Low Season

A man is walking on a paradisiac beach in Kenya, a former British colony, waiting for the chance to get out of there. In the costal, resort-destination Diani, you can end up on the beach if you lose your job - and getting out again is hard. Many of the beach operators will do whatever it takes, to put food on the family table. For Juma the beach is a 50/50 chance. You can meet the woman of your dreams there, and she might fall in love with you and make your life better. Or you can go home empty handed not having sold a single coconut. Juma has been at the beach for 8 years, unlucky. He is still waiting for the one. From the distance, a sole, foreign women appear. He spots her from far away, heading towards her. It is low season, and the beach is empty. The men sit and wait in the shadow nearby the huge, fenced-in hotels with views of the ocean. Most of them, are hungry. She is his girl. He is her man, he tells himself. Or he could be. The woman is also looking for somebody, like a lot of the single, white women who comes here. Juma performs a dream for her. If she is happy with him, he might get to date her, so he is, whatever she wants him to be. Even if that doesn't exist. She tries to grasp him, he keeps slipping out of focus. The woman films him, writes down all she can remember him saying, desperately trying to catch the dream before she wakes up, and she has to go back to reality when her holiday ends. Was any of it real, she keeps asking herself.