The beautiful donkeys of Lamu

A ver­sion of this sto­ry appears in Issue 79 of Huck. Get your copy now, or sub­scribe to make sure you nev­er miss anoth­er issue.

Against the clash and wail of God-sum­mon­ing voic­es in the sky comes the hee-haw of a lone don­key in anguish. It ris­es in the swirling island winds that sway the palm trees as if in a rest­less dream. 

An elec­tric moon is beam­ing vio­lent­ly onto the island of Lamu tonight. It has us by the throat as it zaps straight and low into our eye­balls, hit­ting the back wall of our skulls and light­ing us all up as we float out across the Indi­an Ocean. ​“God is great”, the tan­noys clam­our, fir­ing up one by one from the roofs of all the mosques across the vil­lage of Shela. The bray­ing don­key yearns nois­i­ly for its moth­er, protest­ing bit­ter­ly in hunger, cry­ing out that, like the rest of us: it is des­per­ate­ly alone. 

For cen­turies, these work­ing ani­mals have built this East African island and act­ed as pub­lic trans­port in the con­tin­ued absence of cars and trucks. They are every­where, car­ry­ing the back-break­ing loads of man­grove wood and coral stone in long trains across dunes, white sand beach­es and into the maze of nar­row alleys. 

Mouths make kiss­ing sounds through pursed lips to urge on these sullen-eyed crea­tures; palms slap their rears to guide the way. When they are not work­ing, like holy cows in India, the don­keys wan­der freely, scav­eng­ing for food and nos­ing into water holes — work­ing their mouths around jet­ti­soned coconut shells, fruit peels and any detri­tus worth exploring.

Faiz Abdil­lah Omar is known on the island as the don­key mas­ter. Born in Shela, he is fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his father and grand­fa­ther before him. ​“There is a say­ing in Swahili that we use,” he says over thick cof­fee as we sit in the cen­tre of his labyrinthi­an village.

“If you do not own a don­key, you are a don­key.” Two boys race by on their mounts, their long legs raised to avoid scrap­ing the dusty and uneven ground, sticks strik­ing vicious­ly across grey fur as they sharply urge their rides on in a blur. ​“If they dis­ap­peared from the island, the peo­ple would have to work very hard. Many don’t treat them in a nice way — espe­cial­ly in the Old Town.”

Lamu is a Mus­lim-major­i­ty island that forms part of an arch­i­pel­ago off the coast of Kenya. Its Swahili cul­ture and long trad­ing his­to­ry are entan­gled in Ara­bic, Per­sian, Por­tuguese, Indi­an and Chi­nese influ­ences vis­i­ble in the archi­tec­ture, heard in the lan­guage and tast­ed in the food.

To be referred to as a don­key is deroga­to­ry or insult­ing in most cul­tures but Faiz talks of con­nec­tion. If he can­not heal them, he is known to bury them:

“I was born with a don­key in the house and have grown with her, but peo­ple nowa­days just use them like a machine.”

As the bang of ham­mer on wood grows loud­er in Shela with Euro­peans con­vert­ing derelict Swahili hous­es into design­er homes and the intro­duc­tion of the boda boda motor­bike taxis in the Old Town threat­en­ing its UNESCO sta­tus, many wor­ry for their way of life. ​“Don­keys are now rent­ed and then dis­card­ed. They are strong enough to car­ry 150 or 200kg, but if you over­load them, beat them and leave them to eat in a dump, that is how you destroy them.”

Faiz is organ­is­ing Shela’s sec­ond-ever Don­key Beau­ty com­pe­ti­tion this week­end with the island vet and a local com­mu­ni­ty leader. Don­keys are reg­is­tered and judged in two cat­e­gories: ​‘Work­ing Don­keys In Best Con­di­tion’ and ​‘Best-dressed Don­key’. The mon­e­tary prize of 15,000 Kenyan Shillings (around £100) is sig­nif­i­cant enough to get the whole vil­lage talking.

Lat­er, I turn a cor­ner to see a don­key with a swollen stom­ach stag­ger and fall on its side where chil­dren play in the shade. They watch in won­der as she writhes and rolls her eyes, jerk­ing her body away from the ground beneath her. She clam­bers to her feet as a foal’s head appears in a liq­uid-filled sack. Moth­er incred­u­lous­ly faces one way and the foal the oth­er. Ensconced in an opaque hel­met, the foal stares blankly as if into out­er space, shocked by its own exis­tence as it is thrust out to begin its life along with thou­sands of oth­ers in the dust. Its own­er arrives in a sweat, hav­ing heard of the sud­den news.

