Change of fortunes as beach boys now turn to ‘begging’

On a beach in Diani, near the shuttered Tradewinds Beach Hotel in Kwale County, a man was busy persuading us to buy green coconut water, locally knows as ‘Madafu’.

“Njoo nikuuzie, njoo ununue kwa rangi yetu, bei yetu Waafrika,” (Come buy one at a cheaper price, the African price), he says.

On a normal day, the beach is usually crowded, with no one paying any attention to a local visitor. Most of the attention is showered on international tourists, with beach traders intentionally ignoring locals.

This time, only two or three groups of people were swimming and the beach was largely empty, with a few pockets of hawkers selling their wares to the locals.

“One goes for Sh50,” says Ramadhan Hamisi, a beach boy.

Mr Hamisi said the coronavirus had disrupted his.

“I used to sell one madafu at Sh200 to local tourists, but if you are an international one, this could even go up to Sh500.”

But now all that has changed, and he goes home with only about half of what he used to earn.

“In a day, I’d sell up to twenty madafu, but these days I can only manage five to ten and that is only if there are any local tourists around.”

Breadwinner

He is the only breadwinner in his family and his wife and five children depend on him. He said he must go the extra mile, including engaging in fishing, to provide for them.

“I dropped out of school in Class Seven. Then I ventured into the beach. It is not the life I wanted for myself, but this is what I am used to doing,” he says.

He used to make good money before the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic hit beach operators.

All they have now is a life of ‘begging’, hoping that every day they wake up to something new.

“I cannot do any other business, because I did not complete school. This business is what keeps me moving. Business has been so bad since international tourists stopped coming. Yes, we have local tourism, but the reality is they cannot pay the way foreigners do,” he says.

“Please buy one, only one at an affordable price, one goes for Sh200,” says hawker Moses Liakuy.

“I used to sell twenty different types of beads. One would go for Sh1,500.”

The beach operator says business has not picked up.

“I wake up every day, walk along the beach areas, mostly hoping to get clients. I cannot depend on one beach area.”

Help struggling colleagues

Tradewinds Fishermen chairman Suleiman Swaleh said beach operators had to come up with programmes that would help struggling colleagues.

“Most of them have joined fishing activities now since there are no people to sell their goods to. They used to flourish in money during holiday seasons. But we have decided to think out of the box,” Mr Swaleh says.

They fundraise occasionally when one of them is in need, he said.

“The money helps us to send our children to school. We came up with the idea because most of us lack the means to sustain ourselves with the ongoing pandemic.”

Even with local tourists coming, it is less likely that beach operators would accompany them on marine tours.

They say they used to earn Sh3,000 per boat just taking tourists on such excursions.

“We have not yet received the Covid jab. We waited for the county to give us a chance since we play a vital role in tourism, but none of us have been vaccinated, hence this restricts us from accompanying visitors to the reef areas,” Mr Swaleh says.

Other days, they go to local markets and villages to sell their fish.

Supplies low

“Even if we say we depend on the fishing business, supplies are low with hotels lacking visitors. We used to sell 1kg for Sh500 but now it is Sh300. Others staying in cottages used to buy direct from us and go cook for themselves, but the cottages too, are empty these days.”

We followed one beach operator to his next destination, Kongo Beach, still in the Diani area.

Here, he smiled with hope after seeing a few local tourists.

“Buy hats, they are coming at an affordable price, do not miss the chance, they are cheaper now,” he tries to sell to a local.

“I have been doing this business for over twenty years. It has its challenges, but it is what I have been surviving on,” says Mwalimu Kombe.

Some foreign tourists, he said, became close friends with him and they would support him and his family financially. But the pandemic left him on his own, with six children to feed.

“Back then, when we had international tourists coming in, business was booming. Some of them were frequent visitors to the extent they became friends with us. We know the value of people when they are no longer around.”

A few metres from where Mr Kombe stood at Kongo Beach, another beach operator, Salim Abdul, sat.

Idling at the beach

He now works as a fisherman, going into the waters mostly in the morning. He spends the rest of the day idling at the beach, hoping to get one or two local tourists to hire his boat for excursions.

“I have children and a wife, and I also take care of both of my parents. It is better I stay idle here at the beach than stay at home and have nothing to put on the table,” he says.

Just like most beach operators, he only studied up to Class Eight and has no other skills outside beach operations.

Breaking into tears, he narrated how he left home early leaving his wife and children depending on leftover food from the previous night.

“I had skipped a meal the other night so it would be enough for the next day’s lunch.”

Things are not any different for operators in other areas such as Mombasa island, where beaches have been deserted, even by locals.

Bilala Musa, 29, a beach operator in Nyali, said that because business is down, he has had to introduce storage charges for all visitors.

“Earlier, we would depend on money from renting swimming costumes and would offer free storage. Since very few people come to the beach these days, we must charge for everything, including changing costs.”

He said that in Mombasa, even the number of local visitors is down and he blamed security forces, saying that sometimes they show up on the shores and start chasing clients claiming to be enforcing Covid-19 restrictions.

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