An Enchanted Island

I write this on the enchanted island of Lamu, my feet dipped in the soft shallow current of the Indian Ocean on a white sandy deserted beach. As I look out the night sky is scattered with shiny shimmering stars on a backdrop of a full moon, lighting the vast ocean that lays before me with wooden dhows slumped in the calm waters like a ghost ship graveyard. All I hear is the sound of the waves slap against the shore and the odd donkey shriek echo down the narrow white stone washed alleyways and bazaars behind. Time has cleaved its way past here, leaving a gap of serenity. A highlight of our trip.

Getting to this slice of paradise was certainly not a heavenly experience. We took the economic option of the bus; an old rusty dirty un-oiled machine, packed full of sweaty smelly people and a conductor who looked like he was certainly not competing to be crowned ‘employee of the month’ in December 2009. The first four hours were spent sat next to a young guy who I was convinced had ants his pants due to the number of times he kept changing his position; but this was bearable. The road for the next two and half hours was not meant to be driven down, especially by a bus. A narrow dirt track with so many pot holes I would regularly be lifted off my seat into the sweaty body of the man sat next to me as the driver pretended he was driving in a rally car race.

Approaching the island on a speed boat felt like something out of a bond movie, giving me the expectation I would be greeted at the other side with a dry martini; shaken, not stirred. As we came closer, our lenses focused past the salty sea water spray to the harbour at the forefront of Lamu. The harbour was a busy place with fisherman bringing in the days catch, seamen unloading cargo and the good-old donkeys peering into the action from the sides, optimistically awaiting a fish to fall loose, some free potatoes or even just a dirty old sack to chew on. We were staying at a lush hotel in Shela, the cleaner and uptown partner to Lamu and had managed to get a great discount from knowing a friend of the owner back in Mombasa. Our days in Shela melted together like one long dream we didn’t want to wake up from, lazing through the narrow alleyways, bazaars and deserted beaches. From our hotel room we could see out onto the sea front and there were lots of tiny private islands dotted around us, so one day we took a boat out to one of them and spent the day on a small stretch of beach with no-one in sight for miles around us. As the tide rose, the island slowly began to disappear until the whole island was totally submerged in the sea and we were left perched on some rocks sticking out of the water, waiting for our boat ride home to come and pick us up! Back on the coast we enjoyed a plethora of fresh seafood delights from crab to lobster to fish and shrimp.

Back in Mombasa, we made a visit to a local drug rehabilitation centre and got to meet some of the patients there. Lots of these guys get into gangs and hard drugs and eventually make their way to prison, hospital or the morgue. The ones who survive and want to reform enter a four month rehabilitation programme with daily timetables of meditation, discussion, sports and household tasks and trained counsellors speak to them on an individual level. It was a real eye opener and great to see the effort being put into helping these guys out. Our work at the Khadija centre finally came to an end and we were sad to say goodbye to all the children and staff we had met and become good friends with. We tried our best to improve the functionality of the medical facility as well as seeing patients at the clinic. There was a large variety of illnesses seen with a few emergency cases and I had to call on Hiba’s wrath to pull some infected teeth out of a few occasions! I’m feeling an immense sense of gratitude for the medical training I’ve had in the UK as it is managing to help me adapt to the differing situations I’m coming across in terms of medical knowledge, teamwork, leadership and most importantly communication.

We wished to spend Eid in Mombasa as we were told it would be very special, starting with Eid prayers at 8am. At 7.55 we got up and rushed to the local mosque to find that they had already prayed at 7am! Unlike our local mosque in Manchester, where they have a second round of prayers for the late comers like ourselves, by 8am they had finished and were going back to work (!). We ended up praying on our own in our house which was a first, but luckily we were invited out to some friends house for dinner.

We head out to Tanzania next week...

Marwan