Island life.
I managed to get myself a seat as people poured into the economy section, filling up the ferry. I allowed myself a moment of calm, taking deep breaths; I’d had the task of walking from thesurprisingly long queue and the work of hurling my heavy handbag and a large beach bag, overstuffed with things that couldn’t be forced into my travel boxes, checked into the baggage hold. The bag didn’t have a zipper, so my beach hat protruding from the opening and changing positions had been its own hassle.
The slight headache I nursed – no doubt owing to the evil duo of cocktails I had last night incelebration of my last night in Mahe after a long day of boat cruising, as well as having towake up early to catch the ferry to the next island on my itinerary, Praslin Island – made the journey quite brutal. The island was a tropical one known for its pristine beaches with their turquoise waters and laid-back island atmosphere. At least from the countless videos I had watched.
I was privileged to have spent the first three days in Seychelles, one of which was my birthday, with a friend I met on the connecting flight in Kenya. Beyond the fact that weimmediately discovered that we had one too many similarities, to such an extent that it was almost scary, we hit it off easily. Her itinerary had been salvation for my vague plans and itwas amazing having company for all my birthday’s partying. Now, for the first time on the trip, I was entirely on my own.
I have often said that I enjoy my own company: that solitude never frightened me, but saying it while tucked away safely in the familiarity of my bedroom was one thing. Living it out in another country in a space big enough to lose me without a trace – Indian ocean on its horizons – was a whole other thing. I, however, found myself quietly looking forward to sitting still with myself.
The ferry soon took off; I was grateful for the moment of calm to steady my breath. I looked around the cabin at the kinds of people that were not sardined in this closed compartment. A woman who sat with her son and had managed to throw up more than once in the first twenty minutes of a trip meant to take an hour and thirty minutes, stared at me blankly. As the ferry bounced atop the heavy, heaving ocean, it dawned on me that I had never been on a ferry ofthis size and definitely not in the deep ocean because as we ventured further into sea, the rising and dropping of each wave caused a pit in my stomach. After fighting with every ounce of willpower in me to avoid requesting a sea sickness bag, for no other reason than me thinking I was too Nigerian to be throwing up publicly like this, I too eventually caved in not just once, but twice. Eddy, the driver who had held me down during my second and third days in Mahe, had arranged a pickup for me at the Praslin Jetty: an elderly Black man whose nameis now lost on me. He was just as warm and spoke with an even stronger Creole (or was itFrench?) intonation. He picked me up in a bus and drove me straight to my lodge, a cozybuilding known as Villa Confort. I always wondered whether the spelling of Confort was a mistake or a deliberate choice.
We arrived at what could be best described as a white house with pillars, tucked into a small garden with a pool right in front of it. Coming from the double beach-and-forest paradise thatwas Villa Chez Batista in Takamaka, Mahe, this was considerably more modest. However, its embrace was immediate. Nobody was there when we arrived, and for the three nights I would spend there, I would see no else one except the superhost, Ketina. When I arrived, she had stepped out and instead left a note with my name written in blue marker with a direction of where I could find the key to my room. When the driver was sure I had settled in, he left meand I began my time alone.
I spent a few hours passing time on my phone and laptop doing whatever, before I started toprepare to head out to the first beach of my itinerary – Côte d’Or Beach. The host had taken her time to show me a map of the environment before I left so I knew which things to cross off the list by reason of distance or cost, and which I certainly had to visit. I had on a transparent white net dress with matching two-piece white bikini. The first inhibition I seemed to have dropped was the shame and body consciousness I have carried with me fortoo long to remember, and this I was grateful for. Of course, the fact that I was in a city where people walked the streets in bikinis made it a lot easier.
Eddy had told me back in Mahe that people in Seychelles seldom married and simply had children instead because most people lived chill, no-care-in-the-world lives. He had also added that given the way the women dressed around town, long-term commitments weredifficult so it was normal for two people to be living together with kids without a need to commit to marriage. When I asked if he was married, he laughed and said he wasn't. "But I have kids too," he added.
On my way to Côte d’Or Beach, I filmed the quiet streets, the students walking home fromschool, and the occasional passing cars. And before getting into the beach, I
asked the driver where I could get lunch and he pointed at La Mer Pizzeria just adjacent theentrance of the beach. It was a quaint takeaway spot that apparently sold much more thanpizza. I asked for a little bit of as much as could fit into my plate: rice, pasta, lentils, chicken, beef, once again paying no attention to the tummy bulge forming beneath my see-through outfit.
For the first time on this trip, I noticed the pace at which I ate and reminded myself to slow down. I wasn't rushing anywhere, neither was the food. And when I finished stuffing myselfwith the food and was now heading to the beach, I reminded myself that it was okay to walkslower too. I took photos of the empty streets before crossing over to where the beach was.The turquoise water immediately soothed me. I walked along the shoreline searching for the perfect abode until I found a black beach chair tucked beneath some trees, occupied by nobody. Perfect.
