There is a corner of Kenya where Italy is present; where street signs are in Italian, English and local languages. To the locals, understanding Italian comes easy; no need to enrol in a foreign language course.
Here words such as abbracciamoci are not considered foreign. In English the word means come let us hug. Politically, it could mean, come let us have a handshake.
The town is Malindi. It is located on your way to Lamu county which borders southern Somalia, a former colony of Italy and once known as the Italian East Africa or Africa Orientale Italiana, or simply AOI. Many Kenyans know Somalia for the enemy we don’t hug—al Shabaab.
Malindi is known as Little Italia (Piccola Italia). It’s here that villas of white coral compete with the beige sands of the ocean beaches.
Yet Italians are not the first expatriate community of this famous cosmopolitan town. Is this not the same land that welcomed the Portuguese of the Renaissance period 500 years ago as they sought to cross the Indian Ocean?
As Columbus and Spain headed West across the Atlantic, Vasco da Gama and Portugal headed East in search of India. Having gone around the southern tip of Africa, the Portuguese would eventually climb the long coastlines of Mozambique and Tanzania to old Mombasa.
Here they received a hostile reception from the local ruler but would finally find a warm hug and welcome from the Sultan of Malindi, sworn enemies of the Mombasa leaders.
This renaissance hug between the likes of Vasco da Gama and the old leader of Malindi is commemorated by the Vasco da Gama Pillar – a landmark near the new recreation park in Malindi created by the county government under outgoing Governor Amason Kingi.
From the Arabs to the Turks, from the Portuguese to the Italians, Malindi has seen it all. It is one of the arms of Kenya that have wrapped our hospitality around the shoulders of the world in hugs of welcome from ancient times. The tourism-dependent town is a living embodiment of Kenyan hospitality in a way.
This is why I landed in the town last weekend to benefit from this tradition. My intention was resolutely Kenyan and imitative of the spirit of the president and his nemesis – the leader of the opposition. Their handshake is now a symbol in Kenyan political parlance and stands for diplomacy or reconciliation.
Mine was a real case of domestic diplomacy. Having the pleasure of being the sultan of my family, a microcosm of Kenya, is one of the realities of my life that I cherish. In recent times my co-ruler of my compound and I had experienced choppy waters – perhaps due to the trauma of a global pandemic.
We had differed in principle on a number of important familial matters. They ranged from issues to do with finance, kitchen, living room, and other rooms (call them departments). At one point we toyed with the idea of picking practical lessons from our parliamentarians of using pugilist methods to solve our stand-offs.
We remembered our Anglican roots of love, as old as this denomination and its origins. We chose that instead of war and conflict, peace and diplomacy should be our first line of action. Think of it this way: what would you choose between “making war” and “making love”?
So up into the skies of Nairobi we soared and across the vast stretch of Ukambani we flew. We watched Mt Kilimambogo shrink to a speck of dust on the Yatta Plateau and crisscrossed the Tana and the Athi several times – bearing the southerly directions – mocking the clouds beneath.
As the gathering clouds of silence sat between my wife and I, we suddenly descended in Malindi. We checked into one of its numerous fantastic hotels. The hospitality here replaced the hostility of faraway Nairobi. We closed the gap between us with gazes of amity after many weeks of wrangles.
It is at the Vasco da Gama pillar that I stood and confessed the meaning of this impulsive trip. I sat with my fellow leader and stared at the ocean waves. An albatross whistled a love song. It dropped white guano that fell between us. A sign, perhaps like a hug, or a handshake?
History students both, we shook hands the Kenyan way. Hugging, we solved our differences by emulating two pairs: the old Sultan of Malindi and Vasco da Gama, as well as the retiring president and the opposition leader.
May this International Hugging Day 2022 mean much to you too as a sign.
