Encounter with Mombasa’s jini

By John Kariuki

I once taught at the coast and the dense myths and some supernatural phenomenon that abound there still give me the shivers.

During my tour of duty I went from being a sceptic of the existence of jinis, dismissing them as the product of idle talk, to an expert of sorts on the occult.

My earliest encounter with a jini was only days after I reported to my first teaching post, a decade ago. The school’s principal had just died and there was much speculation about the circumstances surrounding his death.

It was claimed that prior to his death, the headmaster had given a lift to a woman on his motorcycle along the dirt road from Mavueni to Kaloleni via Dzitsoni. But midway, at a place called Mitangoni, the principal realised he was alone, his passenger having disappeared into thin air!

According to the teachers, the man developed depression after this inexplicable development. Weeks later he went to Mombasa on official duty where, according to eyewitnesses, he met his nemesis at the traffic lights at the junction of Digo and Makadara roads.

As he waited for the lights to turn green, the apparition he had given a lift appeared before him and he exclaimed, "Yule mwanamke amenifuata tena!" He must have released the brakes of his motorbike ahead of the green light in fright, for it eased into the crossroads and was hit by an oncoming vehicle.

Beautiful women

After his burial, rifts emerged in his extended family and theories came up as to why some members may have wanted him out of the way.

Not long after the principal’s death, a colleague got into trouble with a local man over a love triangle. Emissaries were sent to warn him off, but the man stuck to his guns. Then one morning he claimed to have noted a strange occurrence in his house.

As he was coming from the bathroom, he saw wet marks made by sandals going into his house. The prints went right into his bedroom where they ended besides his bed, but there was nobody or any wet sandals in sight!

We took his revelation as a good tea break joke but two days later, it was no longer a laughing matter. We woke up to find the man surveying the school field with measured strides, collecting and pocketing pieces of papers strewn all over. I personally took him home upcountry where he underwent lengthy psychiatrist therapy.

Welcome to the many tragic encounters with Mombasa’s jini, a subject that is often discussed in hushed tones and knowing glances.

Of course, the sightings and shenanigans of these jinis are often exaggerated.

Like the enthralling tales that Uncle Jim would tell patrons in his Mtwapa pub. This ageing chap would swear by his ancestors that a one-eyed pirate resembling the classical Long John Silver is often seen at Shanzu beach particularly on foggy, rainy mornings.

Uncle Jim’s pet topic was about an upcountry man who had met a fabulously rich woman in a nightclub. "She took him to her seaside bungalow. When the moment to sleep came, the man kept his clothes inside a wardrobe," Uncle Jim would narrate. In the morning, however, passersby were shocked to see the guy swaying precariously atop a palm tree, naked and fast sleep! "Salalaa, mwana wa watu amekipata!" (Lo, somebody has got some misfortune), they said, nodding knowingly. His clothes hung from the fronds of nearby palm trees. According to Uncle Jim, some construction workers brought him a ladder and he climbed down. He quit his job and left the coast that same day!

But between the fantastic tales of naÔve young men taking beautiful women to bed and waking up in cemeteries and Uncle Jim’s fantastic tales, real jinis must somehow be in existence at the coast.

Tragic case

Between accounts of beauties stretching their hands from the back of matatus to tap the driver on the shoulder when he fails to stop for them to alight, and packs of marauding black cats believed to be people, there must be the real paranormal occurrences.

Silas Mwangi, a resident of Changamwe in Mombasa, thinks that jini are real and claims to have seen many strange things on the island.

He cites the speed with which looters returned stolen property in Mombasa following the post-election violence of 2007 as a manifestation of jini power and the fear associated with them. "Some businesses I know on the island recovered all their stolen stocks and this is not a simple thing," says Mwangi.

Mwangi witnessed the tragic case of a senior government official of upcountry origins he knew sometimes ago. "I told this man to go easy and understand the local customs before asserting himself in his job but he would not listen to me," Mwangi recalls. "He would send people in his department home for the flimsiest of reasons."

One evening, he reported that he had found things in his house rearranged. The bed was in the living room and the toiletries were in the kitchen! There was no apparent breakage and the door was as he had locked it in the morning.

"I told him to reflect and mend fences with anybody he may have wronged for this was just a curtain raiser for the main show ahead," Mwangi says.

The officer’s woes intensified, he adds, and he begun telling people stories of night voyages where he would float in space and see the entire world from miles high up. Occasionally, he would travel on the sea and ride waves. Nobody took him seriously until one morning, he was found with his beddings sleeping outside his house. "His house was locked from inside, just as he had done when went to sleep and we had to break the door from outside to get back in," recalls Mwangi.

How he had come out without opening the door or windows remains a mystery to this day. This officer abandoned his plum job that same day and went back home to rear chickens.

Cindy Karomo had just arrived to work in Mombasa. Her neighbour, a young Swahili man whom she describes as angelic, began making passes at her. She had been warned about the coast but adventure took the better of her and she accepted the man’s many gifts and favours. Yet she shrugged his advances. But the young man, a playboy from a rich family, boasted of how he would use all means at his disposal to get her. "He boasted that if everything else failed, he would travel to Tanga in Tanzania for more powerful jinis," says Cindy.

Tangible evidence

Apparently, the man contracted some jini for an apparition appeared to her in her sleep in the form of the young man. She was tired and defiled in the morning. "I confided in my small Christian community at work and we prayed hard," she says. Nothing happened for several nights. But in some sort of trance one night, she woke up and obeyed some strange commands to open her door.

The young Swahili man eased himself in and had a good time. In the morning, Cindy was under the same spell while escorting him to the door and closing it after him. "To add insult to injury, the guy went to a nearby kiosk and began boasting about his conquest," she says.

At first Cindy thought of suing him, but realised she had no tangible evidence. Everything had been dreamlike. There had been no communication or struggle in her ordeal. Besides, she had opened the door herself! She packed her things and left for upcountry. She has since sought a transfer from Mombasa.

And a man from upcountry recently bore the brunt of the occult and left Mombasa with only the clothes he was wearing. According to neighbours, the man ran a chemist’s and had an illicit liaison with someone’s wife.

"The husband sent him several emissaries to warn him off," says Kazungu, a neighbour. He did not stop, and that’s when something dramatic happened. His stock of drugs burnt in a bizarre fire that did not touch the walls of the rented shop. A day later, the hair on half of his head turned grey. The chap did not remember to pack his things or say goodbye before he took a night bus to Nairobi.

Felt a presence

Nguchu, a firm believer that jinis exist, was all smiles when he landed a job in Mombasa. After his first day at work he made some ugali and vegetables and sat down to eat. "I had cut the ugali into several pieces so that it would cool quickly. The light was above and behind me as I sat at the table and I could see my shadow on the wall ahead of me," recalls Nguchu. As he ate his ugali, he realised that there was another unmoving human shadow on the wall. He looked backwards but he was alone. The second shadow persisted.

Puzzled, he ate his ugali cautiously. "In the time I had looked back to see if I was alone, two pieces of ugali disappeared from the plate," he says. Perplexed, he counted the pieces of ugali on his plate and ate on, now frightened. When he was down to two pieces, he took one and the remaining one also disappeared. "I strongly felt a presence in the room and for the first time the other shadow moved its hand slightly as if mocking me!" says Nguchu.

He left his room and spent the night with friends. In the morning he booked himself on a bus to Nairobi.