Christmas in Malindi 2020

My daughter, Sadie, was denied the right to tell this story publicly – fear of defamation charges, I guess. So I will tell it from my perspective:

A bit of background first – her brother, Terry, had just scraped together 18,000 euros to start his plastic reclamation business on the Kenyan coast, despite the global pandemic, so Sadie took her recent master’s level education in political psychology and went down to help him launch.

Sadie had really thought that Simon was a business genius who also happened to be bi-polar when they got back in touch 15 years after her internship for his famous brother. Simon Wainaina promised to pay $50,000 if he was allowed in as a partner to this exciting eco-friendly business start-up that her brother (Terry) was opening in Malindi, so she invited her old boss to join Terry’s plastic recycling business. 

Flash forward two months to Tuesday the 15th of December: not insignificantly the deadline for Simon’s buy in! I was on my way home from getting my hair done for my trip back to the States for Christmas when I read the text from Terry saying “help Simon has gone insane again”… 

I called one of the ‘kids” in Kenya and heard that Simon had tried to kill Terry – like seriously waving a machete over his head – and had kicked them both out of their home and compound. “but Evie (a friend of Terry’s who had come down from Italy to do some photography work) is in the house” they panicked “and Mariana (their young Kenyan business partner) has her 16-year-old sister in there with them! God I’m so scared, we have nowhere to spend the night”. Simon’s famous musician brother Eric Wainaina had said he may be willing to pay for a hotel for them if they didn’t call the cops. “But we can’t leave those girls. What are we gonna do?” Terry worried.

It was decided that they would stay with their friend Jen – who is an American Psychologist who lives near them in Malindi.

I went to sleep hoping that this would just pass, and that Simon would work through his psychotic episode that night and leave the next morning.

But no!

The landlady for all four of them (Sadie, Terry, Mariana and Simon all lived together in a lovely villa that doubled as a factory) had called the police on Simon sometime early the next morning. This was supposed to mean that all was okay. Then I talked to Mariana and heard that she was still in the house with Simon and the two other girls, but that he was still violently psychotic.

While they got Evie, the German photographer, out of the house and safe to Jen’s house I called Simon. 

He sounded weirdly calm and avoidant of any deep discussion, chatting about Paris – then after a few minutes he told me that he was driving to the police station with these policemen so he handed his phone to them for me to talk to them. I was still under the mindset of getting Simon into a mental hospital so I’m afraid I told the policewoman, with whom he had put me onto the phone, that I didn’t trust the police. She asked why and I said that it was because too many of my friends had been killed by the police. She laughed and said that this was only in the USA (which is NOT true) and that “in Kenya we are all brothers” I said “Salaam Aleichem” to her and she and I discussed that it wasn’t so bad a criminal charge – what had happened – but that Simon just had to leave the house never to return.

They then all went to the police and I thought it was over now.

But no!

Simon Wainaina had stolen everyone’s passports and computers.

Meanwhile the police banished him from Malindi but he continued to send us crazy death threats and hate texts. The man was still clearly crazy and dangerous and had Terry, Sadie and Mariana’s passports and computers.

Evie left the country that day (on a ticket paid for by the business, she took the pictures she had taken) and all the others stayed in an unknown friends’ house (a safe house provided by the landlady’s insurance).

The next morning Simon came by the compound in his car; but nobody would let him inside the compound – luckily the guardien and his wife saw how nasty Simon had become. But he continued his hurling of abuse via text message – particularly to me because the others had blocked him. Luckily, I kept him engaged (from my safe distance in Paris) because when they showed the messages to the police, the police immediately sent a guard to watch the house all the next evening and night. Of course, the police needed backsheesh for this service. They were very friendly and reassuring though.

On Friday morning Simon showed up all bright and early as if nothing had happened. He moved all his stuff from his room – with police supervision (He had been locking all kinds of stuff in his room during his absence – all the valuables that he couldn’t fit in his car, like the wifi box) But Terry et al didn’t go into his locked room. (perhaps it would have been easier if they had just broken into ‘his room’ and put all his stuff out on the street like people do with spurned lovers). But second guessing after the fact doesn’t help anything.

They then went to the police with him and again I thought it was all over.

But NO 

Simon must have bribed the lovely Malindi police – or more probably just promised them huge bribes from Terry and Sadie. Simon was actually let loose with a finger wag, despite his attempts on my son’s live (and the terrorist hostage situation with three young women who were threatened violently all night)! Meanwhile perfectly innocent and innocuous Terry and Sadie were put behind bars! That’s Kenyan Justice for you – I would like to personally thank Mr. Owino of the Malindi tourist police! Good job!!! NOT! I don’t know know how you sleep at night sir. How much did your soul cost mr Wainaina to buy?

