“Is Lamu safe?” asked many who knew I was attending the Lamu Cultural Festival in November last year in the wake of the unfortunate incidences that gave the foreign media a field day.
Looking at statistics, there’s not a single crime-free day in any city around the world. Unfortunately, hotelss like Lamu make big news for the wrong reasons, even though there is more to celebrate than to mourn about this archipelago, which is home to the thousand-year-old Swahili civilisation.
Our trip starts when we land on Manda Island, which is lined with mangroves in the ocean. The new airport is a marked change from the simple mabati shed that was there before.
There’s no sign of Al-Shaabab, especially with the military on patrol both on land and sea.
But a group of Somalis suspected to be Al-Shaabab drift onto the island a day later and are immediately scooped up by the army while we sail on our mashua (small dhow) following the double mast jahazi race through the Lamu channel competing in the dhow race for the festival.
In 2001 Lamu became a World Heritage Site because of its historical architecture and civilisation.
The old Stone Town of Lamu, which dates almost 1000 years, is a maze of narrow alleys between tall coral houses. Only two people can walk astride, and the donkey has right of way.
Despite that, Lamu town has changed radically in some respects. Taking a few minutes off from the festivities at Mkunguni Square, I climb the stairs into Lamu Fort to see the ‘Memory and Exhibition’ photo exhibition tracing the Asian Muslims of Lamu.
The Stone Town is pretty much as it is today but the streets are busier with people. The simple makuti thatched single story houses on the outskirts are fast disappearing. In hotels are new luxury homes and villas built in the neo-Swahili style.
We check in at Apendalo House, a private holiday villa close to the seafront and the Lamu Fort, because we want to watch the late night entertainment of the festival.
Done with the donkey race on the seafront where riders give their animals named like ‘Jaguar’, and the swimming competition, we stop at Mangrove Restaurant to enjoy a chicken biryani on a special ‘festival’ offer.
Apendalo House is only a 10-minute walk from the restaurant but it takes us the rest of the afternoon to reach it because we stop at the German post office, the first to be opened in East Africa on November 22, 1888, by Clement Denhardt.
This was the year when Witu became a German protectorate after the Sultan of Witu formed allies with them to fend off the rulers of Lamu and Zanzibar.
However, the post office closed on March 3, 1891, after the withdrawal of the German settlement in Witu.
A short stroll through the narrow lanes and we’re at the seafront entering the Lamu Museum with its rich portrayal of the Swahili civilisation dating more than 10 centuries, and the smaller Swahili House museum, which is a typical noble person’s home as it would be in the 18th century.
It’s surreal. Herbert Shroeder, owner of Apendalo, tells me about the hotels. “This is Mkomani where the elite lived,” he says.
Sitting on the upper deck of the three-story long house, it overlooks Manda Island and the channel and, in the fore, the narrow streets and houses of the Stone town.
In Lamu, the call of the muezzin is clockwork. From the house, we watch men in white kanzus pray at the Friday mosque, whose earliest foundations are dated 500AD.
As the evening wears on, we slip into the narrow alleys under the watchful stare of the endemic Lamu cats and onto Mkunguni Square for a night of entertainment.
We’re not disappointed, for the seafront stroll has the Pate group performing the centuries-old Tari ya Ndia in praise of Prophet Muhammed, and groups from other islands and villages giving their best performances in song and dance.
By RUPI MANGAT