[words and photograph © Mark Eveleigh]

Few tourists who arrive in Lamu have much of a grasp of Swahili. There are two phrases that you’ll hear so often within your first day on the island that they’ll be firmly embedded in your brain: “hakuna matata” (no problem) is already an international catchphrase courtesy of The Lion King; and “karibu”, the sing-song Swahili welcome that you hear everywhere on Kenya’s little Indian Ocean paradise.