by Aamera Jiwaji

G21 Africa Correspondent

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Aamera Jiwaji

NAIROBI, KENYA - I arrive at the Mokowe jetty, weary after a dusty, potholed filled 6-hour trip from Mombasa. The bus smells of the samosas and mandazis that passengers picked up at our stopover in Malindi. I feel like a flat, stale mandazi. My legs are cramped; my face caked with fine, coffee coloured dust; and my skin crusty in the places where my sweat has mixed with the dust.

My ears are pounding with the Taarab music of Juma Bhalo, a favourite amongst the Swahili people at the Coast and I need to stare at the ocean that is fifteen steps away from me for a while before the sound of the waves replaces the beats of Juma Bhalo.

I search the crowds for Gonzi, and see him almost instantly. He is the rare African face amongst Arabs in Lamu. And if his ebony coloured, flat Nduruma face is not enough of a contrast to the Arab conquerors', not to mention his large, protruding nose and crinkly hair, his Americanized T-shirt and trouser attire give him away. Not quite the Arab khanzu*.

Gonzi comes forward, takes my bag and we make our way towards the diesel dhow that will take us from Mokowe to Lamu. The heat is intense, the humidity even worse. The cool sea spray against my face merely makes a pretence at cooling.

20 minutes later we are clambering onto a mussel-encrusted jetty in Lamu. Fear of slipping on the slim parapet edge of the dhow has me clinging to the passenger ahead of me while women my mother's age nimbly trip off the dhow and up the stone steps in seconds.

Gonzi and I walk down the main road, the only road, in Lamu towards the Olympic restaurant. Donkeys are being loaded with kikapus of goods that have just arrived from Mombasa. In minutes I am transformed from a traveller who has just arrived into a resident. I turn around blindly looking for another passenger from the dhow, a face of familiarity to find that they have all disappeared - as have I. Looking out to sea, my gaze is crisscrossed by donkeys who monopolise the entire path. Right outside the entrance to the Olympic restaurant, sharing in the shade offered by the makuti roof, are a group of men inhaling from their hookah pipes, bubbling it through a bowl of ice-cold water.

As-salaam wa leykum, they greet me, Karibu.* I shake my head shyly. They never really expected a Muslim female to join them. It was merely courtesy. In Lamu snapshots of tradition walk by disguised as people.

An old Swahili man in a rust coloured lungi with an Islamic prayer cap, bent to half his height by the bundle of woven straw he is carrying on his back walks by. His arms are lifted, holding the bundle in place. His skin leathery and burnt to a crisp golden brown, the flesh hanging in looped folds. And then as quickly as the image was a personification of the simplicity of life in Lamu, it is gone as a beach boy with dreadlocks, a Bob Marley shirt and a zurba of miraa strolls over.

"Jambo sista. You want some company?"

Gone the image of the man carrying the bundle as he disappears down an unremarkable alley jostling with donkeys, fish guts and flies. Gone, too, the beach boy too as he sees some tanned white skin walk by. The sun glints on the copper medallion around the beach boy's neck as he calls out to the lady and her boyfriend, pointing to his Jahazi dhow which is anchored on the seafront.

The tide, as its hit the cement pier, is flecked with rubbish, not froth. Plastic packets of Omo, matchsticks, cigarette butts, pieces of paper and glass. Children are swimming amongst it all, splashing away the worst of it with their hands, or clambering out momentarily to dive back in further downstream where the rubbish hasn't clogged the waters.

Sojourn I: The resident

From lilac to pink - yellow - blue and then navy. All subdued shades, displayed in the shop window of the sky. Silks. Perfectly suited to the quiet stillness of the hour. Even the buzzing chirp of the insects is not busy or intrusive. They lull the world to sleep as the wind rocks the trees. The same wind that had me holding onto my cap tightly at the seafront; and had whipped the waves into a creamy egg white soufflé has faded to a whisper that is fanning the frills of the coconut trees and the page-like leaves of the mkhungu tree. The stalwart mango tree shadowed in the left corner of my father's shamba barely shows a glimmer of movement.

