A Trip to Lamu, Kenya
A Stone House on Lamu
For centuries, the northeast monsoon wind brought Arab dhows to a string of coral islands lying off the Kenya-Somalia border. Known as the Lamu archipelago, these East African islands became flourishing entrepot ports, attracting merchants across the Indian Ocean from India and the Arabian Gulf. The island town of Lamu grew rich in trade until Portuguese occupation in the early 16th Century diminished its trading position. After liberation by Omani Arabs some 200 years later, the town underwent a renaissance. But by the time the British Empire had its colonial eye on East Africa, the island’s economy had collapsed. Lack of money curtailed further expansion or modernisation, and Lamu became one of the last surviving Swahili towns in East Africa to retain its original character almost entirely.
LEFT TO RIGHT: External stairs lead from the courtyard to the upper floors where the most treasured rooms are located including the woman’s quarters or ndaka; A Swahili mother and her children; From the covered narrow street, high, windowless roughly textured walls give no indication of the treasures that lie within.
Trade and Islam shaped its environment. Today Lamu still reflects this duality. Twenty-two minarets pierce the cloudless blue sky, black-robed veiled figures - women wearing the Muslim buibui - glide along its narrow high-walled alleys and wily-eyed shopkeepers, wearing gleaming-white kofia skull-caps, beckon languidly from shadowy doorways. “Haste, haste: there’s no blessing in it.” is an old Swahili proverb, so it’s no wonder that there are no cars, and dhows or donkeys are the only means of transport around the island.
Although dhows still ride the seasonal monsoon winds, mangrove poles and tourists have replaced the exotic cargoes of yesteryear. Attracted by Lamu’s shimmering beaches and gentle ambience, the ‘Coca-Cola Generation’ has arrived, and groups of sunburned foreigners watch the world go by kwenda pole pole (slowly) from bougainvillea-shaded terraces throughout the town. But not all of Lamu has been surrendered to transient eyes. Hidden in the narrow streets of the old quarter are many fine examples of the island’s architectural Golden Age; the grand Swahili mansions, known as the traditional ‘stone’ houses of Lamu. With crumbling walls, carved stucco niches and courtyards filled with tropical plants, these remnants of Lamu’s past affluence were once home to the wealthy merchants who prospered here during the eighteen hundreds.
The houses were built in traditional Swahili style by local builders or fundis from India, using local building materials - mangrove poles and coral stone - harvested from the archipelago. Designed as inward-looking, with a plan around a central courtyard, with thick undressed coral rag outer walls that kept the interior cool and absorbed noise from outside, the most seductive aspect of these houses, was the contrast between their plain exteriors and their elaborate, almost theatrical interior spaces.
The only exterior decorative element was at the main entrance, where an immense carved wooden door - usually with Koranic inscriptions – was set in a covered porch or daka. This led to a hall known as a tekani that overlooked the courtyard and acted as a transition between the two worlds. The first two ground-floor rooms, known as msana wa tin and msana wa yuu, were long wide parallel spaces designed to form large archways - the width determined by the span of the mangrove ceiling beams - that opened onto a central courtyard or kiwanda. External stairs, usually with carved risers, and handrails decorated in the Swahili colours of maroon, white and black, led from the courtyard to the upper floors where the most treasured rooms were located. More than half the innermost wall surfaces were covered by niches or zidaka, which besides creating a delightful sense of depth and perspective, were used to display precious Chinese porcelain. Carved stucco panels, arched or rectangular of intricate design, were located on the end walls, a frequent motif being a stylised floral pattern in the form of an arabesque framing a central wall niche.
Sleeping quarters were located furthermost from the courtyard. Canopied samadari divans placed in alcoves at each end of the room were made private by draperies - usually hand-woven textiles from India - that were suspended from turned and lacquered rods called mwandi. End-walls repeated the designs of the lower floors. The kitchen area was located on the roof, in a small thatched penthouse or kidari, to avoid cooking smells and the spread of smoke through the house. Throughout the building, wooden doors and doorposts were richly carved. Even the toilets had lavish ceilings, plasterwork and arches. Each house had several bathrooms, with stone cisterns known as birika, fed from outside or their own interior wells. At the bottom of each cistern, a bowl, generally of decorative Chinese porcelain, was set on the floor. A small fish was kept in the bowl of water to prevent mosquito larvae from breeding in it.
These days, peasant families inhabit most of Lamu’s stone houses. Many are in a state of disrepair. A few, however, have been restored by Europeans who use them as holiday retreats. One such house, its interior rarely seen, is owned by a distinguished Italian family with strong historical ties to Kenyan society. Their house displays superb carved stucco walls, lavish ceiling friezes, panelled doorways and wall niches of exquisite design. Rooms are decorated in traditional 18th Century Swahili style with carved furniture inlaid with ebony, ivory and mother-of-pearl. Antiques such as Gujarati rosewood chairs and rattan planter chairs reflect the influence of other Indian Ocean cultures. Indian textiles adorn sleeping alcoves and ornate hanging lamps known as handis illuminate the innermost rooms. The only concession to the 20th Century is a modern bathroom with a cistern that no longer displays a small fish in a porcelain bowl!
A Food of History
During the colonial days, the British tried to enforce the presence of fish in cisterns by conducting periodic inspections. There is a popular story about a man, who was charged with having no fish in his cistern. He appeared before the court with a jug full of opaque water, with a borrowed fish in it. “My fish,” he declared, “is not fulfilling its responsibilities. When the inspector came he couldn’t even be seen.” The bemused magistrate dismissed the case.
Today, Lamu’s fish are most likely to be found deep-fried with a twist of lime on the side. As more and more tourists discover Lamu’s charm, the Kenyan government recognises that controlled tourism could be the answer to its stagnant economy, but at the same time it has initiated a conservation strategy to ensure that what is valuable to the community is protected. Time will tell if the strategy is working, meanwhile, there is a house, hidden in a narrow street in old Stone Town, that is an enchanting reflection of Lamu’s glorious past.
Getting There
Ethiopian and Kenya Airways fly daily from Johannesburg to Nairobi. Lamu can easily be reached by Kenya Airways from Nairobi or on their air taxi service from Malindi to Manda, an island opposite Lamu. The truly adventurous can take a bus - including an armed escort to protect passengers from bandits or shifta - from the coastal resorts of Mombasa and Malindi that travels for two hundred miles north along the Indian Ocean shoreline by way of the jungles and flood plains of the Tana delta, past mango and coconut plantations, through settlements of mud and wattle, to the Kikoni jetty, where a motorboat bus or mtaboti will ferry them from the mainland to Lamu.
CONTACT
Habib’s Tours and Travel Ltd
Tel: 254 220220985 - Nairobi
Tel: 254 722331899 - Nairobi
