I’m here in Mombasa on the coast. Mombasa is Kenya’s second largest city and a popular holiday spot for its beaches and laid-back lifestyle. It’s also a different culture from the interior. Here, the Swahili, Arab, Indian, Portuguese, and British colonial influences blend into something uniquely Indian Ocean. It’s tough to tell where one culture stops and another begins, or which person belongs to which group, or even if such concerns matter at all.
There are auto-rickshaws plying the streets (called tuk-tuks here), people in every variety of Islamic garb from skullcaps and robes for men, to scarves and full purdah for women—or no special dress at all. With its colonial architecture, palm trees, blue ocean, and cultural melange, Mombasa seems a lot like Pondicherry. The tourist development is elsewhere, so the place is surprisingly “local,” and the people are friendly. In the late afternoons the streets are full of schoolkids in uniforms. Mildew grows on the yellow and white apartment blocks, with laundry drying outside.
I took a tour of the Old Town and have posted some tourist snaps below. It’s the poorer quarter of the city but the most interesting, with architectural flourishes from all the contributing cultures. My guide was Mahir Mohammed (who also goes by Ali Mohammed and Ali Baba). Photography wasn’t particularly welcome in Old Town, but he smoothed most things over. The issue seemed to be that I would make money off the photos and was therefore exploiting people commercially, so I didn’t take many pictures or press the issue. At one point, we were in a narrow lane looking at a coop of pigeons. Ali was telling me about them and clucking at them (I wasn’t photographing), and a woman came out of the house and yelled at him. We walked on. He told me she was accusing him of using her pigeons for his business.
The Indian presence is very strong in Mombasa. All the restaurants serve more than one Indian dish (curry, biryani, somosas, chapatis, etc.). There are Hindu temples and Ismaili mosques. Well-off Indians own shops in town and estates on the ocean, but there are poor people in the mix in Old Town. My hotel, a colonial-era three-star with mosquito nets, a fan, and a dipper in the bathroom, has Preity Zinta calendars at the reception desk and behind the bar. (There are also a large number of a craggy old single European men in shorts, and this is the tourist off season, which makes me wonder how Mombasa figures in the sex trade.)
Some tourist snaps from Old Town and the rest of Mombasa are on the flip.
Shopkeeper in downtown Mombasa
Shopkeeper in downtown Mombasa
Mombasa harbor from Old Town
Washing at the harbor well in Old Town
Swahili doors and child
Indian-influenced architecture
Ali Mohammed and shark jaw
Women in Old Town
Are there desis in Old Town?
Chapatis in Old Town
More architecture
Indian Ocean babes and cats
Hindu temple in downtown Mombasa
Indian Ocean and Tusker
That six-digit phone number and the “women in old town” photo remind me so much of Quetta. Same streets, same cement houses, same purdah.
oh… preston..mombasa is awesome…..my brother and i took a camel ride on the beach..and i had my hair braided… they have some fantastic beaches and resorts…so clean….i must get back there one of these days.. thanks for the fantstic pictures and bringing back memories of a trip taken 8 years ago!
Absolutely fantastic. I can’t wait for the release of your book.
Late night – too tired to register or say anything intelligent but I gotta give you props for these photos. They are gorgeous (and the woman making chapatis even more so – wow). Thanks Preston 🙂
Indians are freakin’ everywhere.
What’s the freakiest place that anyone’s met an Indian? I have a friend who went to Colombia and met a sardarji there. I bet on the North Pole, there’s a Gujju selling fish hooks to Eskimos.
I just love your posts, Preston. Gives us such a nice glimpse into another part of the world. Makes me want to go see for myself!
The coast has had a much longer desi presence because traders have been passing through for centuries…Kiswahili is actually a trading language the popped up because of the intermarriage between the Arab traders and the local Bantu tribs. But there are several words that have desi roots (safari – safar). So the influence on food and architechture can also be seen in old town.
