Cam gone walkabout

Eric later explained that he did not warn us about Kevin because at the time his cousin had not yet done anything wrong. Eric waited instead until the last possible moment before tragedy, when he rushed out of the bar into the darkened street of some back alley in Kisumu. I followed him outside to find out what was wrong. ‘Can you not see that they are bad people?’ he hissed. ‘We must leave this very instant. Go and fetch Yasmin!’
I felt the sudden weight of the late hour. The sidewalks were crowded with drunks and the homeless. The moon was hidden behind clouds and there were no streetlights to speak of. I realized that I did not know the way back to his uncle’s apartment where we were staying. Eric’s uncle was away on business but the door had been left unlocked and people were always coming and going. When we arrived, there was a young woman breastfeeding at the kitchen table. A Muslim man was sleeping on the couch in his underpants, his white robe folded beneath his skullcap. Kevin was also there.
As I lay under a tattered mosquito net on our first night, Kevin asked me questions about Canada. He showed me a pair of jeans his sister had sent him from the States and asked me if they were a good brand. They were and when I told him so, he smiled. He seemed nice enough but Eric was now hoarsely yelling that Kevin’s own mother had warned him not to speak with her son. Kevin, an alcoholic and associate of the corrupt police force, had been disowned by his family who left him behind when they emigrated to the States.
In retrospect, there were warning signs. When a tuktuk driver tried to extort money from us, Kevin simply whispered something in his ear and he recoiled and fled. I was so glad I had not stopped to wonder why. It was on our second night that Kevin insisted we visit his friend at a bar, a baby faced man named Sunday. I had no idea as we all sat there drinking on empty stomachs, that he and Sunday were openly discussing in their native tongue how best to get rid of me and abduct my friend Yasmin. I did not see Sunday discreetly slip money to the bartender, who then dropped pills from an envelope into our complimentary beers, as yet untouched on the bar top. Eric, sitting next to me, saw this taking place and rushed into the street. ‘Your life is in danger,’ he now pleaded.
I took him at his word. With Sunday in the bathroom and Kevin too drunk to notice, I pulled Yasmin out into the street. ‘We have to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain on the way.’