Bamburi Beach: Life and Love in a Time of Receding Pandemic and Rising Fascism

We came to Bamburi as a couple for a chance to work, relax and shelter from the COVID-19 pandemic. On the coast of the Indian Ocean north of Mombasa, we could walk along the stretches of yellow sand on the shore in the mornings, as well as along what was left of the mangroves after the erection of a seemingly endless series of enclosure walls; walls whose role had been reduced to futilely ‘securing’ the abandoned resorts that attested to the ruination wrought by the tourist industry. As the tide came in during the afternoons, we could swim in the clear waters of the sea before and after teaching online classes and attending Zoom meetings; classes and meetings whose role had been reduced to futilely ‘securing’ the abandoned hierarchies that attested to the ruination wrought by the ongoing replacement of academics by rightwing media as the preferred propagators of hegemonic discourse.