The Peponi Hotel, Lamu Island Kenya, March 20th 2011
There is something cruel about upper crust English accents—it is as though the beauty of the speech is directly related to its lack of sincerity or inherent kindness. What someone says is not, strictly, what is meant. Such language does not establish a bond with the listener so much as erect a barrier and protect whatever it is that this race feels the need for separation from.
The bar of the—€300/night—Peponi Hotel in Shela, formerly a fishing village, now the upmarket north end of Lamu island, is a raucous place this evening—there are screeches of laughter and glasses slammed to the bar. Brits on the piss.
In a malarial haze or whatever else it is that is again taking over my system, time, and a short flight to Nairobi and hospital in the morning, will tell, though for now this place feels as welcoming as a nest of snakes. At the bar’s far end is the entrance to the dining room—a sanctuary with white table cloths and a good interpretation of Lamu’s Swahili design style: dark mahogany furniture, Persian rugs, white washed walls, peaked Arabesque doors and red and black hand painted roof beams. With the view of the Indian Ocean through the open windows and the near full moon, it is a gorgeous spot.
When the aging blond manageress walks through in a black evening dress and addresses the wait staff in rough Swahili it begins to feel like old colonial times or the cast of the International Sand Club in the movie version of Michael Ondaatje’s novel, The English Patient, another group of beautiful but cruel people on foreign shores.
Listening closer the shouts from the bar are a mix of accents and some clearly did not learn the King’s English at boarding school, however they otherwise try. But the tropics are a great leveller, anyone can have status here.
A man with fading looks in a white collared shirt breaks away from the bar crowd and comes through to the dining room to sit behind me with the manageress. It is clear they are lovers and I’d like to imagine something worthy and romantic about them, like characters out of some jazz age novel, as appropriate material for the setting, which really is spectacular. But in truth there is nothing worthy to invent: they are very ordinary.
With speech sloppy from drink his plummy English is a bit too affected to actually be real—another British stereotype, the commoner at home, the aristocrat abroad. Whatever else there is to this man, there was no Jeeves in attendance and no Kings School Canterbury or Cambridge either.
hmmm…think it largely depends on where you spend your time in lamu. and peponi certainly doesn’t sound at all a reflection of the rest of the island – particularly of the people who live there. next time sail to manda island and swap stories around a fire with the captains while eating homemade samosas. 🙂
Yes I know it may seem hard… I did love Lamu and the bar of the Peponi Hotel and its nasty Brits is not all there is to Shela either. I would LOVE to have done some dhow sailing and beach bonfires also–it was what I went there to do. Instead I’m in hospital in Nairobi waiting for a brain scan and a spinal tap.