Yoga at sea draws tourists to Shela

Monika Fauth first came to Lamu from Holland in 1997. She never left. Now, 20 years later she is spearheading one branch of an international movement for wellness, grounded in the art and exercise of yoga.

It was three years ago when she launched the first Lamu Yoga Festival. Since then, international interest has grown. Coincidentally, so has interest in wellness and healthy living.

For the fourth International Yoga Festival which is currently underway, Monika received more than 300 yoga practitioner-guests.

She had many more applicants who wished to attend the festival, but she had to draw the line somewhere. After all, Shela Island, the fishing village where most of the yoga classes and social activities are being held, cannot easily accommodate many visitors.

Yoga sites

Quite a few festival guests are staying at the Banana House which is the lovely boutique hotel that Monika started with her husband back in 2000. Others have found space across Lamu Bay on Manda Island, and others are staying in Lamu town.

“It’s all bound to work out well since we’re having classes at Diamond Beach and several other venues on Manda Island,” said Monika who placed everything about the festival online. “That way people could register online. They even selected which hotel and classes they wanted to sign up for,” she added.

Yoga classes are also being held in Lamu town, specifically at the Baraka Gallery. In all more than 120 classes are being held during the five-day festival at 12 different sites. The class that Monika’s best known for is the ‘Early Bird’ one. It’s held every day at 6.30am on Shela Beach.

“Last year, we had as many as 75 people on the beach. People like starting early so they can take in as many different classes as possible,” she said.

Monika is just one of 26 yoga teachers playing an active role in this year’s festival. Others have come from Mexico, UK, California and Europe. Most of them admit they can’t imagine a more ‘heavenly’ place to teach yoga than in Lamu.

“But the majority are from East Africa, either from Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda or else Kenya,” she said.

Quite a few of the Kenyan teachers were trained at the Africa Yoga Project. The project was founded back in 2007 by an American yoga teacher Paige Elenson who is stuck with it ever since. Paige started the Africa Yoga Project in Kibera slum. Since it took off, it has expanded and now reaches Kenyan youth in many parts of the country.

She is thrilled with the project’s success since her main aim from the outset was to teach yoga to under-served Kenyan youth as a means of empowering them and ideally enabling them to get jobs teaching yoga themselves. The Yoga Festival is allowing them to do just that.

Different styles

One of the most fascinating features of the festival is the wide range of yoga styles being taught. There is everything from Bikram and Hatha yoga to Kindaluni and Vinyasa yoga among many other techniques.

The beauty of such diversity is that people don’t have to be experts in any one style. They can just sign up and take classes in any technique, be it ancient or modern.

But during the festival, there’s lots more happening than only classes and demonstrations of expert yoga techniques.
“One thing that we’ll be doing is launching ‘The Vibe Tribe’”, Monika said.

The Tribe is made up of more than 50 local musicians who will put on a jam session on Shela Beach where they will mix African percussion with Indian instruments, rhythms and vibrant sounds.

Tonight there is going to be a special ‘Sunset Sail’ all around Lamu Bay. A fleet of up to 20 dhows will accommodate the guests.

Saturday night the Banana House will host a beach party where Monica’s place will be serving Swahili food.

But every night the food is bound to be special since there will be plenty of fresh fish caught and cooked the same day.

“There will be plenty of vegetarian [and vegan] dishes served as well,” she added.

Sunday’s the final day of the festival. Still, yoga classes will be running all day.

What’s more, Monika said the Yoga Festival has proved to be so popular that she will be launching a second Lamu Yoga Festival in November 2017 which will look at ‘wellness’ from a more holistic perspective, including nutrition, meditation and other aspects of healthy living.