On the 16th August the Guerrillas of Tsavo team visited Leven House in Old Town Mombasa, on a mission on behalf of the East African military historian Major Harry Fecitt TTT TD to meet with the Chairman of the Baluchi Community in Mombasa.
To get there we wandered through the alleyways, some just wide enough for one person at a time and the streets that had seen over 400 years of plodding footsteps, passing Africa House, one of the earliest hotels dating from 1902, passed beautiful old wooden Arab and exquisitely carved Gujerati doors we arrived at Leven House.
The 200 year old Leven House, overlooking the Old Town water front, has had many prestigious visitors from explores Burton and Speke to missionaries Redmann and Krapf during its history. Leven House was also home and office for the first British Consul in 1884. When the First World War broke out it was the German Consulate. In 1997 Leven House was given National Monument Status and was fully restored in 2008. Today it's the Office of the Old Town Conservation Unit.
There we met Dr Kalandar Khan the Coordinator of the Coastal Research Unit of the National Museums of Kenya and Mohamed Zein who gave us a background to the community, their connection with the East African Coast and Wavell's Arab Rifles of the First World War.
We also got a sneak peek at the plans and some of the artefacts for the new Baluchi exhibit to be housed in Fort Jesus.
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