I sat down almost immediately and emptied my beach bag; my tripod the first to find its footing. Then the poetry book I was reading, Memory of Departure by Ismail Bala, my book, An Escape To Paris for the impending photoshoot, my beach hat, sunscreen, sunshades, lip gloss, a wooden mirror, and the can of Long Island cocktail I had brought from Mahe. Truly, something about the island life invited a temporary death to the sobriety journey I had been on back in Lagos, Nigeria. Interestingly, it was on my last trip to another state, Abia, that I had also done the foolish thing of drinking the way I did in my twenties and I won stupid prizes as a result of it.
I took a moment to collect all that my eyes could see, looking blankly at the blue ocean laid bare before me, listening to the trees rustling behind me, and watching the Seychellois in theirnatural habitat. I had grown weary of paying for my e-SIM when I discovered I was paying exactly four times what my friend, who used another provider, was paying. When I tried to switch to hers, I ran into frustrating snags and decided instead to rely on my hotel's Wifi. I had no internet access either. My pickup had, however, been pre-arranged so there wasnothing to worry about.
I opened my cocktail, then Spotify, and then my pre-downloaded “Trance” playlist which contained about four hours of indie alternative rock songs. The same songs I wrote my book,a travel memoir, to; songs that in many ways, returned me to my home base whenever lifethrew me off balance. A bird perched on my chair as “Where's My Love” by SYML played through my phone speakers, and together we sat in the moment.
When the alcohol started to make its presence known, I set up my phone on the tripod andwent to the side of a tall tree to dance. The two men, who sat on the grass a short distance behind the tree I swayed beneath, were unbothered by my solitary activity. Their indifferencewas a gentle nod that, truly, I was in a space that allowed me to unfurl in all the ways I wanted to. Soon enough, I made my way to the beach and stepped into the water. My inability to swim had never really prevented me from playing in the shallows.
As much as I had earlier reported to my pseudo therapist that the trip, in fact, wasn't fixing thegaps in my post-traumatic mental state, that it appeared my monsters had come on this tripwith me and sat right beside me quietly as they have for the last couple of years, the escape was certainly proving to be a necessary soothing balm for my heart.
The ocean stretched endlessly before me and a handful of boats now settled by the shore. As the sun began its descent, I seemed to have attracted a few eyes. A skinny man walked by to where I stood looking over at the ocean, said hello and told me I was beautiful. His hair,beard, and in many ways his entire person, was altogether scruffy. He spoke with an accent that sat somewhere between broken patois and whatever local Creole variant they used.
He introduced himself as, "Roland... Bushman."
His appearance suddenly made more sense. He said he worked his evenings at a bar justaround the corner and then offered to buy me a beer. Though we could simply sit on the grass instead...if I wanted.
“You know what, I’m just about done here” I said to him and proceeded to put on my beach cover. He walked with me to my spot to pick up the rest of my stuff and took me to the part of grass we were to sit at. I dropped my beach bag on the grass and some birds, one at a time and then all together, perched right in front of us, undeterred – after all, we were in their natural habitat. I thought about how it was clear that they were welcomed here unlike those on my home balcony that flinched at the presence of human form. He stepped away brieflyand came back, handing me a bottle with the name “Eku” inscribed on the paper wrap on it. I had drunk a bottle of Seybrew beer one time while in Mahe, but Eku must have been evenmore indigenous, I thought.
He asked how long I was staying, whether I had come alone, and if I liked Seychelles. I told him I loved nature, so this experience was close to heaven for me. When I told him that I washeaded to La Digue, a smaller island known for its bicycles and granite beaches, the next day,he told me about a family he'd been serving with as an unofficial tour guide and how they had tried to give him too much money the day before.
“They give me 1000 rupees. I say it’s too much. They give me 500. I say I don’t need that kind of money. They say I’m humble. I say I’m just a bush man.”
He spoke about anything, jumping as it were from one thought to the other without caring if they were related, and I contributed my responses as I needed to, watching the birds andstopping only to glance over the environment I was calmly nestled in. He spoke fondly of Praslin, of the sea, of working by the boats, of how people around here didn't concern themselves with much. They worked as much as they rested. There was no need to hurry through life, he said. There was always enough time. “Take life easy.”
When I told him I needed to use the restroom, he pointed to a diner opposite where we sat.And I, unwittingly, stood up leaving all my belongings with him. When I got to the diner, twopeople who were standing outside, of whom I had asked for direction to the restroom, told methat I needed to purchase something first. I agreed and placed an order for tomato-based pasta, and I was told it was going to take some time. The waiter who took my order was young and he had a welcoming smile. I asked him a few questions until he blushed.
As I headed out to let my driver know we would be leaving late because of the food, I wavedat a group of men who catcalled me. When I had spoken to the driver, on my way back, I stopped where the young men were sitting and said hello. They told me their names, and we shook hands. One of the men caught my attention. He was fair-skinned like the rest of them,but with a narrow, chiseled nose and a slim face. There was something arresting about hisface. It felt as though his eyes were peering straight into mine. I thought he could have beencast as an angel or a Greek god. As though noticing how taken aback I was, he looked away and I took that as my cue to turn my attention to the others.
One of the guys asked where I was from and as soon as I said I was Nigerian, another laughed and shot an “I told you so” to the other.
“Where did you think I was from?” I asked, curiously.
