New New Digs

Three months have come and gone so fast.  When I first got here, that was my target for how long I planned to stay before getting a full-time job and moving on.  Things do not always go as planned.  I don't have a job yet (working on it!), so I had to find a new place to live when my lease ended.  I was lucky to find and even cuter spot.  It is a lot smaller and more "weathered," but I am working the shabby chic look with some of my treasures as decor.  The nice thing about this place is the totally private, huge porch with a nice outside seating area, hammock, and outside bed.  The bed comes seriously in handy during these windless, relentlessly hot November days.  Check out some pictures and get some island jealousy!

Manda Toto

This weekend I enjoyed a dhow trip to Manda Toto, a tiny undeveloped island off of the huge Manda island.  It is a truly beautiful place where you can see your feet even when you are shoulder-deep in water and there is no one to bother you while you swim.  You can swim in the calm bay side, or play in the waves by the open ocean.  It is about an hour away by boat, but you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere.  It also boasts coral reefs so I was able to snorkel for the first time!  We ate fresh fish, shark and crab on the boat, fished, and generally just hung out on a perfect sunny day. Watch me scuba.

 

 

 

 

New Treasures

I mentioned before that I have managed to do a good job of restraining myself when it came to purchasing gifts and souvenirs so far on my trip.  I had a recent lapse.  Now I am here to tell you about it.  Find below an update on treasures:

The Pineapple Box

I love this antique carved jewelry box.  It is made of mahogany in a light-colored stain and features lovely pineapple carvings.   Inside are small removable jewelry compartments.

Qu’ran Stands (big and small)

I got three of these Qu’ran stands, and each one is a serious work of art.  There are two large reddish colored ones, and a small black one that I am going to use to hold my gosho book near my Buddhist altar.  These are great souvenirs because, unlike decorative carved plates and signs, these are actually cherished items that you can find in many homes in Lamu.
Hand-carved Teak Signs

Thee-fer picture! Find the sign, dera, and scarf

Deras

I love a big, loose dera, and I got a great one that is super soft and drags on the floor behind me.  I love it.

Scarves

I like to top all my outfits with scarves, so I buy headscarves and use them to cover my shoulders.  I also got this fun, colorful fringed scarf recently.  I even have a brown scarf with a lace border that is specifically reserved for use to cover my hair at weddings, etc.  I love how the lace part hangs on the back of my head.

Beaded Plate

This style of making tiny holes to insert colored beads is really pretty and typical of Kenyan carving.  It looks like tiny dots of paint, but each point is a tiny glass bead.

Carved plate

These beautiful plates are made of teak and are carved by hand in the old Lamu style.

Clothing Stands/ Incense Diffusers
I have been after one of these for about two months, and now I have two.  These are simple stands with pretty vents in the sides that are used to scent clothing with incense for special occasions.  Simply burn a pot of incense under the stand and place your dress or scarf on top.  I don't have a picture, so imagine a "Wet floor" sign made of wood with decorative vents carved in the side.

Hangers

These fulfill my main shopping goals: beautiful, useful, locally sourced and made.

 Many Dhow Eyes

These dhow eyes are placed on every dhow (local sailboat) that sails from Lamu to bring good luck to the crew and guests.  You can find one in most homes as well.

Walking Tour

This week, I wanted to take you on a quick walking tour of my neighborhood, namely the area between my apartment and my office.  I live away from Old Town, so this neighborhood might look different from pictures you have seen of historic Lamu.  The buildings around here are a lot newer, and since it is a rapidly expanding part of town, many are in the process of being built or expanded.  It is a vibrant neighborhood where lots of kids play outside and there are many small shops to by food and essential items.  It is a loud neighborhood by day, but around ten everyone falls asleep and it is dead silent and dark aside from cats and donkeys making their presence known.  I tried to be inconspicuous with my GoPro inside my scarf and avoided focusing on any people.  Enjoy!

Mini Tour

Daycation

This weekend I treated myself to a daycation in Shela, the next village over on Lamu island.  While it is very close and easy to get to, I rarely go to Shela because it can kind of be a hassle to go to the beach when you don’t have a place to cool down/ shower, etc.  That’s why I was so happy when the (my opinion) best hotel and restaurant in Shela was super accommodating and allowed me to be a “day visitor”  at the hotel for the day.  That meant I could have a safe place to leave all my things and a shower to rinse off after the beach!  It was fantastic.

You can take a quick boat to Shela, but I opted to walk because sometimes my shy side appears and I do not feel like haggling with boat captains.  It is a really nice 45-minute walk, so I actually prefer to walk.  The path along the seafront is bordered on one side by tons of trees dripping with vines and there are all kinds of birds sounding hella tropical, so it is very relaxing and pretty.

When I got to the hotel I chilled in the pool, which is under a couple of baobab trees and boasts some beach beds.  The pool itself is really neat because it is very deep, but has varying levels around the perimeter where you can sit in shallow water and cool off.  The surroundings are very private and relaxing, so I decided to hang out there for an hour.  I was even served a mango juice.   Later on I walked all the way down the beach to where the channel opens up to the Indian ocean and played in the waves for a while.  It is unbelievable how warm the water is here.  It doesn’t even function that well to cool you off after sunbathing, but luckily it was a relatively cloudy day. 

