Lamu

Lamu from a boat

Liz and me in a boat taxi

Since becoming parents, I have done many an overnight with the kids without Rodgers. I have spent some nights away from the kids, with Rodgers. But I have never left them with him overnight. It's not that I didn't want to, I just had no reason to - nowhere to go without them. Until...

My friend said she wanted to take me to Lamu, where she grew up, and we actually put it on the calendar and started planning it. And did it! My very first ladies' getaway for 4 days and 3 nights, and it was everything I dreamed it would be. The boys called me at least twice a day, and Rodgers and I texted pictures back and forth to each other. I did miss them, but the break was extremely welcome!

boats

donkeys hauling sand from the Indian Ocean side of the
island to a construction site in town

We took a bus. It takes about 7 hours from Kilifi. The road is not paved the whole way, but actually the unpaved part of the road is smoother than some of the "paved" part! The bus takes you all the way to Mokowe. Then, you hop on a boat to cross to Lamu Island.

Lamu's biggest industry has been tourism, but recently, that industry has been suffering tremendously. Until two weeks ago, they had been under a 6 pm curfew enforcement. No one wants to go on vacation and be stuck in their hotel room for the night starting at 6 pm. The curfew has now been pushed back to 10 pm.

empty mkokoteni on the seaside road

around 4 o'clock every day, they roll out the mats and play bao

Everyone told me how happy they were to see a tourist in Lamu again. Restaurants have only been keeping the basics stocked so that they don't waste money on ingredients that won't be used. Artisans are selling other things in their shops because there aren't any tourists to buy souvenirs. The economy is really suffering from the lack of tourists. We did our part to stimulate the economy: stayed in a hotel, ate in restaurants, shopped, went to the museum, used boat taxis, and shopped some more.

Lamu is famous for having no cars on the island. The only way to get to the island is by boat. There are no bridges. There is only one road that can accommodate a car, anyway (we saw 2 cars and a tractor using it). The other streets are narrow corridors between buildings. This trait, probably more than anything else, has caused ancient culture to be preserved. They say Mombasa and Zanzibar started much like Lamu, but because they've made way for roads and cars, much of the old culture of the town is lost. Walking the streets of Lamu today is not much different than walking the streets of Lamu 400 years ago. The main differences being that now there are power lines overhead and everyone carries a cell phone. Also, within the main part of town, all of the streets are paved and there is a drainage system in place.

This one's actually not so narrow.

The main method for getting around town is walking. If you have a load, there are mkokotenis (the cart in the picture above), but they don't navigate the streets quite as smoothly as the donkeys. Lamu claims the highest number of donkeys per capita in the world. They use them to transport loads of sand or whatever else they need carried, including themselves! It's not uncommon to see donkeys roaming around unattended when they are off-duty.

off-duty donkeys

donkeys bringing the sand through town
The street wasn't wide enough for us and them, so we hopped
up on someone's front stoop. They all have benches outside
their front doors, where they sit in the evenings.

There are 3 cities on the island, all along the coast. The center of the island is orchards of mangoes and coconuts. You might be able to walk through the orchards to get from one town to the next, but why do that when you can get a boat taxi? This is the fastest mode of transport on the island. My friend's parents live on the outskirts of town, and we were staying in a hotel right in the middle of town. We walked to and from a couple of times, but it is far. Our last visit with them, we were so tired when we left, we just walked to the beach and got a boat taxi to take us back to town center. Much better!

our captain for the time we stayed
We called him any time we needed a ride.

My cultural experiences included: labania (a sort of cardamom praline made in Witu, on the road to Lamu), kahawa tamu (local spiced coffee that has more sugar than coffee in it) mixed with kahawa tungu (unsweetened local coffee, which they didn't think I could handle, but which I had the following day without the tamu mixed in because good gracious! the sugar!), and henna. Also we walked all over town one day, with a guide who pointed out some of the old architectural traits like door carvings and coral facades. He took us to some of the historic homes that have been converted to guest houses and past an old, but still-functioning water well (the kind you draw with a bucket, rope, and pulley).

henna in progress

posing in the street/corridor

Rodgers is a little jealous because this is part of his own country he has never visited. I have an invitation from our friend's parents to bring my family to visit them. The dad actually asked me to bring my family for Christmas this year, which is not possible. Maybe we can try for a family visit to Lamu next year.

the forest

We live fairly close to Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. Our house is on a hill high enough that we can actually see the hills of the forest from our windows. We drive through the forest on our way to Malindi and have been to the coast side, at Mida Creek and Gede Ruins. However, we had never been to the Kenya Forest Service park, which covers most of the inland side of the forest.

There were several things that we wanted to do, but we had a limited time, so we only got to do the nature walk. We will have to go back for the rest!

We started off walking around the reception building and the neighborhood of people living there. We saw the famous, but rare, golden rumped elephant shrew. We saw yellow baboons and Sykes/blue monkeys, both of which we have seen before on our other trips to and through the forest.

taking pictures of the elephant shrew

monkeys - always exciting for Nate and Ben

The nature walk was about 2 km, but Nate and Ben did way better than I anticipated! They both took little breaks, riding on backs or shoulders when they got too tired, and Ben was super grumpy for the last bit. We stopped frequently to experience interesting things.