Red Snapper,
The Indian diaspora(20-25 million worldwide) is minuscule for the size of South Asia. If you really want a people who are “freakin’ everywhere”, the world leaders, by far, are the Irish. They are a nation of 4 million and an estimated diaspora of 150-180 million encompassing 160 nations. The Irish diaspora research, aired sometime back on the BBC, corroborates this. They called it the “Irish Empire” – a people who conquered by the world as boat people.
The Irish have a joke, and very true, that if just 5% of Irish return back to their island, the whole of Ireland would look like a Tokyo subway train at rush hour. And If 10% come back, Ireland would be sunk 200 feet beneath the sea.
In fact, the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Germans are all WAY ahead of desis in this regard. And I am only talking on absolute terms, let alone relative terms.
What’s the freakiest place that anyone’s met an Indian?
iquitos, peru.. a random indian shop… weird and cool.
Tito’s on Baga beach, Goa.
The chef/owner at Bombay Palace… in BUDAPEST.
Chebika, Tunisia
If any of you is planning a trip to outer space anytime soon. Well, who knows you might run into one 😉 .
mombassa is great and i love the pics. i was there in ’89. someone stole my mom’s beach bag and the local police said “hakuna matata” (this was pre-lion king). gotta love that mentality.
oh, and i hear that “tuk tuks” are rickshaws in thailand too. wonder how to tie thailand and kenya together…anyone?
Gorgeous; what nostalgia, and I’ve never even lived there. My father was born in the old town, long ago, and he once took me on a tour, trying to find the house he lived in as a child. He eventually found something that might have been the place, but he wasn’t sure, as the family moved when he was still quite young, and as the neighbourhood is now mostly (or exclusively?) black African. And yet, as the pictures convey, there is still such as Swahili/Indian feel to the place.
Some of my relatives recount war stories from Mombasa, when everyone had to black out their windows at night to deter bombers, and when my grandmother used to sew army uniforms to make some extra money. I suppose that counts as a strange place to find an Indian — deep in Africa, helping the British fight the original Axis.
Small town Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam.
Peru and Chile – met HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Bangalore) engineers at both Peru and Chile small airports. They were there to train locals on air transport stuff.
Desi professor in Caracas,Venezuela
All those small Pacific island nations – Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands (mostly Fiji Indians who moved around)
This may not be surprise – but was cool to find desis in Bahamas, US Virgin Islands and even Cayman Islands (guy was working as network engineer for Cable and Wireless)
From what I hear from other folks who move around – not uncommon to see Indian missionaries. India now seem to be in the forefront of exporting missionaries/church workers to the world.
Oh chickpea I hear thee…. Peru(Cuzco) was the last place that I expected to see any desis!
Many of the indians found in so many places today were taken there as indentured servants or camp followers of the British Empire. Previous to this diaspora indians were carried off in large numbers to the middle-east and central asia as slaves of the conquering muslims. Then there are the millions of gypsies who are supposed to have originated in northwest India, and have been the most despised and persecuted people of Europe for centuries. Many of these gypsies ended up in the Americas centuries ago, especially South America, where their look constitutes part of the diverse Latino look.
Thats true. Europeans have by far the largest numbers living (very dominantly) outside Europe. Followed by africans. There are around 100 million people in the Americas with african ancestry.
The african presence in Europe goes back to ancient times. There is visual proof of their presence in ancient Greece in the form of pictures on vases etc. Most afrocentrists claim Socrates the great Greek Philosopher as one of their own, based on his depictions as a man of african phenotype. There is no denying that the Shakespeare of Russia, Alexander Pushkin, was of african ancestry. As was Alexandre Dumas, the most popular writer in French Literature, who gave us “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Beethoven the greatest classical musician was part african as well. African presence in the Middle-East is huge and ancient. Probably the most well-known poet/warrior in arab history is the african Antara ibn Shaddad, who is considered the epitome of chivalry and romanticism. The arab muslims who conquered Rome and Persia had a large proportion of african warriors amongst them. Africans, muslim Habshis, even ruled parts of India (Bengal) for a short time.