“He thought you were Black American, can you imagine?” one said and laughed.
The other one chimed in, “Well you didn’t guess Nigerian either…He thought you were Kenyan.”
“Well, I suppose that’s closer than Black American,” I said and laughed as well. “Yeah, I told him you had that African spice, and I was right.”
I wondered briefly how long they had observed me enough to form and negotiate theirconclusions. The man whose eyes enthralled me remained quiet, smoking a cigarette and only contributing his smile and occasional laughter to the conversation.
They ask where I was off to and I explained that I needed to return to where I was sitting at,over at the garden with Roland…Bushman. They confirmed that they knew him. One, who had introduced himself as David, asked where I was lodged and offered to drop me home if Icancelled my ride and spent some more time with them. I agreed. When I returned to where my driver was to tell him of my decision, he explained that he had cancelled a trip to be with me, so I was going to pay for the return trip anyway. I agreed as well and headed off to Roland who still sat with my belongings. It had gotten darker than when I left. The Bushman continued his stories anyway. Somewhere between his world building, he asked me to checkmy things to be sure everything was intact and I informed him that there was no need becauseI sensed that I could trust him.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes," I responded without hesitation.
After a few more stories, I told him I should go and pick up my food. He nodded and reminded me that my belongings were safe with him. Again, I told him I trusted him, even though there was clearly no reason for me to. I walked back into the restaurant, music still playing from my phone the entire walk. When I returned, the waiter blushed again, and I teased him some more. Instead of one takeout pack, my pasta had been split into two small plastic containers.
"That's an interesting way to pack food," I told him.
"We're out of takeout packs," he replied.
"I suppose it's better this way anyway," I said. "I can eat one now and save the other for later."
He smiled. I paid and left.
On my way back, I didn't know whether it was the lights that drew me in, but instead of walking straight to where I had come from, I wandered off, only catching myself when I hadnow come in the middle of a residential estate that seemed like a maze of sorts. I eventuallybroke into a run when I found the exit gate. It was then that I heard my name. Roland waswaving me over.
I followed him to the front of a nearby bureau de change, where the other men had now gathered. Two more people joined us: a physically impaired man and an older Indian man. As we got talking, they told me they were sailors. They spent their days at sea, then returned tothe beach afterwards to unwind. I laughed and told them how thrilling it was for me to have randomly stumbled upon a group of sailors.
My gaze once again met the one with the chiseled nose. He stared into my eyes as intensely as I stared back into his, yet his contribution to our conversations remained short or non-existent. His smile, however, did not wane. I impulsively asked if he had a girlfriend and thatwas when he flashed the ring on his finger. Ah, of course. He was the first to leave because he had a wife to get home to, but before he drove off, he remembered to share one last smile. The others switched back to French among themselves while I brought out the first pack of my food and ate right there on the concrete slab. It tasted so good that I didn't realize I'dsoiled myself until I was ready to toss the container away. Red pasta on a white net beach cover was impossible to miss.
I used the scarf I had spread on the sand to conceal the stain. When I told the others I'd stained my beach cover hence the scarf, they shrugged.
"How else will we know you enjoyed the food!" one of them said. "You don't need to cover it." "You're in Praslin now."
Life in Praslin was slow and easy, and people didn't concern themselves with much. They simply lived, they explained.
"The people of today, they are blind," Roland started. "Because they're working on the phone. We're working with the boat..."
"If anybody take something wey belong to another, we fight with them. It's not for you."
In a lower tone, now only to my hearing, he said, “Look me... Everybody respect you here.” I thanked him for that… truly.
Then he went on to tell me not to ‘follow’ one of the men in particular but assured me David who was to drop me off, was cool. I thanked him for the advice, even though I didn't think I needed it. "I take you as my sister," he said.
"Thank you," I replied again.
My music continued to play. When Voilà by Barbara Pravi came on, David kept singing "Voilà, voilà," in an exaggerated soprano that sent the entire group into laughter. I too laughedand asked what kind of music he liked.
"All kinds," he said.
Yet he continued to poke fun at every song I played, and somehow that only made us laugh harder.
"Who teach you to be with us like this?" Roland asked. “To sit with strangers… people like us.”
"I don't know," I said. "I've always just been carefree." He shook his head, almost in disbelief, before telling me that he thought it was amazing.
Then he said almost out of nowhere, "Our blood is red, not green." I repeated it. "Interesting... but I don't know what that means."
David smiled and told me it meant just that. Then he added, "You feel the wind, but you don't see the wind." I let him know that I was not sure what that meant either yet neither explainedany further.
Someone else said, "We gon' cross the barrier of life," and they all repeated it. I liked the sound of that so I wrote it down. We gon’ cross the barrier of life. Whatever that meant. I took a photo of our feet. Roland the bushman, barefoot. Me, trying to hide the red stain on mycover. Someone else standing to my right in an old, worn-out pair of Crocs.
I had set out to spend the day alone. Instead, I ended up experiencing the day with strangers whose names I hadn't known a few hours earlier. Perhaps solitude only exists when we close ourselves off. Stay open long enough, and the world begins to introduce itself to you, one stranger at a time.
