Here are some more Lamu photos (see previous post). Some of you will have seen the top one before, but it is one of my favourites, and I thought the colour of awning fits with Jennifer Nichole Wells’ one word seafoam challenge. It is a colour that I anyway associate with the Indian Ocean. This shot was taken on a dhow taxi in the middle of a tropical downpour. It was December, the monsoon season, and we had just flown in to the little local airport on Manda Island. The strait between the two islands looked suddenly grey and forbidding. It seemed strangely cold too in the midst of the hot season, and not the best start to our four-day Christmas break from Nairobi.
But then the rain passed. This is the waterfront of Lamu stone town, one of the best surviving Swahili settlements on the Indian Ocean seaboard, and a world heritage site. You will have to look harder here for the gentle shade of seafoam.
Lamu is a captivating place. I was so impressed by our four days there that I wrote a teen novel, Sea Running, published by Macmillan Pacesetters for the African children’s literature market. It’s a good yarn about drug runners and first love. It also has a splash of seafoam on the cover.
For more posts on Lamu:
I’ve heard of Lamu from another friend, she would like to move there and it does sounds wonderful.
It’s a very traditional society, though some Europeans do live there. I think one would have to go for total immersion, and learn really good Ki-Swahili to be at home there. A great place to stay for a while if one was planning to write a really big novel…hm…that sounds tempting 🙂
Hi Tish, that is just such a lovely photo – makes me feel quite nostalgic!
aaah! me too, Selma 🙂
Your favorite for a reason. It’s so beautifully shot. Thank you so much for sharing these gorgeous pictures.
Thank you very much, Jennifer. High praise indeed.
Thank you very much, Jennifer. High praise indeed 🙂
Thank you…wonderful photographs of a fascinating place. Janet
Lovely photos Tish. I enjoyed my Lamu visit
The first image is perfect for the challenge, Tish. It’s a bit scary being on a dhow, or any smallish boat in a tropical storm. 😕
Yes, it was rather disquieting – water very close!
I see what you mean about the first photo – it is so evocative of the sea and of sea journeys.
Thank you for sharing these beautiful images of Lamu. They are simply priceless!
Lovely comment, Dr. Y. Thank you 🙂
The sea and the place is so well captured, Tish!
The first picture is so precious – the garment parroting the sail above it. Love the subtle colors, very peaceful; and yet, the feet give away the attentive stance of the man whose face we cannot see.
I think you must have been there too, Annette. Such a perceptive appraisal 🙂
That top photo is indeed a good one.
Thanks for commenting, dunelight
I’m delighted that your pictures of sea foam included some actual sea. I think that makes you unique in this challenge. And congratulations on the book. I had no idea, but it sound intriguing. Love and drug runners are certainly not a typical combination of elements.
Sea foam. I love the color and the connotation. I’m a sailor after all.