An Email Home

I sent this email to my mom about halfway through my Mafia contract:

"You can't believe the day i just had. My Maasai askari (watchman) spotted a fire on the palm-thatched roof of our downstairs kitchen. The jiko (traditional African clay oven) furnace got too hot and set it ablaze. One of my bartenders runs into the upstairs bar with eyes like golfballs and yells "Matt Matt! Danger! Danger!" I was about two beers into the day as I had another American who had come over from Fumba to keep me company and take guests sport fishing. Life moves slow on the Swahili Coast. I didn't like seeing the Swahili guys running. It usually spelled imminent danger. I am already expecting a child floating in the pool or an old lady falling down a flight of stairs. I run to see what the problem is and I see a spot like 4'x4' of the thatched roof on fire. Crisis 101.

I race into the upstairs kitchen and scream "Moto Moto!" at my sous chef ("Fire Fire!"). He grabs a fire extinguisher and races downstairs. I run to the office to see if the other manager is there. He's not. I race back to the scene of the fire and see that the fire extinguisher doesn't work. It is just pissing out about tiny poofs of frustration. I run upstairs for a second one and come down to absolute chaos. Everyone running around like crazy. Some guests are leaving their rooms to see the commotion from above. Other guests are using Champagne buckets of water from the pool to douse the fire. I am trying to deal with disaster management in broken Kiswahili. Staff are climbing on the roof with fire extinguisers. One guy is screaming for Jesus to come to the resort and cursing the fire in the name of Christ. Another one of my guys burned his hand grabbing the furnace. I race to the upstairs kitchen to get him burn jelly and slam into a hanging goat carcass that we butchered an hour before. So now I look like I just walked off a battlefield as my chef whites are covered in goat, charcoal, and water. I finally find a burn jelly in my first aid kit - I think - the label's in Arabic, of course. We got the fire extinguished and still managed to get dinner out on time. But during the course of the meal a coconut landed on a chair next to a guest that would have at the very least knocked her unconscious had it hit her. Every day is crazier than the last."

~M