There are also huge numbers of east asians living outside East Asia. To the chinese, japanese and korean diaspora should be added the descendants of the mighty Mongols who came out of East Asia and literally conquered much of the world.
Preston, I have never been to any of these places, but your descriptions and photos make me want to.
Ah, the beautiful white sands of Diani and many other beaches. The the most pristine in the world, actually one of them made Island Magazines Best Beaches of The World this year (somewhere near Lamu Island). Kurma, I would start saving about 10 grand and head on down there rather than take a “bus tour or cruise” some place else.
P.S. What is this book Preston is about to write? Can someone provide some details so that I can be prepared for it at the bookstore etc. Thanks.
yeah, iquitos and in the middle of the amazon was not where i expected to find brownies.. i loved being in peru..and other countries of south america.. we tend to blend in ‘easily’..due to our skin tone…and speaking spanish helped.. i think most thought i was peruvian…until they saw my mom next to me who was wearing salwar/chandlo :).. keeping it real.
I have some shaky memories of the white sands of Mombasa from my prepubescent days. A school trip led by the school padre, a bunch of boys tooling around the ocean – my first taste of salty ocean water -acckkk- sank a dugout by tipping it over – trespassed into a glass-bottomed 16 footer – ahh to be a boy once again – wait a minute, i still do all that 🙂 hehe – but trouble in paradise.
saw my first topless women and didnt know how to react – got a ribbing from stephen about me needing to grow up and be mature – of course stephen was all cool and suave walking around that much exposed flesh – and then tom came back running telling me about this white guy who’s sitting out there all naked – he’s got a big pink penis flopped to the side – mr k got disturbed at that, and especially so when tom said naked-man has called him over. but that was the most off color it got. i of course didnt know what to make of all this.
i’ve learnt since then that parts of mombasa were especially popular with german and american men looking for local boys for sex – but i hope it isnt true any more.
In war torn Congo, it was a stop on my Cape to Cairo roadtrip, there was this group of Indians that were providing medical relief to injured civilians. Blew my mind because it is an area that…lets put it this way, it doesnÂ’t take much to get you killed there, but these brave souls didnÂ’t care! Doctors without borders indeed! I gave them all the chevro and gaathias (sp?) my mum had sent with me. There are brown people everywhere.
lamu is definitely worth a visit.
Why would it be surprising that a neighborhood in Kenya is mostly or exclusively black African? What, is Kenya an African country or not? Isn’t Kenya mostly black, except for (recent or more distant) immigrants from non-African countries?
I don’t get it. With most of the Africans (blacks) there speaking Swahili, why wouldn’t the place have a swahili feel to the place? Swahili is one of the most spoken language across Africa, and it isn’t a bunch of India-origined people speaking Swahili that makes it so. Swahili is African, influenced by arabic and other languages. And Kenya is an African country (despite wishes/attempts to make it otherwise). Certainly there are issues with arabization vs. african origin, but since when is Swahili NOT an African language?
Perhaps I should be surprised that it wasn’t claimed that Africans immigrated to Kenya, invading the land of the Indian people?
Why attempt to minimalize the culture, history, situation of Africans of the Swahili language/culture, in the country of Kenya? I think a lot of people are just carrying on the biases (and distorted history) of their parents, but really as adults shouldn’t you have gotten some education (and been able to see with you own eyes) to the contrary? People aren’t commenting based on what is factual, real, historical, true, they are speaking based upon the perspectives of their parents.
Politically, one can understand these attitudes in relation to the problems in Fiji. The Fijian people are being minimalized in their own country by Indians attempting to rewrite history and turn them into second-class citizens.
Quite often the British used Indian people to serve as ‘caretakers’ in their colonial systems. Their caste mindsets would ensure they would maintain a system of white on top, and black on the bottom, as long as they could maintain their own place comfortably as overseers. Once the British abandoned their colonial holdings, they no longer provided the financial and military support to maintain Indian dominance over the indigenous populations. Those populations fought off the British, so why would it be acceptable for Indians castes systems to remain in place?
