lamu island 7.14

wandering narrow stone streets, catching quick glances down crumbling alleyways festooned with ramshackle wiring, windows opened to the brilliant equatorial sun and wind, boats queued in the busy harbor, all crafted meticulously by hand from trees felled long ago, will all eventually return to the same sea. wandering through an old islamic gravesite at the north end of stonetown, where the alleyways give way to sand, brush, shrubs, simple thatch houses, my eyes were averted to the dates drawn onto simple memorials; imperminence, lives lived and extinguished, dreams, sorrows, happiness.