Why slender Kenyan girls make Mombasa tourists crazy

It is Friday around midnight at a popular club in Mtwapa. Revellers dance to the loud reggae music being played by a foul-mouthed deejay with a fake Jamaican accent.

Among them are around 10 odd couples of white old men dancing with young African women. The women go to great lengths to accommodate the acrobatic dancing styles of the old white men who are struggling to dance to the tunes of reggae music legend, Gregory Isaac.

Away from the dance floor, another 10 or so odd couples follow the proceedings. They comprise of both young and old white women leisurely sipping various alcoholic beverages with their companions, young Maasai morans clad in red shukas, who protectively watch over the women the way a lion watches over her cubs.

These scenes are replicated in various entertainment joints across this busy neighbourhood that never goes to sleep. Businesses operate 24 hours here. But it is not only in Mtwapa that you will come across these scenes. It is the same case in most coastal towns, including Malindi and the South Coast region. The locals have become used to these sights. Nobody is bothered anymore.

But what is the mystery, the irresistible attraction that lures white old folk all the way from America and Europe to look for thin women that many Kenyan men would not give as much as a second glance? And why are female mzungu tourists attracted to these  morans when there are so many urbane and educated young men they could pick without breaking a sweat?

“These women are diamonds. They are rare to find at home. Since I came to Mombasa and met this gorgeous woman, I have never regretted. It was a fulfillment of an almost a lifetime yearning or what do you call it - ambition - since my teenage days in the early ‘60s while growing up in Stuggart,” explains 77-year-old Bastian Hummels who arrived in Kenya three years ago, as he points to his companion, 22-year-old Maryanne Kadzo.

The two are inseparable. A minute rarely passes before they touch or fondle each other. They are clearly in love. The old German man says that from personal experience, the women are so romantic and so good in bed that they make octogenarians like him transform into hot-blooded virile young men once more. “I have no words to explain to you how my sexual life has changed ever since I hooked up with Maryanne. When I met her, I was an old stooping man who walked with a cane. I had tried various women back home since my late wife passed on in 1985, but I was not impressed. Look at me now. I am a boy. Many would not recognise me if I went back home. Maryanne is a miracle worker. She has transformed me,” Hummels coos.

He says that apart from being beautiful, his woman is also courteous and patient and does to him things that no German woman would do. She insists on bathing him although he is quite capable of doing this, gives him body massage every morning and does numerous things that we, uuh, cannot share here. Hummel says he is not leaving for home any time soon and when he does, he will be accompanied by Maryanne whom he was planning to officially marry before the end of 2016.

And although he has children back in Germany, he says he has left everything to Maryanne in his will.

Phil Tubman, another white foreigner, left Britain 10 years ago after retiring from a telecommunications company where he worked as an engineer. He hooked up with Njeri who worked as a stripper in club in Malindi and he confesses that since then, he has never looked back.

“Back in Britain, I only encountered fat, flabby women who eat junk food day in, day out. They could barely lift a leg, so don’t even ask me about bedroom matters. The whole experience was horrible. I got redemption when I came to Kenya and found Njeri,” says Phil.

Asked about details of his relationship with Njeri, the Brit said were he to share all the details, he would have to write a book... “or are you ready to interview me for 30 hours?,” he asked cheekily.