Nairobi By Camel

I haven’t tasted roti like that first time. I kept staring at the one shoe, a baby’s shoe, lying half-submerged on the beach. Beside me, fried oil escaped in clouds from underneath the roof, an aluminum sheet balanced across two uneven beams. The packed earth under my feet ran undisturbed to the remains of every lonely house. The first hint of Phang Nga sun warmed my back, a promise of the heat to come.

She was there at the stove, dry hands flattening snails of white batter into thin layered cakes bursting with heat and sweetness. Only later, after scouring the corners of the web with my broken Thai and phrasebook, did I unearth a recipe calling for peanut oil, rice flour, and hours of preparation. My efforts bore a clumsy resemblance to the village original, but I couldn’t crisp the flaking edges of each layer, no matter how I tried. The rhythm of her hands pouring, patting, flipping, scraping mesmerised me, a pace unbroken even as she took my money and I settled on the sun-baked plastic stool.

I wasn’t alone in the café. Two men and a woman sat opposite me, hunched over their individual paper plates, the oil seeping into the table. The wide television screen was showing Star Wars dubbed in Thai and home felt far away. Two hens scrabbled at the ground outside, and an eagle sat tethered to the tree. He held his wings behind his back as his eyes, bright slits, stared at the sea. The deceptive swells, gentle now behind their proper boundary, gave no hint of the destructive wave that swallowed homes and families only a few months earlier. No wonder the village was empty that morning. After the earthquake the night before, no one knew if the sea would rage again.

A soft pressure on my shoulder turned me around. The woman from the other table ran her hand along my arm and led me to their table. One man grunted and heaved himself to another seat and I slid in beside him. The wrinkles around her eyes creased, a familiar expression, and her face reflected the sun. Tearing crispy layers in her fingers cracked and well-lived, she offered me my first taste of roti.