A Day in Diani

With my time in Africa running out, I decided to spend one of my last spare weekends in Diani. I had intended to visit the local sacred forest when I last visited Mombasa, but a last-minute work commitment kept me from extending my trip by a Friday afternoon. Thus, I went with my friend Wei, leaving Nairobi by plane on a Saturday morning and returning late in the afternoon on Sunday. As far as I can remember, this was the first time I used Wilson Airport, and while I got lost a few times trying to find my way around the place – where each airline seems to have its own departures hall – I found the breakfast at the Safarilink hall surprisingly excellent.

Wei and I split up after arriving and eating lunch. While she went kitesurfing, I caught a tuk-tuk on the side of the road and went to the Kaya Kinondo Sacred Forest. I was surprised at how bad the road along the seaside was and by how few tourists I found at the Sacred Forest: there was only one car in the parking lot. I was glad when the tuk-tuk driver suggested he would wait for me to finish my visit and take me back to the town, as there were practically no cabs around, though I was not sure how much money I should give him for the hour-long wait.

A young man approached the tuk-tuk as soon as it pulled up. He introduced himself as a guide and escorted me to the reception house where I paid the entrance fee and listened to the brief introduction to Kaya Kinondo. The sacred forest is one among many along the Kenyan coast that are sacred to the Digo people, a Bantu tribe that believes itself to have travelled down the Kenyan coast from southern Somalia. I was curious to know how the forest became sacred: had it always been so or was it consecrated by the people themselves? The guide told me that on their journey to the south, the tribe carried a sacred clay pot, which they filled with medicine and buried in the heart of the forest. This pot is also believed to contain the souls of the most important elders from bygone ages, who were all buried near the pot when it arrived at its final destination.

We each tied a black cloth around the waist before proceeding. The path led us past a small straw hut, where the guide told me an elder usually propitiates the spirits before continuing into the forest to make prayers and sacrifices. There are four clans among the Digo, each playing a different societal role: priests, builders, and so on. There are also, the guide told me, four days in the traditional Digo week: two for working, one for sacrificing, and one for resting. However, this week has mostly been superseded by the seven-day week used by Muslims and Christians. I asked the guide whether most Digo people belong to one of these religions, and whether they continue their old practices regardless. Most Digo, he responded, converted to Islam years ago, but many still visit the forest and believe in its spirits. Indeed, even my Christian tuk-tuk driver from a different tribe acknowledged reverently that during one recent drought, a sacrifice at the forest immediately brought about rain.

The path continued through a forest full of creepers and lianas, whose trees grew from and among old grey corals, and every now and then, we came across an empty conch evidently brought there by humans. This, it seems, is a way to pay respects but it does not constitute a proper sacrifice. A proper sacrifice usually involves a black animal – either a chicken, goat, or cow depending on the magnitude of the request. After a while, the coral subsided, and the forest floor looked like any other. This, the guide announced, was the centre of the forest, marked by the only tree planted by humans – a tall tamarind reportedly planted by the forefathers who established the sacred forest. Otherwise, the forest is left alone, and the spirits must be propitiated before clearing a fallen tree from a path or gathering firewood for a sacrifice.

The tour took about an hour in total and involved a few activities that felt rather more aimed at tourists – swinging on a natural liana swing, hugging a tree to make a wish, and meditating in an old grove formed by the far-spread hanging roots of a single tree. The guide also pointed out a few interesting plants on the way, like some leaves with a very potent smell that he said cleared up blocked noses and headaches, and a tree whose branches naturally formed a triangle (it was not clear where the branch had grown from and where it had fused with the stem).

When the tour was over, I asked my tuk-tuk driver to take me to the Colobus Monkey Conservation Centre. I was the only visitor there and was taken around by the only employee on shift on a tour that felt remarkably fast, which was perhaps due to the fact that we spotted some wild colobus monkeys very early on in our walk and there was not much left to see after that. Beside the surgery room, the one interesting place I was shown were the cages for orphaned and ill monkeys. The guide explained that the conservation centre does nurse some monkeys back to health after being hit by cars, but that colobus monkeys cannot stand living outside the tree canopy, so it is only sykes monkeys and vervet monkeys that are kept in cages for convalescence.

The last place I saw in Diani was the Kongo Mosque, said to be the oldest mosque in Kenya. I stopped another tuk-tuk on the side of the road to take me over, but I found the mosque closed when I arrived. Surrounding the building were more modern structures apparently erected by Islamic foundations in recognition of the location’s importance, but the northern side of the compound bordered a few unrecognisably dilapidated walls overgrown by massive baobab trees.