Lamu fete set to kick off Friday

The Lamu Cultural Festival, which celebrates the rich heritage of the historical archipelago, starts Friday.

Thousands of people are expected to take part in the three-day event, which features traditional dances, handicrafts displays, Swahili poetry, donkey and dhow races.

Key sponsors

The National Museums of Kenya, one of the key sponsors, said the festival would also mark the opening of the reconstructed 18th century Dheulle Mosque in Shella, gazetted as a national monument.

There will also be a dramatised performance of the poem Mnazi: Vuta ni kuvute (the coconut tree: a tug of war) written by Abdilatif Abdalla.

Lamu fort will host a series of events including a poster exhibition on Bombay Africans, a unique group of Africans liberated by the British from Arab slavers and taken to India.
The festival, in its ninth year, comes at a time when the world is experiencing economic recession which organisers feared could affect the event.

Bus firms plying the Mombasa-Malindi-Lamu road have reported brisk business.

An official at Tawakal Bus Company said they are fully booked up to Saturday when the festival hits its peak.
The chairman of the Lamu Cultural Promotion Group, the event organisers, Mr Ghalib Alwy, said some sponsors had pulled out and others had reduced their sponsorship.

“The global economic recession has affected us because our sponsors, mainly foreign embassies, have trimmed their budgets.

“We have failed to meet our budget of Sh4 million by about Sh1.7 million,” Mr Alwy said. Last year, he had complained of donor fatigue and urged locals to sponsor some activities.