Lamu Museum

By now, it was our second week-end in Lamu, and we were planning to go to Malindi. Alas, laziness prevailed, and we decided to postpone that to the next week-end. Instead, we figured we could hang around Lamu and act touristy for once. Which is how (most of) this album came along. It was a good week-end, visiting the Lamu museum, and having a lovely lazy afternoon at Whispers cafe (seriously, best desserts in Kenya, and awesome coffee, and amazing food, and and and!). It was also the first time I took pictures in Lamu, and a very good couple of days altogether.

Next time, about Malindi.

Giggly Jamila

As I already mentioned, I only have field notes for a teeny-tiny part of my stay in Lamu – this is the last post including that. Therefore, from this point onward, the posts will be focused on particular topics, as my memory is fading and I cannot recall precisely what I did when (not that it mattered, anyway). That being said, here’s the update for

July 29. In the morning, an older guy who used to be a journalist is visiting Boss. She has to speak very loudly, because he doesn’t hear very well, but one of the coolest things he says refers to a girl who was at the town meeting yesterday. The man asks Boss if the said girl is a Muslim, and Boss replies that she’s not. “But she dresses like a Muslim,” he says. While I do understand that it makes your life easier, as a woman, to be wearing a bui bui and a headscarf when you’re here, I still wouldn’t do it, precisely because of the implications. You wear a bui bui to show that you adhere to a set of values, all the time, every time. You cannot simply wear that on vacation, then go back home and put on your regular clothes. For me, at least, it wouldn’t feel right. And wearing it because you think it makes you look beautiful (when its purpose is precisely to cover you up, not to make you seem hot) is even worse, imo.

Town meeting, the men side

This one goes out to Cristy.

July 25. At 2, there’s a “strategical” Save Lamu meeting, and we tag along to see what’s being discussed. Since we are the first to arrive at the office (d’oh, we were there at 2.15-ish – everybody knows that a meeting called for 2 will start the very earliest at 3), we decide to have a quick shopping session at the market. As we’re heading out, there’s a guy in front of the door. He turns out to be the environmental lawyer we’re working with, who arrived from Cape Town the other day. We introduce ourselves (and, since he’s Italian, he has the honor of being the first person here who knows where I come from), and tell him that the meeting is taking place upstairs, then proceed to go do our shopping.

During the meeting, a number of issues are discussed. For instance, we learn that there was a closed meeting with the prime minister and representatives from Lamu, but that the local people did not have a chance to ask questions. Instead, the politicians simply held their own speeches, in a clear-cut uni-directional type of communication. The same went for the public rally, where people were holding up placards protesting the authorities’ lack of transparency. People were asked to put down these signs, apparently by a member of the local community. As we were later discussing with Boss, “back in the day,” one could burn flags at public rallies. Nowadays, you get your right to free speech, in an enclosed space, 1 mile away from the speakers. In order to trust the system, there must first be a functional system, which is lacking here. Civil society’s involvement and actions are a lot more intense, and for good reasons: on the one hand, there are a lot more issues to address here than in the West, and on the other one, Kenya is a young democracy, so it makes sense that almost everyone here is part of an NGO (some even more than one).

The head of the elders’ council had taken notes regarding the PM’s speech. He apparently said that the Lamu port is a blessing, and that the town will become a metropolis. But the local people disagree with that, and really don’t want the port to end up like the Mombasa one, with more Kikuyu people moving here. Lamu people are not trained to work in harbors, to operate cranes, and so on, so the argument of more employment opportunities does not make sense here. It’s no wonder then that no one clapped about the port at the public rally. On the funny note, the man’s cell phone rings just as he was starting to get heated in his argument about the PM. So, obviously, he proceeds to pick up his phone and have a conversation. True Kenyan!

Also, one of the older women, whom we had met at Bustani a few days ago, and who’s extremely involved with civil society in Lamu, was at the meeting with the PM, and she has a few point about it. Apparently, the guy brought along a food transport, which he justified by saying he’d heard women complain that their men are not strong enough for them at night, because there’s no food. So he wanted to solve that. Now, in what parallel universe this would have been funny, I do not know. But saying such things, especially when in a public position, is despicable – why, oh why, would you do that?

As we sit through the meeting, I can’t help but think about the Harakati office as a “Poiana lui Iocan.” It really seems to be the center of civically-engaged social life in Lamu, a neutral environment where various organizations come together and discuss strategies, but also voice their opinions. Kind of what we hope the radio to achieve, but on a smaller scale.

