We are in the same boat.

The people we sympathise with most because of the evacuation of British nationals from Mombasa are not the hotel operators or the tour company honchos, but the men and women (and, sometimes, children) who make a living from the presence of the pale faces. We definitely did not feel sorry for the British nationals forced to head back to the dark, dreary and forbidding island in the Atlantic prone to prolonged periods of raid and gloom. After all, they were foolhardy enough to perpetuate the myth that Kenya is a sunny place for shady people and there none shadier than the perfidious British.

When we examine the hotel industry in Kenya, there are few surprises. Those that bring in the dollars have the red carpet rolled for them, whether the establishment is in the middle of the Maasai Mara or snuggled somewhere along Accra Road. If you are pale-faced and waving around a wad of greenback, proprietors will bend over backwards to accommodate you. If you are not pale faced but you spend as the pale faces do, proprietors will reluctantly bend to your dollar-backed will. They will not do it with a song in their hearts, but they'll do it all the same. If you have the misfortune of being a member of the mythical Kenyan middle class recently come upon a windfall, proprietors will make every effort to separate you from your mashilingi; they'll pretend to respect you and to be happy with your custom but if a pale face turns up with his dollars, you will discover that not even the Range Rover Sport you drove to that establishment in warrants you any respect or gratitude.

Leading lights in the Kenya hotel industry will argue that this blogger is recalling old news. Native Kenyans (yes! there is a Kenyan proprietor who actually used the word "native") are always welcome in their establishment; they will not be discriminated against simply because they are black or relatively less well off in comparison to the wizened pensioners form Europe. They will highlight the publicity efforts directed at domestic tourists to encourage them to spend in Kenya rather than in Zanzibar or Kampala. They are all full of shit!

There are many exceptions that prove that particularly odious rule. The Porterhouse in Nairobi is an establishment that treats all its patrons with the same degree of disinterest; all it demands is that you settle your bills. But by and large, if the lottery of life blessed you a complexion that tends towards the chocolatey, you will experience the gamut of subtle disrespectful acts when you visit Kenya's hotels and such like. The departing British nationals will take their pounds sterling with them. Lay-offs will ensue. This blogger doesn't care if it finally dawns on the proprietors of the fine dining and lodging establishments in Kenya that the same degree of callous disrespect the have for us is the same degree of disrespect the wazungus have for them and it does not matter how rich they are, or how rich they think they are; so long as their skins tend to the chocolaty, they are just as fucked as we are.