now we have lost EVERYTHING. This is no longer our life; why have you abandoned us?"
Up there in the blue sky God is having a big laugh.
"My children, I have allowed you to live for so many years in your little earthly paradise. You have basked in the illusion of having achieved an easy omnipotence over your African brothers. Now that's enough guys, I'd say it's their turn to enjoy it a little bit too, right?"
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!" Our heartbreaking scream rises to the sky and is so high-pitched that I jolt awake in my nice big bed, sweaty and agitated.
I spy out of the room and see my house boy washing the windows.
"Mungo dear, are you washing the windows?"
"Yes mama, all Friday washing windows."
It was just a nightmare! A nightmareooooo! And I jump in my underwear like a happy grasshopper all over the house.
Then I threw a thousand shillings into Mungo's hand and said:
"Today you're having a party, take your wife and kids to the beach and for ice cream."
So I look out on the terrace and shout to the others:
"And from tomorrow, a raise for everyone!"