July 28. Today is the big Town Meeting day – I’m really curious as to how things will turn out. In the morning, one of the guys was supposed to come over with the Swahili translation of the survey, guidelines and background info, but he’s quite late. I want to go to the meeting, so I join Boss, and leave Karen at home to wait for H. First, we go to photocopy the flyers for the meeting. While we are there, S. calls Boss, telling her that the Swahili flyer is also done. Since Boss has to go to the fort, she sends me to pick up the flyer, print it and multiply it. Finding S.’s office and getting the USB stick are my easiest tasks this morning. As I go to the first internet café I see, I learn that their printer is jammed, so they cannot print anything for me. The second place I go to, the printer has no ink…how fun is that? Finally, I reach the third place, and go upstairs.

This place has a working, ink-filled printer, and I ask one of the guys to print the flyer. However, the wireless isn’t working that well, so the guy tries every computer in the location (5 or so in total). The only one that eventually works is one where an older guy was working on some report. He’s nice enough to move aside and let the internet café kid print my flyer. Which of course has suffered some alterations when being switched from one format to the other, so it requires being printed twice – once to see that the text is messed up, and once after I fiddled with it and repaired it (notice the modesty). In the meantime, I make small talk with the older guy, who asks me where I’m from. Surprisingly enough, he knows where Romania is (“Aaah, neighbors! I’m from Turkey!”). He asks me what I’m doing here and I tell him that I’m working with a local NGO. Perfectly nice conversation you’d say, but then my printing is done, and I ask the kid how much I have to pay him. To which older guy replies that he’s gonna pay for it. I politely decline, saying it was a work thing, and that I need to get a receipt for my boss anyway. Of course, he asks me for my e-mail address before I leave.

With the flyer finally done, I go to the photocopy shop, make the copies, cut them, and head to the fort, where Boss was waiting for me. She tells me she’d been trying to reach me, thinking I might have got lost. As if that were possible in Lamu! We fold the flyers, as someone is talking about a so-called “internal colonialism,” referring to the central authorities’ attitude toward the people of Lamu. Then, we go sit on the women’s side (yes, there’s a men and a women side for this meeting) in the fort. There are more men than women, but the rapport seems quite reasonable. Most of the women seem somewhat bored. I then proceed to take pictures, as most of the information that is being presented by the guests is already familiar to me.

When I arrive at the meeting, a professor is speaking about Lamu. He talks about the increase in population, explaining that it is not due to the fact that Lamu people are now having 30 children each. In fact, he says, “Lamu people are migrating to Mombasa,” which makes “inward migration even higher.” He also brings to attention the issue of the environmental impact assessment, suggesting that “there’s a fear inside the government that it will not be positive.” The speaker also fears that in 20-30 years, Lamu will become a museum. “Already,” he says, “tourists come here to look at the buildings, at the donkeys, at boats, at anything but the people,” and this speaks to the relatively negative attitude toward tourism. Demands? That the government recognizes there are IDPs in Lamu, and that they are compensated fairly. That the government looks at who’s been given land in Lamu – 70-80% of the settlement schemes are in favor of outsiders. Moreover, the speaker says, local people are the best able to tell the government about the impact of any development project on the environment. He claims that the Japanese people who came here to conduct a feasibility study for the port were very secretive; “they didn’t even leave their business cards behind,” he says. Why the secrecy? It’s not particularly a brain-teaser: the stakes are high, and the economic benefits for the local people are once again going to be minimal. As M.B. put it, “we are not opposing this (port) project, we just want it to be clean (transparent and environmentally-friendly).”

Cliché shot of footsteps in the sand

July 21. We have a meeting scheduled for the afternoon, and before that we go with J. to the school manager, who is part of the organization we are working for. He gives us a (very) brief overview of the Lamu Town performance. “Our school is always the first in the county…but our county is the last in the country.” Fairly sad, if you ask me, and such a pity. Everyone in Kenya seems to have high hopes from going to school (in Elangata Wuas, all the high-school kids we talked to wanted to become lawyers), but there’s little employment to be found. There’s no comfort in having computer science certificates, if there’s not even electricity in your village, let alone computers. Much like in Romania, the vocational education seems to be looked down upon, and it’s not particularly well thought-out either, so there are a lot of gaps to be filled there.

The school manager asks us to sign in the visitors’ book – I honestly think Kenya may be the main consumer of these things. We’ve been asked to sign them virtually everywhere; from schools to the flower farm…I’m surprised the church didn’t have one, too!

At the meeting, one of the committee members suggests involving the Lamu City Council or the mayor in the radio project. He says that the mayor will be proud of the radio project, and they may decide to help us, for example facilitating the licensing (or even sponsoring it). However, everyone agreed that we should tread carefully, because “when we use politicians, they will also use us,” so it is important to be very clear about these implications.