After I played, I treated myself to a meal, spending more money in a sitting than I usually do in two weeks here.  I felt shame and reckless abandon.  I have been planning and saving for this for a month, so the shame eventually dwindled as the foods appeared before me.   The waiter was very impressed, noting that I “know how to eat.”  I’ll admit that I was concerned about my ability to walk home after the spread, but I successfully ate everything I ordered.  I started with two cheese-stuffed samosas.  Even though I eat a lot of samosas here, I was concerned about eating as much cheese as possible during this food event, so I went for it.  They included some fine stinky cheeses with camembert for creamy meltiness and even a dipping sauce.  After that I had crab, lemon and rocket linguine that included heaping, heaping quantities of crab.  I thought it was all piled on the top for effect, but as I reached the inner pasta layers I realized that the crab was still going strong.  It was fantastic.  After that I had fried calamari rings that boasted TWO sauces, and finished it all off with a refreshing crab and avocado hand roll.  Around this time the owner wandered by, nodded, and said ”Good for you.”  Good for me, indeed.  Having completed my four savory courses, I completed my meal with an espresso for power and a rich chocolate marquise with a salted caramel crust and homemade vanilla ice cream.  Satisfied and in pain, I staggered home and endured the food sweats without electricity for the remainder of the afternoon.  A solid daycation was enjoyed.  The end. 

 

Wedding Lamu Style

This month I had the pleasure of attending a Swahili wedding ceremony at the Lamu Fort.  This was a really interesting experience, because the portion of the Swahili wedding tradition that I saw was so different from a U.S.- style wedding. 

Swahili marriages are strongly steeped in tradition and interestingly, very gender-segregated.  In Muslim ceremonies, the woman does not even attend the official “wedding” in the mosque.  Instead, her father or brother represent her and sign the marriage certificate.  The portion that I attended was the biggest party of the whole event, and it is only for ladies. 

Prior to the women’s event, a bride is prepared by (traditionally) staying indoors for several weeks before the wedding.  There she is given many beauty treatments by women in her family, and finally painted all over with intricate henna and piko.  The resulting designs on her arms and legs are beautiful and take hours.  Originally, only the bride would be painted for a ceremony, but now it is custom for anyone attending the wedding to be painted in celebration. 

The wedding was a really interesting and confusing experience for me.  We entered the huge, open air fort in the center of town, and even though we essentially remained outside, there was an air of privacy and intimacy inside.  I was dabbed with perfumed oil and had incense wafted in my direction as I walked in, and the whole place smelled like jasmine and incense.  There was a large mirror by the door where women stopped to remove their black buibuis and reveal the amazing rainbows of chiffon and silk they had hidden underneath.  There were simple dresses and elaborate ones with tons of embellishment and long trains, but they were all very colorful.

 

We all sat on chairs and mats in the huge hall while a young girls’ choir sang saccharine Taarab music while seated on the floor facing a large structure made of jasmine buds.  Sometimes women would join to sing and dance around them while waving folded 1000 shilling notes in one hand.  After the song all the money would be thrown into the jasmine centerpiece.  Women also fashioned hats and neckpieces out of folded cash and placed them on important members of the party seated nearest to the choir.  An elderly woman who must have been the bride’s grandmother was so festooned with money accessories that she must have had the equivalent of about 2000 USD on her person. 

I was a little confused during all of this, because there was no bride.  It was also getting late (around 10 pm) on a Sunday and the bride had not appeared yet, so I was concerned.  How long would this ceremony take?  Finally, everyone turned and faced the back of the hall, and the bride moved slowly down the aisle, severely impaired by her huge dress and the many flowers attached to her.  I was watching her move slowly down the aisle when suddenly everyone moved towards the exits and filed out.  The bride wasn’t even on the stage yet!  Apparently, once the bride appears, the rest of the evening is meant for family only.  Not being family, I returned home and ate the lunch box I had been given.  It was a very interesting event and I hope I am invited to another! 

What to Wear

(Now, before someone calls out something like “cultural appropriation!” I want to point out that the times I wear a scarf or a buibui, it is out of respect for culture here.  It is expected that I will wear these things if I go to a wedding or other event, and appreciated otherwise.  I am not parading as a Muslim because while these items are associated with Islam, they are not reserved for Muslim women.  They have become an important part of the culture here and are used by all kinds of women.)

 

I wear a lot of the clothes I like to wear normally here, but I have to make modifications to be modest.  It is expected that I will cover my legs, chest, and shoulders, not just to be respectful but to keep me comfortable.  I already get a ton of attention being an outsider with assumedly bulging pockets, so I don’t want to get any extra attention for flashy shoulders or something.

I usually wear loose flowing pants or a long skirt with a tank top and wrap or a jumpsuit or dress with a wrap.  I learned pretty quickly that some of the clothes I brought are not ideal.  My amazing printed cotton pants all drag on the ground... and here that means they are dragging in dirt, sand, trash, donkey crap... etc.  I still wear them, but a lot less than I intended because they get dirty fast.  Keeping the layers to a minimum is also important because it is 3-showers-a-day hot and humid here.  It is so hot that if the power goes out at night an my fan turns off, I will wake up as fast as if an alarm was going off.  It is so hot that a semi-sheer shirt with a tank top underneath is not as option.  Everything must be capable of making me presentable without base layers.  I like super sheer scarves to cover my shoulders because I can rearrange them to create various air conditioning openings throughout the day (and they are pretty cute).  I always said I would never become one of those “accessorizes-with-scarves” people, yet here I am.  Here I am people.   Enjoy some fashion shots of my fashion and pack your suitcases accordingly.  This blog post is an excuse to put many pictures of myself on the internet.