Modern meets traditional

Lamu, a small island off the north of the Kenyan coast, was one of a handful of Arab/Persian trading ports, operating from the 1400's - first by Arabs, then the Portuguese, and then the Omanis until the take over by the Brits in the late 1830's. The Arabs liked to build their cities off the mainland for the protection it afforded them, and used the ports to ship ivory, precious metals and eventually hundreds of thousand of slaves from the interior. The Arabs and Persians mixed with the locals, Bantu, to create what is today called Swahili culture - Swahili means of the coast from the Arabic sahil. With their religion firmly based in Islam - with a few local twists, the people, language and culture is a mix of Bantu, Arabic, Persian and Indian influences. Interestingly, Swahili the language became the lingua franca for most of East and Central Africa because of the large trade caravans bringing goods to the coast. The colonisers adopted it and developed a Romanised script - which has now replaced the original Arabic one, and it is still spoken today by people as far west as Rwanda.

Its history has a major influence on the layout of the place - the town is built on a narrow strip of the coast facing the channel to the mainland, with building concentrated on the waterfront and then for a short distance back away from the water up the hill. Most of the buildings are several storey high, square, whitewashed buildings, split by wandering, narrow lanes - their width restricting even modern transport to the ever reliable donkey - there are around 3000 wandering about. A number of the older buildings have ornately decorated, carved wooden doors, with detailed inscriptions in Arabic. The cooling sea breeze blows off the aqua marine channel almost every afternoon, moving on the heat of the day. Whilst the population remains predominately black (or Bantu) there are a larger number than on the mainland of very Arabic looking locals, and many women - both light skinned and dark get about in the full veils - only their eyes are visible. Like on the mainland the traders are mainly of Indian descent and they too are predominantly Muslim. There are a number of mosques littered about the town. Add to all this the whales of the call to prayer echoing out across the town, and you can almost imagine yourself in a coastal town in the Mahgreb.

The melange of cultures, and the ready availability of sea food has created a gastronomic culture of its own. In the evening the streets are filled with the smell of street food - mainly goat shish-kebabs roasting on charcoal fires, and a number of small, dingy cafes come alive serving all kinds of delicacies from sea food pilau to sweet green and yellow dahls, all washed down with chai and a chapati.

One evening as I was buying some mendazi - small pakora like balls of fried heaven, I stood next to a fully veiled women - dressed completely in black, with only her eyes showing. I heard her talking and turned around to see her lifting her veil to pop a mendazi in her mouth. The lifting of the veil revealed a mobile phone earpiece, and microphone. For some reason I was completely astonished by the idea that she was chatting away on a mobile phone. Whilst the town does kind of create a lost in time atmosphere, I guess it had never occurred to me that somebody who was forced to (or chose to) dress in such a conservative and old fashioned way would be exploiting the wonders of modern technology.

Maybe Nokia is fuelling a secret revolution, going on under the burka,that nobody knows about !!