I spent the first half of 2016 thinking about tourism. I was studying agritourism in Nova Scotia for my graduate project, and I was optimistic about the ways agritourism could positively influence sustainable development in rural areas. I am still optimistic about that. But of course tourism, even 'soft' forms of tourism like agritourism, has negative effects as well.
I love traveling. I recently read Pico Iyer's essay on Why We Travel and it really resonated with me. I love these lines: "For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can’t quite speak the language, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with."
There is certainly value in travel, as Iyer so eloquently expresses. There is value in exchange of culture, of discovering a new part of yourself that you did not previously know existed, and of the exchange of cultures that inevitably takes place when you interact with those from a different culture.
But in Diani I became absolutely fed up with travel and tourism. In some ways, I loved it there. It was a beautiful tropical beach. The hostel I stayed at was a dream. I kept my bathing suit on all day and got a tan and my hair was constantly matted and salty from the sea. I met interesting people from all over the world and consumed my weight in seafood. But after a couple days of this, it got real old.
I find it hard to express these ideas, but I will try my best. Many of the people I met at the hostel were young people, travelling solo or with a friend, with no other goal but to travel. Many of them were spending months of their lives doing just that. But I did not like the way their traveling looked. It looked like hanging out with other travelers and drinking and smoking pot and I felt like somehow, they were experiencing a version of Kenya that was not the truth.
And then I realized: I am experiencing a version of the Kenyan Coast that was not the truth. I was experiencing the Coast for only what it could offer me, rather than what it truly was. That is one of the difficulties of tourism, one I explored a little bit in my research: when traveling, you never quite experience the place authentically: you always experience it when a visitor (you) is there.
Much of Diani Beach exists only to cater for people like me, people who stay there for a short time, spend some money, and then leave. And of course this is a big problem. And at times it is quite evident, that this is created somehow to serve me: there are a ton of people in traditional Maasai dress there, even though it is nowhere near to where the Maasai generally live. But I guess white people like me find the Maasai to be interesting, and so people perform that for us.
Also every day as I walked along the shore I would be harassed by so-called "beach boys." Sometimes they would be selling something, but other times they would just talk to me. This was actually super annoying as I preferred a quiet walk on the beach. I later learned that the coast of Kenya is a very popular destination for sex tourism. These beach boys were actually male prostitutes.
As I think of the beach boys, I think that even if I was not trying, I am somehow contributing to the prostitution of Diani. I mean prostitution as a kind of metaphor for what happens in this place, the kind of place where land is so expensive that local people cannot afford to live there, the kind of place where the economy is based around people who do not care about the place nor the residents; we only care about having a good time. It is the kind of place where a group of tourists were a victim of an armed robbery directly outside of our hostel, but who can blame the thieves, really, when their home has been turned into essentially one enormous all-inclusive resort. I doubt these resorts are owned by Kenyans, and yet they are where tourists spend the most money. Like someone being pimped out, these people work hard only to have their money go into someone else's hands.
Diani Beach is one of the most naturally beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. Yet I have a sick feeling when I think about the impact that tourists, people like me, have on that place.
The other thing that I got fed up about was the transience of the hostel. I liked meeting new people and hanging out with people in the pool or at the bar at the hostel. But somehow it seemed like a cheap relationship (the prostitution metaphor continues...). The short-term nature of these relationships, with people always coming and going, ensured that we were able to satisfy the human desire for social contact without actually going through the responsibility of loving others. I had to struggle with the question: How can I love this person while only knowing them for a day or two?
OK. Enough complaining. I spent Christmas on a tropical paradise. I should be grateful. I am grateful. I went snorkelling for the first time on a coral reef and even saw dolphins. I mean, I really enjoyed myself, the whole time I was there. But I guess that's the problem: it's not really a paradise; that is simply what was presented for me, the visitor.
In case you could not tell, I really look forward to going back to work!
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