Instead of perpetuating historical lies, and culturally-convenient perspectives, one can imagine all the opportunities Indians have to learn, raise their socio-political consciousness, with better information and a hopefully more honest willingness to go beyond ‘traditional’ falsehoods.
With regard to Kenya, there is so much nostalgia for colonial Kenya and so little knowledge about the history of Kenya (Tanzania, Zanzibar) and Africa as a whole. It is sad to think that your parents, or you, spent anytime there but learned nothing of the history of the people into whose country you came. It seems instead a fake history was created to obscure some things that folks may not want to remember about the reality of their existence in the place.
One of the biggest chances here, is to not see the Africans as ‘visitors’ to Kenya, but understand the role of Indians in migrating to Kenya under British colonialism in the same way one may understand British colonialism over Indians in India. How would you react to a white British person returning to India and musing about how the neighborhood has changed with so many Indians there now?
The attitudes seem really destructive, and just well, sad.
Because, things have changed…besides I didn’t register surprise in the comment, merely an observation. And comparing the Indian diaspora in kenya to the british in India is a little absurd. Indians, as well as Indigenous Kenyans, were relegated to different areas of cities. To see that things have changed is woth noting.
Kenya may be, but Mombasa is mostly populated with people of Arab decent…i.e. the swahili who are a result of intermarriage betweent the arab traders and the local Bantu tribes back in the day…so they’re not quite black even, they’re more of a “wheatish brown” 🙂
ummmmm first of all the language is Kiswahili. Common mistake. The coastal people are the Swahili. And MANY places where Kiswahili is spoken doesn’t have a “Swahili” feel to it. You do understand that while many Kenyans speak Kiswahili, it is often the 3rd or 4th language they learn because unlike in TZ, the medium of instruction at Kenyan schools is english. Kiswahili is taught as a subject much like french, spanish etc are taught as subject languages in the states. It was, is and continues to be a trading language in Kenya (rapidly being replaced by sheng).
I also think you’re confusing issues. No one said Swahili is NOT an African language, and no one is insiuating that Kenya is not an African country (you need to check yourself there hun)
There were several indian families actively involved in the struggle against the British. Indian lawyers who helped kenyatta get out of jail, Indian run papers that published hies stuff, Indian families that housed the mau mau…sure some were on the other side, but as you point out, many were brought as indentured labourers too…and while I agree that there are many racisit desis, I think it works all ways…and most desis there now are a lot more open minded.
I really don’t think you’re getting what this is all about. It’s not a nostalgia for colonialism, simply a nostalgia for where you/your family has been. If a jewish person was to try and visit their old house in Germany, and commented on how things have changed, would you consider that a nostalgia for nazi germany? Chill out.
Its seems that many people dont know the history of Mombasa.The coastal strip was not part of Kenya.It was under the Sultan of Zanziber.The British leased it and became The British protectorate and colony of Kenya.In 1963 when kenya was to be handed independence there was agreement between dictotor Kenyatta and The Sultan of Zanzibar regarding the strip.some of the issues was that the mwambao which means the strip will be under Kenya for a period of Ten years.The people of coast will be administers and any land should be given to the coastal people.Who are the coastal people they are Mijikenda ,the swahili people,Arabs and indians who have been there for centuries.Should people of coast want to seperate from Kenya they will be able to do so.Kenyatta and his cronies had other plans he did opposite the agreement which he sign in the House of Lancaster in England.He started to rule with iron fist, who ever raise the issue of Mwambao was being punished or killed.Now,do people of Mombasa and other coastal strip towns want to be part of Kenya ? the answer is a big NO !Most of those black Africans you saw them are not original people of coast they are upcountry people who have nothing to do with Mombasa or swahili culture.In fact, the people of upountry do not speak good Kiswahili.We hate them and we wish independence never came because we have not benefit from so call independence.May god curse Kenyatta Amin