“I will call her 2023,” he laughs as its moth­er licks at the fragili­ty of life itself. Beside her, a vis­cous lump of pla­cen­ta attracts flies, turn­ing from pink to pur­ple in the sun.

The fol­low­ing day, I wan­der to the edge of the vil­lage where a sooth­ing­ly round-cor­nered mosque looks like it was dropped into the sand. It sits across from the site of Faiz’s clin­ic. This new project: ​“A don­key club”, acts as a sanc­tu­ary in Shela for those who can­not afford ani­mal feed. It con­sists of an open pen with a small con­crete struc­ture and a deep well. Wood­en posts have been wired togeth­er to encir­cle a large herd that stick their faces through the fence, kick­ing up dust as we arrive. ​“My phone is always on,” Faiz waves his plas­tic Nokia at me.

“If some­one sees a sick don­key, they know to call me ²⁴⁄₇.” With a defund­ed sanc­tu­ary in town and a pri­vate vet only open in the week, it has become a vital safe space for belea­guered don­keys pushed to their lim­its under a blis­ter­ing sun.

We enter the pen, and buck­ets of fruit and veg­etable peel are soon dumped into wood­en troughs. Large hand­fuls of dried grass are then tossed light­ly into a chaos of snap­ping teeth. ​“Okay, be care­ful now,” shouts Faiz as the full force of one fiend knocks me side­ways, and black buck­ets filled with heaps of ground maize ren­der them deliri­ous. Ter­ri­fy­ing moans accom­pa­ny a don­key mêlée around Faiz’s wide grin, ​“Look how they love it,” he whis­pers. The morn­ing of the com­pe­ti­tion is sig­nalled by a cho­rus of tan­noys and cock crow­ing, like any oth­er morn­ing on Lamu. As the sun ris­es hard, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to ven­ture out of the shade, there is the effer­ves­cent air of a hap­pen­ing across the vil­lage. The slight­est inter­rup­tion to the lan­guid rhythms of Shela becomes mon­u­men­tal to its inhabitants.

Afrobeats thud below an old colo­nial-look­ing hotel on the coast, where the vil­lage ends, and the vast expanse of flat sands stretch for miles. At around 3pm, rid­ers appear from a dis­tance; the rest drag their ani­mals dressed in gar­lands of flow­ers behind them. Those gath­ered eager­ly start whistling and point­ing at the sur­re­al parade. Famau Shukri, an impos­ing com­mu­ni­ty leader in dark shades and a crisp shirt, blows and tuts into a micro­phone, ​“test­ing one, two.”

“We have all gath­ered for this great com­pe­ti­tion once again,” he says after loud­ly clear­ing his throat over the mic. ​“We do so to pro­mote kind­ness in the spir­it of Shela itself. Today is for the don­keys to have their day.”

Hamed stands ten­ta­tive­ly by the ani­mal he has named Tem­n­er; one is as for­lorn as the oth­er. ​“My don­key is too old to win,” he says. ​“In four years, he will be 23 and won’t work again — not a lot anyway.”

Even with no chance of the grand prize, each entrant will take home 1500 Kenyan Shillings (around £10). Oth­ers yank on chains or ropes to con­strain their ani­mals that wild­ly buck and bray their hearts out of fear or the desire to mate. Scuf­fles and argu­ments break out that Famau moves in to quell. The com­pe­ti­tion has ignit­ed the island pol­i­tics: the feel­ing is that what­ev­er the deci­sion will be, it will be unfair. Obliv­i­ous, red-raw and wrin­kled tourists con­verge to take self­ies with any­thing that moves.

One entrant, Tamza, is pat­ted by her eight-year-old own­er, Mari­am Seff. The donkey’s hooves, paint­ed in gold, have caught the eye of Miss Lamu in her crown and pageant sash, along with a male mod­el on hol­i­day from Nairo­bi. With the help of two young school­girls, he is to choose the ​‘Best Dressed’ don­key. Bedecked with batik of orange and red, Tamza is impe­ri­ous in gold­en paint­ed wings made from palm fronds that rest upon her haunch­es. She must have a chance.

