Shirazi: Sugar on Sugar and Ants on Ants

We arrived in Mombasa Saturday morning, went shopping for “culturally appropriate” attire, aka kangas and mumus, had lunch and took our bus to the kijiji of Shirazi, about 2 hours south of Mombasa. 

Katika Shirazi jina langu ilikuwa Samira. We got to Shirazi and moved right in with our homestay families. I lived with my mom, Birode, my 13 year old sister Samira, and a 5 ½ year old brother Omari. I was named Samira after my sister. My family was fantastic and to continue the food log for dinner the first night we had beans with coconut and rice bread. Delicious if unhealthy, as was all the food in the village. Can't be positive but pretty sure I gained 10 pounds in 10 days.

“I hate Nairobi- it makes me feel weird.” Anna’s excellently articulated quote of day 2 as we were lying in the sand on the most beautiful sandbar beach I’ve ever seen in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We boated out on a dhow right from the dock in Shirazi (because yes, it’s a village on the water, surrounded by palm trees and everything) until we parked it at a sandbar that was basically paradise. The sandbar overlooks the island of Funzi, which is home to the most expensive hotel in Kenya. Basically we spent the day swimming and rejoicing in how much more wonderful everything there was compared to Nairobi.

Went to a funeral when we got home. Well, not really, because we were late so we missed the burial but sat with all the women there. A 21 year old fisherman from the village had drowned while fishing. His death led me to the interesting discovery that a lot of people in Shirazi don’t know how to swim even though the ocean is in their backyard. So if anyone has a desire to move to the coast and implement swimming lessons it would definitely be really helpful.

I told my mom that I wanted to run in the morning and she didn’t think I was crazy!! She didn’t even ask questions, instead we went on a search to find my uncle Fundi who likes to run and recruited him to take me running at 5:45 the next morning. I ended up running with Uncle Fundi (almost) every morning I was there and he’s actually a great runner, except on the days he’s hungover or oversleeps and forgets to come pick me up. Regardless, running in Shirazi was surreal. It was still dark out when we started so we could still see all the stars, which were unbelievable themselves, and then while we ran the stars would fade as the sun slowly rose above the palm trees and lit up the mud huts and sandy paths.

While in Shirazi we had Swahili class every morning from 7-11. My classroom was outside under a mango tree, also home to wandering chickens and a multitude of monkeys. A monkey actually peed on the girl sitting next to me in class one day!

Uncle Salim waving at me from 50ft in the air up a coconut tree.

Another uncle named Salim, who is 22, became my extra Swahili and Shirazi life coach for the week. He taught me how to climb a coconut tree to harvest the coconuts. He literally scaled the tree and kept turning around to look down and wave at me which prompted me to freak out and yell at his that he was crazy in Swahili. But he harvested a bunch of coconuts that we broke open and drank right then and there and then we grated the rest of the coconut to use with dinner. Salim ended up coming to dinner every night and he would stay after and help teach me Swahili while I taught him English. 

After Salim showed me how to climb the coconut tree, this is how far up 

the tree I made it...my sister looks unimpressed.

Some guests I had in my room in Shirazi: a spider the size of my fist, bats galore, gigantic millipedes, a bed-full of fire-ants one night, and a few monkeys. Fire-ants also had an anthill on the floor in my choo which made every bathroom trip a lot riskier than it should have been.

We did a couple of education visits too, one to the medical clinic in the neighboring village of Bodo, and one to the island of Funzi where we learned a little bit about traditional practices there and saw the most wazungu we’ve seen in Kenya since the resort is on the island. When we pulled up in our boat we met a Canadian woman who’s first comment to us was, “There’s a nice little market over there. It’s very African.” How thoughtful of her to give us such a helpful hint.

One day my mom introduced me to my “mpenzi” (fiancée) in Shirazi. We were walking to some random relative’s house when she turned around and told me we were going to meet my fiancée. We get there and sitting outside his house is this old guy with his wife and children. Turns out he’s my mom’s father’s brother and somehow this makes him my mpenzi. The women put a stool right in front of his mat and forced me to sit there while they sat around laughing and asking me questions like, “this is the man you’re going to marry, do you like him?” and “Oh he’s old, he has no hair even, do you like that?” Keep in mind that this is all happening in Swahili and I have never been so uncomfortable before and I couldn’t think of any sort of response in Swahili. This led my mpenzi to think I was sort of stupid and bad at Swahili, which is probably fine because he wouldn’t want to marry a dumb girl, but I got defensive and practically yelled at him in Swahili which made me feel much better about the whole situation. That was the end of that though and I managed to avoid him like the plague (or chiggers) the rest of the time in Shirazi.

Did I mention that our families dressed  us up in Shirazi? This was by far my best look...please note the rainbow-fish-like quality of this lovely gown.

Our mom’s gave all the girls henna towards the end of our stay. Salim also helped me learn a lot about traditional medicine in the village which was awesome. He even took me to interview the traditional medicine man. That was fascinating and it was definitely understandable why people believe in him but my willingness to believe in his abilities was dampened a little when he asked me to pay him for the time he spent answering my questions.

I learned how to kill, de-feather, and cut up a chicken. Also learned how to roast fresh cashew nuts, fry mandazi, make chapatti, and cook tambi (aka sugar spaghetti). There are no recipes here but I can't wait to try to replicate all of this food for you when I get home!

On our last day Salim took me to see the Shirazi village soccer team play a local team in a nearby village. We got to ride a piki piki (motorcycle taxi) there which gave us great views of the village on our last afternoon. Plus Shirazi won 3-1 so we couldn’t complain.

I also broke out the bubble gun I brought for my little brother and it was like Christmas come early. Omari has been walking around with the bubble gun holstered in the waist-band of his pants ever since then.

The most liberating part of Shirazi was being able to walk anywhere and greet every person you saw. I never had to walk around with my angry face on like I do in Nairobi. I also had a cold outdoor bucket shower every day, which was best done by lantern under the stars at night or post-run in the morning with monkey’s climbing the palm trees over my head.

I’m sure I’ve left out a million details that I wanted to share but basically our ten days in Shirazi flew by way too fast and I really hope I can take my mom up on her offer to come back and visit Shirazi some time in the future!

My fam right before our tearful goodbye. They were fantastic people and I've already talked to them on the phone a few times since we left the village.