Malindi is getting a makeover in preparation for a new tourist season, and it starts at its 'gateway' or roundabout (the 'Total' roundabout, as it is usually called) thanks to a special donation that smells of the savannah.
The Kenyan company 'Mombasa Cement', which is very active in works and services for municipalities and government facilities, has donated a series of metal animal sculptures that have been placed in the large flowerbed at the entrance to the town, coming from the international airport and the Mombasa-Garsen-Lamu 'highway'.
Two elephants greet the visitor, but in the ground, bordered by well-placed pebbles that for once give the idea of a well-thought-out scenography, there is also a lion and there are giraffes, rhinoceroses, warthogs, a hippo and buffaloes. A beautiful family of wild animals that reminds everyone that an hour and a half from this seaside destination you enter one of Kenya's iconic national parks, the Tsavo East, with its nature and its 'hosts'.
Behind this donation there is actually an anecdote, which concerns the eternal challenge between Mombasa and Malindi, which, even if today it is rose-water, has very ancient roots and which had already become apparent with the arrival of Vasco Da Gama in 1498 (Mombasa enemy and destroyed, Malindi welcoming and helped): the owner of the cement company had donated the animals to the port city, but disagreements with the new governor (according to local press reports) advised removing them and donating them to Kilifi County, whose administration had thought of embellishing the Malindi roundabout. Let us hope that this is the beginning of more consideration for what in 2001 was described as the cleanest and most flourishing town in Kenya, and over the years bears the signs of neglect and unfinished works, as well as structures, tourist and otherwise, in an advanced state of decay.
Those who live there, grew up there and were born there know this: the history of Malindi is full of resurrections, without, however, ever really dying.