One of my most memorable trips was during the Christmas break 1965.  My duties at Kaaga Girls School in Meru kept me from traveling with my friends so I decided to go by myself to Lamu on the coast of Kenya close to the Somali Border.  Fortunately there were two Peace Corps volunteers who were also headed to the Coast so they joined me in my VW bug. 

We spent the first night in Nairobi and the second in Mombasa sleeping on the floor at a house shared by local Peace Corps volunteers.  The next day we drove north along the coast.  I parted with my companions at Kalifi and continued on to Malindi.  After a few days in Malindi I took a 6-seater Cessna to Lamu.  It was possible to drive but not advisable as the road was often washed out and travelers were subject to attack by the Shifta who were Somalis fighting for their independence from Kenya in a desire to re-create Greater Somalia.  You could also take a Dhow, the traditional boat of the Indian Ocean trade, but that took several days and was also risky. 

The flight of a mere half hour landed on Manda Island across from Lamu from which a small motor boat carried us to Lamu Island and town.  Sitting in the boat watching as the town neared I was drawn into the beauty of this remote, exotic place that had existed for almost 1000 years and was a result of ancient trade along the east African coast to Arabia, Persia and India and a testament to the Swahili people and their culture created by that trade. 

During my stay I took many walks through the maze of narrow streets closed in by two or three story buildings of coral and mangrove with wooden shutters and doors carved in intricate patterns.  There was still a town crier.  It was a Muslim town with most of the women wearing the black buibui which left only faces and hands visible.  A few of the women wore a costume with an interior tent like structure so that even the general shape of the woman was not discernable.  Walking along these streets was like having traveled back in time.  There were no cars but here and there I saw donkeys. 

The pilot who took me to Petley’s Hotel on the water front introduced me to other guests and to a retired couple who lived nearby.  They invited me for afternoon tea and regaled me with stories of colonial life in Kenya which included their acquaintance with Joy Adamson who had been the only other foreign woman in Isiolo, my host’s first veterinarian assignment in the 1930’s.  They said Joy’s attitude was one of absolute distain for other women.  She refused to ever talk directly to my hostess but rather only to her husband or other men. 

There were only about twelve non-Muslims on the island that year so I assumed I would have no Christmas.  As it turned out I did.  On Christmas day I was invited to join a few others for lunch and drinks by Bunny Allen and his wife, Kenya settlers vacationing there in a hut with concrete floors, walls and a grass roof.  They owned two farms and ran a Safari business catering to rich Texans.  Bunny was a stereotype of the great white hunter.  Other guests included his brother Bar Allen an eccentric who sported a monocle.  Bub Miller was a sweet old man with a hearty appetite who retired to Lamu on a limited income.  Darky, a Cockney, wore an Arab cap and a Somali man’s skirt or kikoi and ran the only bar in Lamu on the ground floor of Petley’s.  Jim Allen, no relation to the other Allen’s, was a history professor at Makerere and had much to tell me about Lamu and the characters who are the “white settlers” or wazungu.  Jim later founded a museum on Lamu which I saw when I returned in 1988.

We all gathered again at night for Christmas dinner at Petley’s.  There was one addition to our group, Mr. Ngugi, the District Commissioner.  It was nice to see him again as I had met him when he was the D.C. in Meru.  Lamu seemed so different and far away that we all felt like old friends.

The next day Jim Allen and I did some exploring of the town and some shopping.  After our morning excursion we had lunch.  Then it was time to leave on a three-seater plane and return to Malindi.  In the ancient, exotic, romantic, isolated Swahili town I had a sense of the very old coastal culture and the recently old colonial Kenya.