It's not enough for us to have lost the queue of the tourist season, to find ourselves side by side with the many Kenyan citizens who depended and depend (as employees) on the hospitality industry which in Malindi and Watamu is largely managed by us Italians, and with their problems.
On the Kenyan coast, to be without work literally means to suffer hunger, to go from a big lunch a day in the workplace and a much more frugal one in one's home/shed/hut, to having neither the main meal nor the money for the frugal one of the whole family. Waiting for the corn harvest to be ready.
It is not enough to collaborate with institutions, to donate food, disinfectants, masks and other things to the population, to raise awareness, reassure and give correct information.
In this period of emergency, all we needed was the help of two compatriots who came to Giancarlo Magalli's TV of pain and indignation, to give us another tap to the sound of fake news and bad faith.
So the desolate but quiet Watamu of these days, the solidarity between Italian and Kenyan residents, the shared hopes, the absence of a single case of Coronavirus in the County for forty days, have been joined by words like "nightmare", "odyssey" and above all by false information, taken from the first ones that happen by virtue of a "viral" video (as it is used today) and without (never) a contradictory one. It had not happened since the post-election chaos twelve years ago.
All it took was one interview without contradictions and the Kenyans became hostile individuals who never liked Italians (good one, Magalli...who wrote it to you?), a statement that is supported by the fact that as soon as a fellow countryman sets foot outside the house (but what house, they are all abandoned hotels where one takes refuge in a state of total despair. ..one wonders why they are not occupied by those who live in huts where in this period it starts raining inside) people turn to him with the disgraceful nickname of "Corona".
We have written and reiterated it several times on our portal, the desire and requests to be able to return to one's own country are legitimate, but in support of this right we cannot invent panzane.
In stating that for the statements made on national television the two Italian tourists guests of the program "I fatti vostri" would be subject to complaint by the authorities and the tourism sector in Kenya and that it was easily verifiable by many people in Watamu that the statements made for the most part do not correspond to the truth (they are not staying in an abandoned resort, but in rented apartments adjacent to the resort, they have simply extended the rent by one month and we know even under favorable conditions, their daily life has not changed after the date of the return ticket).
We also read messages in a chat on March 18th in which, knowing that their flight had been cancelled, they asked for advice and were told, precisely because parents of small children, to buy one of the many Ethiopian flights available in the following days.
But a little so as not to anticipate the end of the holiday, a little hoping maybe for a later re-routing by Kenya Airways, they didn't feel like leaving. These are some of the truths not told on air, then we would have to discuss about those invented or nodded in front of the fantastic Magalli who, besides suspecting dislike of the Kenyans towards us, extracts from the top hat a story of robberies against Italian tourists of which evidently he has news unlike us.
Rai Due's interview is unfortunately a wake-up call, it made us understand what the future trend towards Kenya could be like for other destinations in the world frequented by Italians (but Malindi and Watamu remain in first place, especially after the last two good seasons). We can also understand that from "stay at home" we move on to "stay in Italy", but not that from reality we should definitely move on to lies.