Lamu Island - Part One, Swahili Culture
While working in East Africa this month I had one part of my schedule (a trip to Dadaab Somali refugee camp) cancelled due to a “heightened Terrorism Alert”. With four days to kill, I shifted from photography to wooden boat mode, and booked a $160 return flight from Nairobi to Lamu, on the Indian ocean.
Dhows at dawn off Lamu Town
In the alleyways of the 800 year old town, eyes calmly watch me, the big Mzungu, through a one inch slit in a black hijab. They are delicately embellished with makeup, which makes me think that there is something both beautiful and forbidden behind the veil. I’m jolted back to reality by the flank of a donkey brushing past, its feet moving ridiculously quickly to achieve such a moderate speed. Aboard is a large man, a kofia on his head, sitting sideways, twitching a long fine stick. As he passes in front of the Lamu fort, it occurs to me that this scene is perhaps unchanged, (barring his tight fitting Arsenal T-shirt) since the building was finished in 1821.
Donkeys and children in the alleyways near the Fort
I first visited Lamu as a small boy in the 1970’s. One of my earliest sailing memories was on a local dhow powering north along Shela beach with the sea breeze behind, the lateen spar set at right angles to the hull. It felt like we were displacing half of the Indian ocean and even as a child, the sensation was intoxicating. I remember being told to dive off the dhow as we passed the point on the beach where we were staying, and feeling excited at the thrill of doing this, but sad to end the journey. I remember kicking a football with some local boys on the beach. They would be sixty-year-old men now.
'Phone addiction is not a "western" phenomena!
It's hardly surprising that in the 80’s and 90’s Lamu became an achievable “exotic” destination for mildly cashed up Europeans. Charter flights would fly into Manda Airport, a ten-minute boat ride from Lamu Town, directly from Rome, London and Berlin. The perfect beaches, the consistent weather, and the ability to dip in and out of what must have seemed like an almost medieval outpost, was too much to resist for hordes of holiday makers feeling unchallenged by Benidorm and Corfu.
Draughts is played, fast and aggressively on street corners but only by men.
The pressure on the physical infrastructure and the cultural systems, became intense, and this was soon recognised, with the declaration of Lamu as a UNESCO world heritage site in 2001. The donkey-wide alley ways and violent, but fascinating Muslim and Colonial history were drowning under a crowd of beer drinking holiday makers looking to windsurf and dance their way through a ten day vacation.
From the UNESCO website-
Lamu Old Town is the oldest and best-preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa, retaining its traditional functions. Built in coral stone and mangrove timber, the town is characterized by the simplicity of structural forms enriched by such features as inner courtyards, verandas, and elaborately carved wooden doors. Lamu has hosted major Muslim religious festivals since the 19th century, and has become a significant centre for the study of Islamic and Swahili cultures.
The architecture of Lamu has employed locally available materials and techniques which are still applied to date. The people of Lamu have managed to maintain age-old traditions reinforcing a sense of belonging and social unity. This is expressed by the layout of the town which includes social spaces such as porches (Daka), town squares and sea front barazas. The town continues to be a significant centre for education in Islamic and Swahili culture.
The authenticity of the Old Town is vulnerable to development and to a lack of adequate infrastructure, that could overwhelm the sensitive and comparatively fragile buildings and urban spaces that together make up the distinctive urban grain of the town.
Ironically, it wasn’t the well-meaning UNESCO declaration that has played the biggest part in preserving the cultural heritage of the town. Instead it has been the ill-meaning actions of a Somali terrorist group called El Shabab. In September 2011 on a small island on the boarder between Lamu and Somalia, a British couple were kidnapped and the husband was killed. You can read the Tebbutt’s tragic story HERE, but the upshot is that this incident, combined with ongoing violent acts against the local population, have seen tourism numbers decline to a trickle. While obviously making it hard for those that depended on the industry for an income, the lack of cashed up visitors has forced the town to reconnect with its origins, rather than merely taking the addictive, instant gratification of the tourist dollar
Its tough love, but perhaps a blessing for the survival of an extraordinary local culture.
Lamu Town waterfront
If you’ve read this far ,you are probably wondering what all this has got to do with wooden boats?
For periods over its 800 year history Lamu had a prominent position and even controlled the Indian Ocean trade. Their knowledge of sea and seafaring vessels is entwined with the living culture of the place.
Dhows, the traditional transport vessels and fishing boats of the East African coast owe their historical roots to the Oman-Persian-Arabic-Indian coastal communities and boatbuilding traditions. The dhow based communities on Islands such as Zanzibar, Pemba and Lamu make up perhaps the most obvious and visible proof of early cultural exchange between South Asia and East Africa.
On Lamu, the values of the Swahili culture are strongly attached to maintaining the traditional knowledge of dhow-building. The preservation of this traditional knowledge relates intensely to the conservation and sustainability of Swahili culture.
The two primary forms of transport on Lamu