The Janssen Family World Travels: Lamu

Beach time. Lamu is a small (about 6 x 1 miles) barrier island on the coast of Kenya, about 100 miles from the border to the north with Somalia. Despite wanting to load up the kids on a sailboat and sail the coast of Somalia to meet the friendly locals, I refrained and decided to keep the family here in the confines of this amazing place. We’re staying at a place called Kizingoni Beach. There are about a dozen houses here owned mostly by Brits that are rented for most of the year. Super nice, huge, breezy house that could easily hold several families. There is a really deep pool here. Have I mentioned that kid’s enjoy swimming pools? Without a doubt the #1 essential, must have on any extensive trip. Our first day we enjoyed swimming in the warm ocean and the pool. It is winter here and there have been a few storms lately and the water is a little murky but it is super warm. It is about 90 and humid during the days and this is the cold season. Nothing like swimming in a warm ocean with the smells and the taste of the sea. I forgot about how much more buoyant the water is and the kids thought this was super cool (they smartly don’t swim in Puget Sound) and the poor little abused buggers haven’t experienced warm ocean water in recent memory so they are having a ball in the ocean.

Our second day we had the chance to go waterskiing. I like to think that I’m a great water skier. For some reason (probably new equipment and gradual memory loss) I think I'm getting better each year. So when the opportunity to waterski in Africa arose, we headed out to a local, mangrove lined channel at high tide and gave it a go. I was determined to show my skiing prowess to our boat driver and his cohort. Sydney asked to go first so she chose a 1975 era 68” O’Brien “tradition” with a plastic tail, no rear heel boot, and no cheater fin. Not your father’s water ski, and not even your father’s father’s ski but better than the other alternative, a 48” version from an even earlier era. Sydney slipped her feet into the XXL binding and popped right up on the first try. She skied great, mostly oblivious to the equipment and the boat driving. Ah the boat driving. Being spoiled with great equipment and skilled drivers, I nearly created my first international incident with a strong urge to chuck our driver overboard and make like a Somali and commandeer our boat. The driver is used to taking guests that like to go “donuting.” This is African for tubing. Having decent experience with driving for donuting (the primary skill set of the pasty chunky Brits that vacation here), the driver thought that the same driving technique must apply to skiing. So Sydney had a great run, with a little encouragement from her parents to the driver to beg him to try and go a little straighter. First to ski in Africa! Hayden was up next and he decided to go with the smaller ski instead of the surfboard we were using. Again comical driving. How is a 10 year old kid in a channel with a strong current supposed to grab a rope when it is towed about 15’ away from him? After several re-circling attempts (the rope was 75’ long for crying out loud….I’m not going to get mad at you mister “driver” for coming too close to my kid with the boat while he’s in the water when I can barely see him bobbing on the horizon) and my suppressing my urge to offer the basic driving instructions, Hayden snagged it and was up and away for a great ride. Halle in her wonderful world of Halle refused to ski for no good reason so I was up next. Did I mention the boat? It is about a 28’ multipurpose shell that probably weighs a ton and is used for fishing, water-taxiing, etc. It is powered by an 80hp Yamaha that does surprisingly well. Oh and there were seven people on board. No big deal. Being delighted to try starting with my foot out of the back pocket instead of the double boots that never come off that I am used to, I was confident I’d get up on the first try…or not. Gallon of salt water up the nose, family and hell-driver laughing at me as he keeps the boat 75’ away from me and makes me swim for the rope. Driver was I’m sure thinking “it’s OK big boy your little kids can get up but maybe you need two skis ha ha ha?” Not my finest moment. Up on try #2 I enjoyed a lovely pull whose track from space would have most closely resembled one of those “paintings” where the artist splashes different colors in completely random directions. I really want to do that someday by the way, and call myself an artist. Maybe even get government funding? I digress. There was no way the ski would hold a hard cut so I asked Traci to snap a picture of my fall on the last cut. Traci then skied, ignoring my advice that the ski was slippery and to take it easy. After a few lovely screams and some seriously unanticipated patented Traci facial expressions she made some great turns. Perhaps it wasn’t the ski. The kids were next pulled “donuting” in a pattern that was remarkably similar to that of my ski ride. I wish my dad would have been here to have a ski. He would have loved it.

