The mysterious mosque

“Kipungani village is very old,” says Mohamed Islam.

“How old?” I ask.

“Very old. My great great grandfather came here from Yemen and married here. So it’s very old.”

As if to prove his point, we have reached the ruins of the coral rag mosque standing next to a clear water creek by the village.

“This mosque was built about 400 years ago but was never completed,” he says. “So it was never used.”

I step into the mosque carpeted with a thick layer of dry leaves which crackle under my feet. A fat baobab grows in the centre of the mosque which is covered with shrubs growing in its midst.

Even though the mosque is slowly falling apart, you can see where the kabla was, although only the foundations stand, pointing the direction to Mecca.

Opposite it is the ablution block where the men might have washed themselves before prayers. It all seems so mysterious why a nearly completed mosque was abandoned.

Kipungani village is quaint. Situated on the edge of the channel, the village stands on the remote southwestern tip of Lamu island, sheltered by clear water creeks and thick mangrove forests. Simple coral rag houses straddle the narrow alleys of the village. Mohamed picks up a beautiful shell with its occupant in it.

“We crush the shells to make the lime to build the houses with.” We step inside the house of Sauda Mohamed. It’s cool with a simpler version of the famed wooden doors of the East African coast.

It’s morning and the men have left for the day out at sea. The village women are busy with the household chores with some like Hadija Abdalla returning from the fields with palm leaves to weave mats and thatch the roofs.

The Kipungani Explorer lodge, about half an hour’s walk away is built from their woven ‘mkekas’.

“We are about 300 people in the village but now we have others who are working in the lodges coming to rent accommodation,” says Mohamed.

I ask him how they feel about that.

“Good because it gives us some money,” he replies.