Page 50 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 35

History

incredible place to

live.

What Happened

to Gedi?

Much like other
ancient cities
along the Kenyan

coast, the reasons
for Gedi’s decline
remain unclear.

Jumba la Mtwana,
for instance, ceased
to exist about 500
Reception area of the Sultan palace in Gedi. years ago; the
residents simply abandoned the location
his journey. Furthermore, the so-called Vasco one day. Some theories suggest that it was
da Gama Pillar in Malindi was not erected abandoned due to:
as a monument of power but was built as a • Invasion by the Oromo people from

navigational aid for his future visits. The real Ethiopia
pillar points the navigator directly towards • Changes in the water table that
India. threatened the city’s water supply

• Foreign diseases brought by traders
What Was Life Like in Gedi? and explorers

• The slave trade (though Zena
For the first time in a while, my almost doubted this theory)
three-year-old son was so delighted with a

new place that he ran around excitedly as Why Tell Gedi’s Story?
we explored the ruins. Everything fascinated
him. He got so dusty from playing that we I did not write this article to prove anything

had to bathe him under one of the taps before to foreign historians who have long
leaving. Watching him run freely within the distorted African history. Nor did I write
ancient city walls was a beautiful reminder it to convince Europeans that Africa had
of what life might have been like for children civilizations, cities built of stone, and real
his age hundreds of years ago. Imagine an walls—not just mud huts as often depicted

African city with proper streets, designated in Western historical films. I wrote it simply
nooks for lamps carved into the walls, and because real things happened in Africa,
bustling daily life—it must have been an built by Africans, and these stories deserve

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