In regard to sustainability, the topic was left for the next meeting. Although the members agreed that it is important to find methods of self-financing the radio station, they were all very optimistic about this point. “Give us the legs, and we will walk,” they said, implying that once the station is set up, more opportunities will arise. Funding agencies, however, don’t work according to the same mantra, so it will be necessary that we identify credible means for sustainability, if we are to receive any funding to begin with.

July 23. First week-end in Lamu, yay! In the morning we go to the market, and do a bit of shopping, then we come back home and wait for J., as we’re having lunch at her place today. We walk to Kashimiri, a neighboring village, where cats are a lot more shy than in Lamu.

After lunch, we go to Shela, another hour’s walk or so, over sand dunes and through stupid heat. Hint: I don’t particularly like walking in the sun. Anyway, after a maze of little streets in Shela, we finally see the water, and it is gorgeous! There are at most 10 people on the entire strip, the sand is super fine and the water is just the right temperature. It absolutely kills me that I did not being a bathing suit, I literally wanted to hug the ocean. We sit down on a towel and stare into the distance for a while – the only downside is that there are mangroves pretty close by, so you can’t really dwell into the endlessness of the water. But it’s a pretty good view nonetheless. Karen has a short nap (who could blame her?), and I listen to some music: we must seem so funny to J. and her cousins .

From Shela, we walk by the shore till Lamu, and it’s really pleasant, with fewer beach boys than usual and a lot less sun. As soon as we reach Lamu Palace, it starts to rain, just enough to cool us down for a bit. Just as it did the first time we came here.

Beach boys territory

July 19. The first meeting we had with the local organizations went a little less well than expected. The main reason was that one of the older guys who attended was fairly annoying, and quite vocal, so he made le big mess. A good lesson for future meetings – plan ahead. There were 3-4 women at the meeting, but we only heard one of them speaking. When she did, however, she was very eloquent, apparently summing up the whole discussion. Women who are involved in civil society here are extremely strong (dynamite!), because they have to make themselves heard. Looking at her made me think about this whole veil dispute – when ever did covering your hair become equated with being oppressed?  Honestly, I think women here are way better off than the Maasai women, for example. They have a lot less physical work to do (hint: no fetching water from the middle of nowhere, while carrying their kids and herding the cows), which gives them time for education (the woman who talked at the meeting was a nutritionist and also studied political  science), and other than that, I assume they can just do household/ children stuff, which really doesn’t sound that bad. Or maybe I’m just a hopeless optimist.

July 20. Today I went to the bank, trying to figure out the issue with my card (for some reason, I couldn’t take money out of the only ATM on the island). As Boss instructed me, I went straight to the branch manager, who could help me out. He just passed the card through a POS, and gave me a receipt to go to the cashiers. Obviously, his benevolence cost me 300 Ksh, on top of what my bank charges me for currency conversion and for using the card abroad. Oh well, what else was I going to do? I thought it was really cool that the manager asked me for ID – this was the first time I was carded since I came into the country.

On my way back home (Karen didn’t come with me today), I had to endure the beach boys (the bank is by the waterfront) and politely reply to all the locals’ greetings. It’s definitely not as bad as in Morocco, but I do have to say, I miss being in a big city, just able to lose myself in the crowd. Gotta love that Dutch rudeness every now and again – it’s hard to keep your cool when you’re being a sort of attraction. But hey, “wha’cha gonna do?”

After dinner, we went to Petley’s Inn, to meet with Evans and Rineke. On the way there, a guy started talking to us (d’oh!). As until now no one had ever claimed to know where Romania was (my host dad in Kianyaga thought it was in Latin America!), I told him I was from Holland. What did the guy do then? He proceeded to speak to me in Dutch! Luckily, his level was more or less the same as mine, so we kinda got along for a while. Even more lucky, he had to leave soon (not before he wished me “slap lekker!” – and they say only 12-year old girls say that!), and we finally got to Petley’s. The waiter asked Karen whether she wanted ice, and she took a while to decide, so he immediately told us that the ice is safe, and that tourists have never had problems with it. It’s sad that he went straight to that…the reason Karen couldn’t decide was that she thought the ice might make the drink watery, not because she feared getting some sort of disease. Much better than that creepy underground bar in Fes, anyway…

A first glimpse of Lamu Old Town

Since this is the part where I was still hoping I could keep up a field journal, and since I’m an advocate of honesty, I’ll post here some parts of my field notes (the ones I now deem cool enough). Enjoy!

July 16. Today we flew from Nairobi to Lamu. Our flight from Wilson Airport was at 13.45 and we got there around 11.30…we swept past security control without showing any kind of ID (actually, we never showed anyone any ID…we might as well not have had any). We spent the next 2 hours and 45 minutes on some chairs, right in front of the planes that were operating short flights across the country. Awesome!