Back to Lamu. We’re on the south end of the island, and on the north end is Lamu town. This is a mostly Muslim town of about 20,000.It is the oldest town in Kenya, established around 1350 and is really different from the rest of Kenya due to its Persian/Arabic/Portuguese influenced past.I was thinking about how old 661 years is. If the average child bearing age over that time was about 20 years, then it would have been founded by someone’s great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents (or something like that).Still a lot of doors and original buildings that made me feel insignificant…426 years older than American Independence, 142 years prior to Columbus. We toured Lamu town for about 90 minutes yesterday which was about 90 minutes too many. There is only one car that the mayor can drive, an ambulance, and the rest of the transportation is via donkey. Most streets were narrow alleys about 5’ wide at best with an open sewage/runoff culvert running down the middle of each and out to sea.Flies everywhere, most women covered in their burkhas, donkeys and carts and general mayhem. Outside of our family most everyone seemed happy. Same as everywhere in Kenya, people here are amazingly friendly. Our kids were hot. So we applied an emergency soda fix (Fanta…thank goodness for the global reach of the coca cola company) which helped. Enjoyed lunch at a nice restaurant (world famous we were told) called Peponi’s in the nearby town of Shella which actually was quite nice. Kids were delighted to get back to our house and the pool and spent 4 hours in the pool erasing the memories of hot flies and donkey dung. Cultural experience of the week…check.

The downtime has been great. Traci and I have been able to run on the beach in the mornings as the sun rises. Today we did about a ½ mile swim across the local channel at slack tide. Despite wearing fins and being more buoyant than expected due to the salinity and my progressive BMI I thought that I had a 50/50 chance of drowning with 2’ waves and Halle riding me like daddy dolphin and my giving the occasional pull to Hayden. Traci accompanied Sydney both sans fins and we’re all here to live another day (OK we had a boat following us).Nothing wrong with a nice swimming pool! Hayden and I have been fishing 3 times for snapper. We only caught a couple the first two days but today we nailed a school (unfortunately I think it was an elementary school) and caught about 40 small white snapper. The kids are working hard at their swimming pool skills, becoming much more adept at their diving and flips. Halle is still the belly flop queen. I hold her rigid above my head and toss her over the edge and she nails the 8 footer to the cheers of all. After fully belly giggles from the onlookers and resurfacing to the yells of “Did that hurt?” she replies smiling with her usual “Nope!” and asks to do it again. My arms are limited to about 21 kid reps of this game. Good core work.

We went waterskiing and wakeboarding a second time yesterday. Halle was not the least bit hesitant and jumped right in, popped right up, tore across the wake with no fear, and was smiling non-stop. Super proud of her and I’m sure she was too. Sydney, Hayden and Traci all had another run on a very modern ski with cheater fin and a very nice concave. They ripped. I couldn’t fit in to the size 8 boot so I refrained from another go with my old friend the 1975 O’Brien tradition. Today we hiked to the top of a local sand dune and enjoyed a fire, a spectacular sunset, and panoramic views of the island. Africa has not cured me of my pyromania. Whenever I see a slow burning fire I have to add more wood. The kid’s enjoyed an impromptu long jumping contest from the top of the dune.

On our way out we stopped briefly in Lamu Town and the kids enjoyed their first donkey ride. Even though there was a donkey hospital nearby I decided that the last thing I needed was to break a donkey’s back so I refrained. Kids have now ridden horses, ponies (a different species from a horse so I am told), camels and donkeys.

Traci and I were discussing how great the kids have been together. While there are the expected minor tussles, they have been great together, naturally finding a balance of activities to share. They have been remarkably kind to each other and are having a great time together. Also, I think a lot of people who take these types of trips do them so they can spend a ton of time as a family for the first time. While this will undoubtedly be a record for family time, we already spend so much time together that this doesn’t feel that different. Will let you know if that feels the same a few months from nowJ! I can’t believe 5 weeks have happened so quickly and unfortunately believe that accurately foreshadows the remainder of the year.