PWANI PART 1: Arriving in Mombasa

It has been over two weeks since my last blog, so I am going to write several installments of my most recent adventures. (Disclaimer: some of these photos are mine, but there are also many that were taken by other students)

On the road to Mombasa....

On Friday, February 19th, we took a bus from Nairobi to Mombasa, which is the largest coastal city in Kenya. The bus ride was about 8 hours long, but it was the first time I was able to see the beautiful Kenyan countryside. We even saw a heard of giraffes, camels, and several baboons on the way. The landscape was gorgeous, with acacia and baobab trees (aka, rafiki's tree in the lion king), and rocky mountains and hills. When we arrived in Mombasa it was already dark, and Jamal, one of our academic directors greeted us in his full Friday Muslim garb, wearing the long white robe and embroidered white kofia. Jamal shuffled us all into tuktuks (a moped with a bench seat in the back) with our luggage and sent us off into the city. The ride was so much fun, speeding around roundabouts and racing other tuktuks. After a brief ride we arrives in Old Town Mombasa at our hostel and had a giant feast.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION INTO MOMBASA'S HISTORY

near Fort Jesus in Old Town

Mombasa has been a main trading port in the Indian ocean trade for thousands of years and shared a very rich history with the entire coast of East Africa, and was once part of the same state as Zanzibar. It was alternately under the rule of the Portuguese and Omani Arabs. The hostel we were staying in was right on the water and only one block down from Fort Jesus, which was built in 1593 by the Portuguese and has changed hands 9 times by different nations competing for control over Mombasa's port. Most of the buildings in Old Town are beautiful colonial and Swahili architecture. Due to Mombasa's long trade history, there is a strong Arabic and Indian influence, and there is a very large Muslim population, especially in Old Town.

Fort Jesus

In fact, the word Swahili is arabic for the coast. The Swahili language and tribes evolved through intermarriage of language and culture between the trading Arabs and the Bantu African tribes on the coast. The Swahili's are part of the Mijikenda, which is a collection of 10 tribes. The language Kiswahili is a blend of Arabic (about 40% of the vocabulary), African languages, Hindi, and the "Settler" languages (English, Portuguese, Italian, etc)

Colonial Architecture

A tuktuk driving through Old Town

SHOPPING IN MOMBASA

Since most of the coast is Muslim, I woke up to a chorus of call to prayers early the next morning. And since it is currently summer in Kenya (although we are slowing moving into the rainy season) and it was HOT and incredibly humid on the coast. By 7 in the morning I was completely drenched in sweat. We went shopping that morning in preparation for our village home stay.

The village we visited is on the south coast of Kenya (about an hour's drive south of Mombasa) and is called Shirazi. The village was first settled around the 200's C.E. by a group of Persians, from a small village called Shirazi in Persia. Even though everyone in the village is a Muslim, they are culturally very African (opposed to Mombasa, where there is a clear influence from Arabic culture). So, we had to buy appropriate clothing to wear while we stayed in the village, which was mainly mumu's and khangas.

Khangas are square pieces of fabric that are very elaborately decorate and each come with a swahili sayings and phrases on the bottom of them. Women all over Kenya wear khangas, and pretty much use khangas for everything. They use them as wrap skirts, headscarfs, hijabs, towels, something to sit on, to tie a baby to your back, as a curtain, etc…. And they are so beautiful and brightly colored! But, there is also a secret khanga culture. You have to pay close attention to the saying that is on your khanga, because they are not all nice. You can give someone a khanga with a mean or rude saying to insult them, or women will even wear their mean khanga when they have to meet with someone they don't like. There also are khangas that you should give to your mother, or at a wedding, etc.

So, we went off to Biashara street in downtown Mombasa to go shopping. Biashara street is literally lined with stores that and packed to the ceiling with folding and hanging khangas. There were so many to choose from and it was incredibly overwhelming. After buying our khangas and cool tie-die mumus, we had to give our khangas to a women sitting on the street with a sewing machine to cut and hem them (khangas are always sold in pairs).

After a hecktic morning, we headed back to our hostel, got into our mumus and got on the bus to go to Shirazi.