For the first time, I feel rather embarrassed by the tourists flying in/from here. First of all because they’re loud. Also, they’ve “seen” Kenya in 2 weeks. Oh, how they talk about Kenyan politics, as if the time they spent at a luxurious lodge in the Mara (to and from where they flew) made them experts! I can’t help but think about the presentation we had in Maji Moto, with the pie graph about where the money from tourism goes. Not to the local people, let me tell you.

There are 5 people on our flight, which luckily means that my ginormous backpack won’t bring about extra charges, so yay!

From the airstrip, we got a boat to Lamu island, then the two porters took us to Bustani (garden, in Swahili), the cafe/our apartment/office.

The town is really nice, as we were approaching it from the water, it reminded me of Sulina. Then all the clothes shops, earrings and so on brought Vama Veche to mind. All in the smell of incense and sandalwood, of strong Arabian perfumes that I never thought I could find such comfort in.

This place feels incredibly much like home…a weird mixture of home, but somehow I really like it. Feels safe and familiar.

July 17. We wake up not because of the mosque, but because of them donkeys! They may seem benign, but they can be sooooooooooo loud!

In the morning, we go to the market with our boss’s daughters. Mangos for 10 Ksh (~10 cents) a piece, woot! Before we go, we meet Gloria, the land turtle. She’s 20 years old, and HUGE! She just showed up behind Karen, on the doorstep downstairs. We also have about 5 cats , all of them super-friendly, so we can play with them.

On our way back home from the market, we stop at the corner shop (literally, from our room we can see in it) to buy some water. As we’re waiting for the shop attendant to give us the two watter bottles from the top shelf, a guy comes over and says hello. He asks where we’re from, etc, then asks if we speak Italian. I say I don’t, but I can understand it. He tells me he’s an artist (Picasso), working next door. He then asks me whether I like Bob Marley, and I say I do. Next question is whether I like Bob Marley vegetables.

Now isn’t that the cutest thing?

Lamu main jetty, as seen from the museum balcony.

Lamu is this awesome island off the northern coast of Kenya, where I had the privilege of living for five or so weeks. And no, I did not bribe anyone for that, I was just incredibly lucky. In the following posts, I’ll try to give you an overview of the fun parts of my stay there (that is to say, little work-talk). Just briefly, the main purpose of my internship was to assist a local organization in getting funding for a community radio station. To that end, my partner (Karen) and I had to deal with grant proposal writing, to meet with the local youth, and to create a market-study-like survey, regarding radio programming. Busy bees, we were, but we still had a bit of time to enjoy our time, make some friends, and engage in some touristy activities. But more about that in an upcoming post.

Adorable host in Elangata Wuas

See, my uni has this program, called UCU in Africa (UCU stands for University College Utrecht) – official description can be found here. I applied for this last year in October, got a positive response sometime in November, et voila: my summer was all planned out for me.

Five weeks of field course, covering various locations in Kenya, namely:

Mt. Kenya region – Kianyaga – where we had a week-long homestay with a local family. First encounters with big spiders took place during this part. Also became accustomed to eating rice, beans, rice and beans, learned what chapati is, and had loads of fun riding a piki-piki (motorcycle).

Lake Naivasha region – Lake Elementaita – where we spent two nights or so, in an idyllic landscape, looking at flamingos and becoming familiar with the local Tusker beer (beer for breakfast!).

Maasailand, close to the Maasai Mara – Maji Moto – where the ladies were very happy. There were hot springs there, and we went on a safari, and it was really enjoyable. Oh, and there was some goat-slaughtering involved, which resulted in a delicious dinner. Ba-bam!

Rift Valley – Elangata Wuas. This is where we had our second homestay: two nights in a traditional Maasai home, sleeping in a mud-and-cow-dung hut, with two baby goats. And let me tell you, it was great. Watching the sun set over the plains, or stargazing at our campsite, it doesn’t get much better than this. Also, more goat!

Nairobi. The last week of our field course, we were in the capital, visiting different locations, such as the Jua Kali (literally: under the hot sun) district, or the Viwandani slum. The urban environment was a bit hectic, but we survived it just fine.

Now, you may think these first weeks were all fun and games, but they really weren’t. We had class time, (endless) de-briefing sessions, and a packed schedule every single day. I may, at some point, try and post some of my field notes from the course here, but I ain’t promising nothing. For the time being, the info here should be enough to give you an idea of why I missed some birthdays and was late in replying to e-mails.

I trust you will forgive me.

Until next time, photos of the field course (with relevant comments) can be found here.

See you around!