Foreign Correspondent Margot Kiser
Letters to Annie from Kaftanistan
Write from experience, and experience only… Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost – Henry James, American-born writer (1843-1916)
I first saw Marie a couple of years ago during a morning walk down Shela beach. Maybe twenty yards (I’m terrible at assessing distances) from the shore is a sandbar; the channel between the beach and the sand bar is farther than you think and a powerful tidal current surges below. At the northern tip […]
Ten heavily armed gunman reportedly stormed the beach near Lamu island in Kenya early this morning, firing shots, and abducting an handicapped Frenchwoman from her sea front grass hut. According to Lamu police, the gunmen and their hostage “went out into the open sea”. Around 2 AM, residents of Shella, a small European enclave near […]
Construction for the first three of twenty-one berths of the Lamu Port is slated to begin in November. This may not seem like ground-breaking news, but for a project that’s been in the pipeline since the 1970’s, it’d be one small step for Kenya, one giant leap for Africa. Yesterday I attended the portion of […]
Ali Babitu KOHOLO, 25, being led to Lamu court at 9:30 yesterday. He was arraigned for his role in the Tebbutt attack on charges of ROBBERY W VIOLENCE. He is thought to have guided the gunman to Kiwayu Safari village and to TEBBUTT’S beach cottage.
Preoccupied with pirates and ports most of the week, I didn’t notice right away the copious amounts of festive silver bunting the staff had begun wrapping around the normally naked brown columns near the entrance and foyer at “the Pink”. Who was foolish enough to get married (period), let alone on a weekday? I had […]
Most Sundays I join friends for “prayers” at the local fabled watering hole that feels more like a club both in decor and exclusivity. This Equatorial club must endure the odd out of sorts tourist who flushes through, their khakis and Tevas and dazed expressions are evidence that they flew in straight from a safari […]
The “burial-at-sea” took place at 5 pm. About two dozen close friends, acquaintances, Italian compatriots, neighbors, and a few curious souls arrived around 4:45 in a motorcade of small taxi boats. The sun was still high and everyone wore sun-glasses in defense against the striking Equatorial sun. Some wore black, some white, as if in […]