I sit at the entrance, reluctant to allow the generator to frighten away the silence of dusk. I can hear the ticking of the house lizards as they emerge from their hideouts around the house: picture frames, clocks, ornamental brass plates. The lizards are stark against the white stonewalls. There are no shadows, only illusions of darkness. In front of me are a few pieces of charcoal in a sufuria igniting the leaves and branches of the bitter neem tree that have been placed above them, smoking them into the perfect mosquito repellent. But like all wood fires, if the leaves are too moist the heat of the coals makes the leaves give off a cloudy fume. But when they are a dry and brittle brown the repellent odour escapes the ashes of the leaf, as silvery as a soul.

There is perfect silence. I have been sitting on the front steps watching the gradual fading of light for an hour. And yet when night falls and I can no longer see beyond the mango tree, I am surprised and turn to light the kerosene lamp.

Darkness is difficult to accustom oneself to, even though I know that in lighting a lamp I am making darkness the "other" by shunning it to the edges. I resist the lantern but cannot stop myself from uncovering the glowing stones of charcoal just for the familiar, comforting glow that they offer.

My father's voice emerges from the shadows I have created behind me. He has trained himself to resist the comforting lure that a kerosene light offers in the intense darkness of a Lamu night. The glowing end of his cigarette is the only visible part of him.

Sojourn II: The tourist

In Lamu, once the sun is up there cannot be any reluctance to get out of bed. The windows are open but the thick green net on them prevents any wind from entering. And the mosquito net over the bed becomes stifling, tantalising you with the slight movements of wind that it is experiencing but denying you any coolness.

It is the opening day of the Lamu cultural festival and the seafront is calling me with its fresh breezes. My father tells me it is quite an event. He stays indoors and orders another Tusker. The beer arrives from behind the kitchen counter already poured into a glass. Lamu is an Islamic town and only one hotel has a license to sell alcohol. It is not the one we are at.

Lamu, with its small houses and narrow alleys, fragrant with the lingering udh or audhi perfume, is reminiscent of Mombasa's Old Town and Zanzibar. Like Zanzibar, Lamu has a multitude of mosques. The mosques are simple with a plain stone structure, their walls are cool to the touch even at noon. Five times a day the muezzins' call permeates house, hotel and lodge.

The Lamu cultural festival is about to begin with a swimming competition. A cluster of boys are sitting crouched together like mussels on the older crumbling jetty ready to dive into the sea and swim towards the newer, synthetically walled one.

Kenya's national flag is fluttering along the seafront but its red, black, green and white colours appear oddly garish and gaudy amidst the maroon bougainvillea flowers and golden green palm leaves edging the road. As the swimming competition takes off, officially heralding the opening of Lamu's cultural festival, there are cheers from the onlookers. Some are lined up on the pier. Others (mostly tourists) are cruising the sidelines in a motor boat.

Comments are shared amongst watchers about the swimmers. The lagger in the race is generously excused as being the youngest by one woman in the crowd. She is probably an aunty of his, or a neighbour. This urges another bui-bui clad woman to support her contestant, the leader. He has always been a strong swimmer apparently. Another aunty.

Meanwhile, others continue with their Friday routine undisturbed. But then the donkey race begins and even they are forced to duck into an alley and avoid the main road to the mosque.

The hookah men are still there, in the same pose as yesterday, seemingly unaware that they are sitting on the sidelines of the newest race course. There is the thundering of hooves. People are shouting "Toka njia"* and the main street in Lamu is empty save for the people lined along its sides. Children are crouching behind the palm leaves, hiding, eager not to miss any of the action.

The exclamatory warnings get louder as the sound of hooves reverberates off the surface of the sandy road. And then, all of a sudden, donkeys come around the corner - stomachs rounded, skin taut, ears fluttering in the wind, hooves distended forward, riders hunched in full concentration - Lamu's annual donkey race!

Laggers in this race meet with more humour, especially as one donkey decides not to continue in the race and begins to meander down a particularly small alley, surprising the chickens that were sheltering in it. And then a new entrant to the race is spotted. One rider, close to the front of the race, is suddenly joined by his mount's offspring. The foal, it seems, initially wanted to join the excitement but decided to settle for a drink of mother's milk instead. Needless to say this rider did not complete the race.

The festival resumes after Jumaa prayers with the Jahazi dhow race. On the horizon, these dhows are visible only as tall wooden fingers pointing to the sky, ticking frantically like a pendulum if the dhow is in danger, pointing an accusing finger. Most of the Jahazi dhows boast an identity, personified by the flag flying on their mast. It silently glides in and out on the waves and the wind, fluttering its colours proudly. Its body is graceful and unmarked, smooth, as if the entire boat were carved out of a single tree trunk. Not a single nail mars its smoothness. In the centre of the dhow, a wooden pole holds the patchwork canvas sail aloft.

