Up and Down the Swahili Coast
My first encounter with the Swahili took place in August 2004 on a dhow crossing the Indian Ocean from Bagamoyo to Stone Town on Unguja. At low tide the dhow was loaded with watermelons, a big closet and a stack of damp mattresses. At high tide, around midnight, we set off below clear moon shine.
I had absolutely no idea of what kind of journey I embarked on, and possibly didn’t realise till I was offered a bucket to pee in when I rejected to sit over the railing. A rather stark contrast to the next morning’s view of Stone Town spread out in the distance along a palm tree dotted line imprinted between the turquoise sea, and the blue sky. The fleet of dhows, which had been invisible during night, materialised with the sunrise, and with that a definite trace of stale sweat, urine and fish.
There are at least two sides to the Swahili Coast. The impressions you get from staying in the air-conditioned hotels with fabulous interior designs which find its way into glossy coffee table books. Then there is the Swahili Coast where the Swahili people live their everyday lives. Most in poverty, many still drawing on a strong Swahili cultural heritage.
From 2007 to 2010 I travelled consistently up and down the coast from my base in Dar es Salaam. I gradually realised that the Swahili Coast is one of the places I like to be the most.
FACTS
The Swahili Coast
The Swahili Coast refers to the coast or coastal area of East Africa inhabited by the Swahili people, mainly Kenya, Tanzania, and north Mozambique. The term may also include the islands such as Pate or Comoros which lie off the Swahili Coast.
Pernille Bærendtsen left Copenhagen for northern Uganda in June 2005 where she spent two years along and across the Ugandan border to South Sudan working with a civic education programme for Sudanese refugees. From September 2007 she lived in Dar es Salaam where she worked as information officer for a Danish NGO. She returned to Denmark in March 2010 where she now works with Development Communication.
Check out her blog www.pernille.typepad.com.