Our guide showed us useful trees and plants. Some have practical uses, like storing water, and some are just fun!

drumming on mushrooms that grow on a tree

swinging from a vine

Rodgers had to help me get my feet up...

I scraped my leg coming down from there. I hardly noticed it until flies started trying to eat me. I had a big bandaid in the backpack, which covered the scrape well enough, but the flies still kept trying to get to it. How ridiculous and disgusting!

Little B, hanging in there

There are "tree houses," which let you see over the tops of the trees. That is one thing I'd like to go back and do. They also have an elephant preserve and other large game, which we always love to see!

Sabaki River

My parents have been here. My dad could only stay for a week, but my mom stayed a little longer. She just got home yesterday.

To make sure they knew where they were, they got to experience Kilifi water problems (complete with hauling water), getting hassled by traffic police who want someone to buy them a cup of chai, and Mom even went through a 24-hour widespread (seems like it started in western Kenya and spread all the way to the coast) blackout with us. We fed them good food, took them sightseeing a bit, and hung out together a lot.

We took a little excursion the day after they arrived. Dad had read online about a cottage on the Sabaki River. It's supposed to be a good place to see birds, off the main tourist path.

We found the owner's phone number and reserved the cottage: 2 rooms with private bathrooms for $30 (USD). As we were settling in to our rooms, Rodgers sat and talked with the owner (also called Rodgers). As is custom, they asked about each others' names, thus found out who their respective family members are, and determined that the owner of this cottage is (my) Rodgers' uncle!

In the evening, once the sun wasn't so hot, we walked down to the river, near the ocean. We saw some birds and lots of cows.

mural at the entrance

the rooms are on the first floor, the family stays upstairs

on the road

mangrove shoots

flamingos at the ocean were a welcome surprise!

Nate collected tiny crab pincers

trying to watch birds with Grandpa

Then we went back to the cottage for chicken stew and ugali. They don't have electricity, so we went to bed early. 

Rodgers and my dad went back out the following morning, taking a different route, and got to wade through silt up to their knees. It was quite the experience! Since their shoes were no longer wearable, we headed home after breakfast. 

Nyahururu

Just take it one syllable at a time. Nya. Who. Roo. Roo.
Easy.

The real purpose of this trip was to gain insight on registering, starting, and running a children's home in Kenya from our friend who has been doing this for many years. But, I will talk about that on Maisha Kamili's blog later in the week. We have one more job to do first, then I will update. Over here, I am talking about family time and sightseeing.

Nate with some of the nursery school kids at Hope and Victory.

This trip we saw the two tallest mountains in Africa - Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya. Kilimanjaro we saw from the airplane and Kenya we saw from about 20 miles away in Nanyuki. It was cloudy most of the trip, so we didn't see the peak of either.

Clearest shot of Mt Kenya we managed on the cloudy day

Mt Kenya, mostly covered by clouds and rain

We saw and drove across the Great Rift Valley. That was very cool.

the road we took through the valley

I love the cloud/rain in this pic

We went to Lake Nakuru. We saw lots of cool animals, including the black and white rhino. Now we have seen 4 of the Big 5 of Kenya: lion, elephant, buffalo, and rhino. We lack only the leopard.

We stayed at Thomson's Falls, which is lovely, even though the county charges you to get close enough to see the whole thing. The lodge we were staying at let us into the viewing area one morning before the county employees showed up, so we didn't have to pay, but it was a bit too misty for clear pictures.

the full falls from my phone's camera - didn't have the real camera when we snuck down to the viewing area.

We saw coffee and tea plantations and drove through Nyeri, where the president of Kenya is from, and where they have the nicest, smoothest roads in all of Kenya.

a coffee plant

And we crossed the Equator, on land, several times. Of course, we fly over the Equator every time we come to Kenya or go to the US. They poured water into bowls on each side of the Equator to demonstrate the different swirling.

We called the area up there a land "flowing with milk and cabbage." There are lots of dairy cows and lots of cabbage farms. It was interesting to see the difference in the people, farming techniques, and lifestyle there compared with coastal people.

A milk truck, but most milk was transported by donkey and cart

lots of cabbage piled on the side of the road

Ben spent this trip mastering walking. He had taken about a week off from trying to walk, when he was focusing more on communication. After learning several new signs (including blanket, juice, brother), he decided to work on walking again. But my favorite picture of him from the trip, he was crawling.

I just love his face.

Nate loved seeing all the new things. Just 4 months ago, we went on safari to Tsavo East, for our first game drives. In these few months, he suddenly "got" the concept of seeing things out the window of the car. He saw a lot of the animals on our first safari, but this time, he really enjoyed it, looked for animals, and identified them before we told him, for example, "Look, there's a buffalo." And he was equally excited about seeing the mountains and lake. My favorite picture of him from the trip was at the airport in Nairobi, watching airplanes load and unload.

He can't wait to go on an airplane again. Lucky boy - it will take 3 planes to get us from here to Texas in a few months.