Nawaz Ahmed is 24 and has the swag­ger of a 70s surfer: all heavy eye­lids and sun-bleached ringlets. ​“This is Black­ie,” he tells me. ​“It is rare to find a black don­key. They are the lucky ones.” Blackie’s fur has been rubbed with coconut oil to make him shine with a lumi­nous and poten­tial­ly win­ning sheen.

Two sto­ic friends dressed in their hotel work uni­forms, Japhet Man­ji and Josphat Safari, are incred­i­bly qui­et — their don­key adorned with left­over Christ­mas tin­sel, as calm as the warm waters that lap around their feet.

Faiz arrives with a don­key he washed in the sea at day­break — scrub­bing its hide with salt water for the event. Its colours and rib­bons snake excit­ing­ly around its wild eyes. ​“Faiz is more than a don­key whis­per­er — he is a don­key saint,” Famau tells me. The pok­er-faced island vet weaves her way through the con­tes­tants, tak­ing notes on a pad: ​“I look at its gen­er­al con­di­tion, search­ing for wounds. I note its tem­pera­ment, I check the hooves.” For a per­son who feeds milk to tiny orphaned kit­tens, she has the bruis­ing body lan­guage of some­one not to be messed with.

Men jos­tle at her intim­i­dat­ing­ly. Dr Sharon Masi­o­lo may be a qual­i­fied vet, but to some, she is a woman who does not know her place. She han­dles her­self, bare­ly break­ing a sweat. ​“I choose three don­keys for each cat­e­go­ry, and then it’s down to the chil­dren to decide.” The don­key mob swal­lows up all the space around her.

Faiz’s don­key dis­cards its cos­tume and races away down the beach as Famau takes to the micro­phone to announce that the final­ists from around 30 don­keys will now be called. Jeers and whis­tles fill the air as three men stand clench­ing their jaws as two young school­girls shy­ly make their minds up. One touch­es the nose of a shirk­ing donkey.

‘The Best Dressed Don­key’ win­ner is Abu Madi Ali’s ​‘Farasi’ — sim­ply dressed in frag­ile red flow­ers. ​“It should be Zam Zam,” shouts one man aggres­sive­ly. The male mod­el appeas­es the crowd in Swahili. A don­key erupts in great mis­ery and dis­tress and will not stop.

Famau is back on the micro­phone again, shoul­der to shoul­der with the vet. As a mas­ter of cer­e­mo­ny, he does not hold back in remind­ing the crowd of his author­i­ty, his voice deep and slow. He holds anoth­er enve­lope with enough mon­ey to improve someone’s life for a month.

Yacoub Fun, a furtive teenag­er in a base­ball cap, knows that his don­key, Nush­ka, could win today. She stands beside him with unblem­ished ash-grey fur and healthy, curi­ous eyes. The ten­sion among the don­key own­ers is almost unbear­able before a lit­tle girl hes­i­tates and then points to Bull, owned by Fayadh Abubakar. Yacoub is as vis­i­bly crushed as Fayadh is jubi­lant. Quick­ly seiz­ing the enve­lope, shak­ing everyone’s hand and then punch­ing the air, he reins in Bull with all his might and screams: ​“I love my don­key” over the micro­phone. The oth­er entrants are dis­mayed that Bull has an ugly brand burnt into its neck — usu­al­ly, such signs of own­er­ship would make for dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion, but Bull was a res­cue don­key — the cru­el­ty inflict­ed by another.

“Don­keys are the evil souls rein­car­nat­ed to suf­fer for the unspeak­able mis­ery they cre­at­ed in anoth­er life,” says a man in a grey beard, mat­ter-of-fact­ly. I feel weak from the sun and escape up con­crete steps away from the deep sor­row of don­key eyes.

Exhaust­ed, in the Peponi hotel above the beach, I watch the rich res­i­dents, obliv­i­ous to the strug­gles below gulp down grape­fruit cock­tails. I think of pus-filled welts on necks, ankles quiv­er­ing from the weight of too many bricks, ribs pok­ing through skin trem­bling at the slight­est touch and work­ing until you fall down dead as a reg­gae ver­sion of Bob Dylan’s ​‘Knock­ing On Heaven’s Door’ bumps away to a bloody sun­set.

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