Marina, the "Lady in blue" of Watamu

From northern Italy to Kenya, a love choice

06-09-2015 by redazione

In his blue eyes you can find Watamu's sky and sea. The sunshine of a woman who found her balance, the serenity she was looking for.
It would be hard to say that Marina Mauro comes from Northern Italy (Friulian by birth, twenty-five years old in Pavia and another 18 in Vicenza). 
Much easier to say that in 2002 she was struck by lightning in Kenya, in 2007 after a long mutual acquaintance she married Carlos, a nice boy from Watamu, who tried to live with him also in Italy but then she couldn't make it anymore. 
The call of his blue prevailed, but not only.
"The rhythms of life, the simplicity of the people, their philosophy - explains Marina - I wanted to experience life as an African, not as a tourist. And it definitely won me over".
So little by little he started building a Bed&Breakfast and a Bar-Restaurant on Carlos' family plot in Watamu, in front of the Blue Bay Village. Then two years ago the big leap. The restaurant owned by her husband is ready and she too decides to move and leave that job at the bank for almost twenty-five years had been her security.
"Falling asleep every night with the sound of the ocean is one of the priceless things about living in this place," Marina admits, "but the real Africa, the one I've dreamt about since I was a child and read as a girl in Karen Blixen's novel, is the one I love. Every time I come back to Italy I miss the open spaces". 
Now you can enjoy the business you created for Carlos, who runs it with entrepreneurial skills and good taste.
"The "Marina" was born as a bar but we have expanded into a restaurant, we have recently built a pizza oven and we combine African cuisine with some Italian specialities. In addition there are the three rooms of the B&B, with sun beds in the bay just a few steps away". Explains the lady in blue, as everything blue and blue is the house she shares with Carlos and the restaurant that her Kenyan husband runs.
Marina shows her Italianism when she talks about the Kenyan people of the coast. "Sometimes I get angry with them, for the affection I have for them. They should be more aware of their potential and put aside certain habits, grow together beyond tribalism. Even if their way of living in the present, that fatalism which is almost self-defence, has always attracted me, as opposed to the inability of the Western world to enjoy the moments".