I’m just back from a trip to Kenya – my first visit in fifteen years. There’s a common South-East Asian expression that perfectly sums up my impressions of the place: same same but different. So much was familiar, and yet a lot had changed.
The landscapes, from the savannah to the forests to the seaside, were as beautiful as I had remembered, the people were as kind and friendly, the mangoes, matundas and papayas as delicious. The corruption is also as rampant: at every level of society you come across people ready to give or take a bribe to get something. Often it’s something so basic that you can’t begrudge them their effort.
What was different? Security was much more obviously an issue. I recall everyone living behind high walls and heavy gates, but now these barriers are enhanced by electric or barbed wire, and there are extra road barriers in all residential areas. People have also moved to having grilles inside the house, extra layers of steel and padlocks to keep intruders out.
On a more positive note, society was much more mixed than it used to be. Everywhere you go there is evidence of a thriving black middle-class, and this was heartening, even though the extreme poverty of most citizens remains a huge issue.
So it was a trip full of pleasures and provocations. I loved being back, and yet I felt ambivalent about everything I experienced. Lots to think about, lots to write about. Let’s see how much of what I encountered will make it into my next book. In the meantime, I share with you a piece I wrote while in Lamu for Herbert Menzer.
Herbert has built four houses in the village of Shela, on Lamu island. Beautifully constructed, and filled with gorgeous art pieces, these houses capture the essence of traditional Swahili living, but give it an elegant contemporary edge. I was lucky to stay in Fishbone House. I was even luckier that my visit coincided with the first ever Lamu Painters Festival, inaugurated and supported by Herbert. Read on to find out more about this strange, though sublime, event, in which modern art met with an ancient way of life:
www.lamupaintersfestival.org/blog/
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