The journey to Lamu island remains an adventure.  Kenyans love to organise a queue so we queue outside terminal 1D at Kenyatta international,  mixing with bewildered looking tourists and resigned East African nationals before being permitted entry where we queue again to scan our bags before standing in a queue at the Jambo airline check-in desks. Then we queue to get through to the security scan – scanning shoes here is still a thing. All shoes. Flipflops, trainers, boots, sandals- no one escapes the shoe police. It’s now 07.30. I haven’t had coffee and miraculously Craig is still breathing. 

It would be fair to describe the domestic terminal as unchanged in the quarter decade when I last sat on the hard plastic chairs.

Thankfully the wee Safari Express coffee shop remains, still serving great tasting coffee, so I slowly emerge into humanness as the Kenyan sun appears, the caffeine hits and Craig, sensibly, remains mute. 

It’s an hour flight in a twin prop plane – a two by two- similar width to Concorde, without any of the razzmatazz . We fly just above cottonwool clouds and I think of Denis Finch Hatton; no wonder he was bewitched, this is a fabulous way to see the vast beauty that is Kenya. 

We are travelling to Lamu at my request. 10 years ago we were in Cape Town for my birthday celebration- now I’m returning to  Peponi’s where I can authentically pretend that I’ve found the halt button to the passage of time. 

The speedboat from Manda across to Lamu jolts me from all these romantic notions. Upon landing and as out suitcases disappear into the verdant hotel greenery, our host offers a welcome aperitif and I find myself agreeing to a gin and tonic. It’s 11am but it’s  5pm somewhere out there.  As the island is 90% Muslim, Peponi’s is one of the few places that serves alcohol so the bar is always busy- no matter the time of day or night.

I’m not alone as Craig also joins our early happy hour and we appreciatively sip while catching our bearings. 

The view across from the new bar is much different from 27 years ago. What was once pristine empty beach and many verdant trees is now full of holiday resorts and private villas. It’s like looking at an upmarket Benidorm circa 1995. I had previously walked Manda beach in private contemplation and solitary sadness however this wouldn’t be possible today, such is progress. 

Some would say progress is allowing the boda-bodas to ply their trade between Lamu old town and Shela, with their irritating beeping and motors roaring. Others would tell you that despite the UNESCO heritage status, the rising modern seafront buildings mark progress. Then again, is progress the increased profusion of Tanzanian styled dhows rather than the traditional narrow Lamu dhow? Or the motorised speedboats which now make charge between Shela and Lamu old town? Progress is the polite word used to describe, “it’s not like it was”. Of course, it’s not. Am I turning into an ‘old duffer’?

We spend a day wandering the old town in the company of a young guide, weaving through the cool narrow streets, the width of a donkey and its load. We climb to the top of the old fort, which the British used as a Maui-Maui prison, and from up here, hidden solar panels soak up the sun juxtapositioned between newly washed sheets billowing in the ever present breeze. I silently watch two women, free of burka and hijab walk across a bridge high up between two familial buildings. Life below moves unknowing. Up here, it’s another dimension.

I return to Lamu old town by myself on two separate occasions- it’s 1500 shillings for a one way trip and on both my journeys, I sit as a queen in my own private water charter. It’s a lovely way to observe life on island where unsurprisingly everything revolves around trade and water. 

As a Muslim island, guests here are asked to respect the culture and for women in particular to cover their shoulders and knees. I come with a suitcase packed full of all my Barbados flowy frocks and apart from a strategically placed scarf to cover any peaking cleavage, I’m able to move without causing offense. Unlike some wealthy white Brits who land at the hotel, loudly proclaim that it’s a known hippy place and then peel off their short frocks to reveal skimpy bikinis underneath. They sit at lunch with all their flesh on display and my inner snob becomes outwardly sniffy. 

Me and my nose stare into the distance and into focus comes island wildlife; the donkeys silently plod along, carrying sand,bricks,water, people.

The Peponi camels take up residence when the changing tides allow, carrying heavy provisions for Shela citizens. Palm trees, laden with coconut fruits sway in the cooling breeze.
Wooden sail boats jostle for trade and pleasure. Honestly, how many more descriptions of tropical paradise can I inspire you with?  

 

The day I’ve tried to ignore appears. For all of the remembering and forgetting, time steals abeyance and here I’m thrown into subdued celebration, on a private, luxurious dhow boat, bobbing in the Indian sea. The straining wood creaks as the prow of the boat carves through the water, the sails snap in the wind, flying fish jump ahead of us. There’s no music, no WiFi. Just the captain, his mate, Craig and me. It’s a perfect day, a perfect birthday.

I still don’t quite know how I got so lucky but somehow I can still be that wide eyed, grateful youngster of those many moons before, particularly when the charcoal appears and they cook the most delicious freshly caught fish – even better than I remembered.

It helps that the captain is married to Bibi, chef par excellence, on Shela. She runs her own cooking school and he shares her method and recipe for the melt-in-the -mouth grouper fish. Craig says he’s going to make it; I’m going to live in hope!

Hours pass, or is it days or years? The bobbing boat is sulpherific – past, present and future merge into the creak of wood, the swish of water, the shine of sun, the jumping fish, the glistening Indian Ocean. We watch bright green-blue crabs scuttle beneath the mangrove tree swamp and the changing tides swallow the land until only the tree tops remain. Twenty years, thirty years, one hundred years- this pattern remains immutable. Time doesn’t change the rhythm of the moon, the winds, the tides. Long before and long again, this is how it was, it is, it will be. This welcome insight provides much needed perspective. 

There is no running from time. No matter where we go to remember. And forget. 

Here’s to the decade ahead.