I didn’t hear from my kids for the whole next day and couldn’t even reach Mariana (who was pretty traumatized by her night of being held hostage while Simon verbally abused them all – Evie had really thought he would rape and kill each of the women in turn).

So, I got nervous enough to call Terry’s corporate lawyer in Nairobi. By this time it was Friday night of course. Thelma is an old family friend and young woman who was seeing her husband off at the time, for what could be forever. But she helped all she could from Nairobi and was very kind and competent. (in hindsight she was calling the Malindi police trying to bribe them to drop the charges like every normal Kenyan)

Somewhere around suppertime I got a text from Terry saying that they were behind bars, and that their phones were not allowed. “But a friend was helping bail them out.” I told Thelma and she got really upset: thinking – I presume – that she could bail them out for cheaper then this unknown ‘friend’. ‘What charges were they being held for?” I asked Terry “is being kidnapped and having your life threatened a crime in Kenya?” But it turns out that Simon had persuaded the police that Terry was operating under an expired visa. Not true – but he was starting a business on a tourist visa, while he worked with the Kenyan officials to get his work permit. The police were holding their foreign “guests” in hopes of pulling in big backsheesh (very like kidnapping in my books). But luckily T&S’s  ‘friend’ got them out for $400 bail and $100 bribe. This was five minutes before they would have been closed in for the night. All afternoon of course Terry was of course the only one in his well populated prison cell wearing a mask during the covid global pandemic. Sadie was alone in her woman’s cell so she sang to Terry and the other boys in jail.

Their friend really wanted to be mine friend too, after I had sent him $400 in cash he thought he had found a cash cow. Again I thought all was finally over – so I added him to my what’s app account and thought all was over.

Terry, Sadie, Mariana and her sister spent that night quietly in their home… though strangely police spent that night in their compound as well. This time no backsheesh was forthcoming in the morning however.

Still Not Yet over of course!

During our night Terry and Lew decided to hire an expensive Nairobi lawyer (of Simon’s tribe, which matters in Kenya, but a friend of the landlady’s) to hit them back….and to sue Simon for the $2000 that he had borrowed from Sadie over his two months of involvement. Clearly Simon had wanted to take over the company and was trying to steal it from Terry by kicking him out of the house and kidnapping the women folk rather than to just pay what he had promised to pay. Luckily the young Maasai landlady (26 and with a 13 year old daughter – Gladys was the widow of an old Italian man who had clearly bought her the house). She heard Simon refer to her as “his wife” by accident, during his psychotic ramblings. When Simon couldn’t scrape together his ‘buy in lump sum” He must have cracked wide open because he obviously got very violent and insane (So you could say that we were dealing with a lying thief who also happened to have a psychotic break with reality).

On Saturday Lew, Sadie and Terry worked things out with the lawyer so that Sunday was spent scraping money together to pay Benson Barongo – who seemed reasonable, even if he was charging full European prices. Our Kenyan friends were completely flabbergasted to hear how much we were paying this man. I emptied my French savings account but their dad had to come up with much more money. Still then was clearly not the time to hoard money.

Then Monday morning Sadie and Terry went to the police station and spent the day waiting for Benson while he talked behind closed doors to the police and the chief and the chief of police and most everybody else. Meanwhile, since I had called the British embassy on Friday night I hope and trust that our old friends from the commonwealth fulfilled their promise to call the Malindi police station as well. I hope Mr Owino had a lovely chat and got reminded of human rights as a global concept. But I have no idea if they did, and no way to find out.

Monday afternoon, after a night of peace and quiet at their lovely compound (now without police escort) Sadie and Terry each had to give testimony separately back at the police station and it took each of them a long time. Sadie also took this opportunity to file a separate lawsuit demanding the $2000 that Simon had “borrowed from her”. She says she would have let him off the hook for that if the landlady had not forwarded a screenshot showing that Simon was bragging to their Malindi colleagues and partners that T&S were behind bars. He was still working on stealing the business……

They went home late that night with their foreign passports but not their computers or Mariana’s passport.

So it still wasn’t over yet.

December 22^nd, they were back at the police station to get Mariana’s passport, but they didn’t get their computers until New Year’s Eve. And I have irrefutable evidence that the police were using Terry’s computer to be online for a while during that weekend.

The reason the police gave for not returning the stolen property is that it turns out that Simon Wainaina had made up charges of cocaine trafficking that the police had taken seriously enough to hold the computers as evidence (without a permit) for two weeks

Of course the case was thrown out of court on the 5^th of January – so the Malindi police station owes Terry and Sadie Fulton $400….no payback yet Mr Owino or Eric Wainaina for the bail bribes to ‘their friend’ or the hostage situation that they endured.

So I can’t recommend investing on the Kenyan Coast unless you have the full weight of the British Raj or the Italian Mafia behind you. Moral behaviour and expectations will get you nowhere.