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Known for its pristine white beaches and laid-back feel, Malindi is spawning a surge in local tourism as a cultural and historic resort drawing Kenyans to a heritage that includes East Africa’s very first church, as well as the city’s land-mark Vasco Da Gama pillar. For as international visits decline, so local tourism is surging.

Malindi’s iconic pillar, conspicuous from afar, is in reality tucked down mazy, narrow passageways between magnificent Italian villas on the shore of the Indian Ocean. But with an entrance fee for locals of just Sh100 to see the Pillar, the Portuguese chapel and the Malindi Museum, it drew some 26,000 local visitors in the last year, an increase of some 15 per cent over the year before, and compared to a much reduced 500 foreign tourists.

The flow of Kenyan tourists each day negotiate the sandy path between private residences that opens onto the ocean on the South of Malindi town, where the striking pillar is poised at the end of a protruding coral reef. Balancing between a mass of sharp rocks and ridges, with sand beds between them, the 12 feet pillar with a cross at the top has recently been painted white, but Vasco Da Gama built it using coral.

A plaque a few meters from the landmark explains that Portuguese adventurer Vasco Da Gama was commissioned by the Portuguese Government to set sail for East Africa in 1460. With the blessing of his father, he was charged with outflanking the increasingly strong Muslim traders plying the Indian Ocean route. On his way to India, he docked at Mombasa, but was not welcomed by the then sultan of Mombasa. However, the Sultan of Malindi was more than willing to host the sailor and his crew thanks to his own long running feud with his Mombasa counterpart.

Opinion is divided as to whether the sailor built the monument as a mark of discovery and lordship, or as a show of appreciation for the kindness he received from the Malindi ruler. Whichever the case, Da Gama, established a rapport with the Malindi residents to the point of burying his four sailors in a small chapel that he and his colleagues build just off the Silversands beach.

Located on Mnarini road, the Portuguese chapel is said to be the first church in East Africa. It was built by Vasco Da Gama on his voyage to India in 1498. The ten square feet building is surrounded by the tombs of the four sailors, the first British District Commissioner of Malindi, J-Bell Smith, and some other colonial officials.

The chapel itself can hold 30 people, and as a sign of its Catholic roots, there is an altar at the front and wooden cross perched in the middle.

However, it was not until 1542 when St. Francis Xavier came to Malindi that the church was fully recognized as a church in the Muslim dominated area. The chapel has remained virtually unchanged since then.

Under the jurisdiction of the National Museum of Kenya (NMK), regular maintenance work is done to keep the building in its original state.   “We have just supported the walls by building another wall on the outside, otherwise everything has remained the same,” said Mr. Dena, the caretaker of the chapel.

Occasionally, couples with a penchant for a unique experience come to the chapel for wedding ceremonies and later to the Vasco Da Gama pillar for the photo session.

In a setting where many of the older buildings in Malindi are built with the Arabic-Swahili architecture of flat roofs, designer hard wood doors and antique furniture, the town’s historic feel and style has even rubbed-off to the new buildings right at the centre of the town.

“We want to be known also as a heritage town… and we need to bring out more,” said Ms. Aisha Fazil, the curator of Malindi Museum.

But Malindi’s move to showcase the region’s heritage is not without cost. One maintenance fee quotation given to the museum estimated the reconstruction of the pillar foundation at Sh17m and the Portuguese embassy estimated it at even Sh100m.

For Kenyan visitors, the past is now affordable in Malindi. But for the National Museums of Kenya, the project is a substantial one.

Written for African Laughter by Ken Macharia and James Karuga