Life is Full

Chasing a side-scuttling crab down into its hole, Charles pushes his hand beneath the white sand. The endless tunnel confirms that the holes that litter this beach are not individual dwellings, but a network of passageways that criss-cross it like a subway system. Crabs shuttle in and out, moving between the cool dampness of the tunnels and the blazing white heat of the sun like Manhattan commuters in July. I put our cameras and phones inside the stuff sack that I brought and I half bury it. I’ve been told that batteries left out in this sun swell and distort, bubbly acid boiling out of the distended tops and bottoms.
Further up the beach there is a group of boys playing soccer with a bundle of plastic bags tied with string into a ball. Before they swim, they strip off their clothes, revealing the uniform darkness of their bodies; the result of a lifetime of swimming and living on a beach enough their own to make modesty unthinkable.
The beach empties as we get closer to midday; they retreat to shade and electric fans. Kenyans here say that only two things go out in midday: mad dogs and British. I can't deny that it’s true. The novelty of this heat remains precisely because it’s so intolerable. We compensate for the heat by running a slow paced relay between ocean and sand, never really drying off. Once the salt water has evaporated we find ourselves soaked in sweat, salty beads stinging our eyes as they drip down over eyebrows and lashes.
We sit on the bare sand and smoke cigarettes in silence. Charles is off the wagon. I sympathize. Being here installs a low level sort of hedonism that we both acknowledge as irrational. Part of it is being separated from comforts to which we are accustomed and consequently indulging whenever we can. But there is a sense too that the hardships we see magnify our own feelings of vitality and strength; as though the bad things around us indemnify us from the damage to our lungs and hearts that would so bother me at home. Whatever the reason, doing things I enjoy – even at higher risk – seems more important here.
We stare out ahead of us at the fishing boats moored just before the reef. The boats are mango tree trunks, cut inland and burned out to harden and seal the wood. Before dawn, they push out into the sea, furling tall black canvas sails that push them over the waves breaking on the reef. They dive and spear fish on the ocean, returning before midday with their catch. We watch as a group of men and boys come out from the trees that border the beach as the last boat comes in. They hand off the catch and it’s carried up the beach. The men wear shorts and threadbare shirts.
There will come a day when the boys swimming near us will realize that they can no longer swim naked in their ocean. When they can no longer play on the beach in just their skin, but must clothe and work in the deep water. Sitting here in the sun, the silence testament to how little we feel is required of us at this moment, I wonder whether this time, here, belongs to the child or the adult; naked swimming to cool the heat of play or pulling towards the depths, spear in hand. My hope is to build a life where it can be both; a life where I emerge from the dark, cool water with trophies in hand knowing all the while that I would dive regardless of reward. I would dive because the deep clear blue is the game I like the best and the greatest reward the playing itself.
Being here seems a good start.