The diesel motor boats curiously appear half boats without the glory of a flag. Their arrival and departure announced by a silence- shattering engine; their movements through the water sluggish, engineered.

Seeing the two together: one born in nature, swimming; the other adopted.

Departure

I am back on the seafront but gone are the busy images of my arrival. It is velvety dark, the line of the horizon a mere dream separating the expanse of sea and sky. The donkeys are asleep, the streets are quiet and the only light is the glitter of the stars in the sky.

Sitting on a stone bench outside a mosque, I can only see the white shapes of the faithful in their khanzus filing out after Fajr prayers making their way home. It is too dark to see the fish heads and the donkey droppings in the alleys. And the flies have not yet woken up. For the moment, Lamu is perfect. I am waiting for the early dhow to begin loading people and luggage before making its way to Mokowe for the 7:00 bus back to Mombasa.

A few months ago, I had come to Lamu. On my return journey to Mombasa, Tawakal was fully booked and so I clambered aboard Intercity, hoping for the best. Unfortunately I hadn't realised that the monsoons had started and that the Lamu road was worse than usual. I don't mean potholes and muddy bad; I mean a part of the road had been washed out. So buses would ferry passengers to a certain point, around an hour from Mokowe. We got off the bus and walked for ten to fifteen minutes with our luggage, down a narrow, muddy strip that was all that was left of the road.

After the trek, for another mile or so there was no road but a lake of brown, muddy water lined with branches and tree logs. Makeshift canoes were lined up like cruise ships, assisting passengers into them. A canoe was the length of a man of average height, and could fit around 8. Nine including the canoe man. But in an attempt to earn as much fare as possible in ferrying passengers across, 14 of us were being squeezed on. We were sitting so low in the water that one tip and we would all go in.

Raucous warnings of crocodiles were shouted over to us in Swahili - "Chunga Mamba!" - as we glided out of "port". And despite how ridiculous the suggestions were, we all believed it. We were prepared to believe anything. Even crocodiles - in an inland lake created by the monsoons. The boatman maneuvered us around the "crocodile" logs that swam threateningly towards us, and five minutes later (the adrenaline made it seem like at least half an hour), we arrived.

As I sat safe and dry in Tawakal an hour after we had left Mokowe, all these images flashed through my mind. But the monsoons were over, the lake had dried up (taking with it its crocodiles) and a meandering road had been constructed.

Five hours later I reached Mombasa.

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Translation Notes:

1. samosas (Swahili/ Gujrati) - triangular shaped pies stuffed with meat or vegetable fillings and fried in oil. Often accompanied with a cup of tea
2. mandazi (Swahili) - a sweet, triangular shaped snack made of flour and water and fried in oil. Similar to Mahambri (Swahili) but less puffy.
3. khanzu (Arabic/ Swahili) - white gown worn by Muslim men over a pair of trousers, particularly when going to the mosque. Modern khanzus are also worn in pale browns, blues and cream colours.
4. kikapus ((Swahili) - baskets
5. As-salaam wa leykum (Arabic) - Standard Islamic greeting. Reply is Wa leykum salaam.
6. Karibu - (Swahili) Welcome
7. makuti (Swahili) - cross-hatched leaves bound together in a thatch
8. Lungi (Hindi/ Swahili) - the Arab equivalent of a sarong tied around the waist
9. Jambo (Swahili) - Hello
10. zurba of miraa (Swahili) - collection of a few twigs of miraa packed together in a bundle
11. mkhungu (Swahili) - type of tree with large leaves and a red tangy fruit (chewy) which contains a seed that tastes like an almond
12. shamba (Swahili) - farm
13. sufuria (Swahili) - pot
14. The bitter neem tree is called "dawa arbaini" (Swahili), meaning 40 medicines, and is known to help in the healing of acne, eczema and chicken pox.
15. Tusker - legendary Kenyan beer
16. bui-bui (Swahili/ Arabic) - black coverings that Arab women wear.
17. "Toka njia" (Swahili) - get off the road
18. Jumaa (Swahili & Arabic) - Friday
19. Fajr (Arabic) - sunrise
20. "Chunga Mamba!"(Swahili) - careful of the crocodiles.