The place.

. . . consists of a cluster of a dozen villages in Kenya's coastal county of Kwale, halfway between Mombasa and Tanzania. All together they have about 15.000 inhabitants, predominantly Muslims and members of the locally dominant Digo tribe. People in Msambweni make their livelihood mainly from agriculture, fishing, crafts and trade and some public service. Coconut palms, mango and neem trees, and sugar cane plantations characterize the area.

The coastal road branches off towards the sea near the police station and along it, there are some small shops, a post office, the Chief's office as well as a relatively large district hospital. Msambweni also hosts a governmental training institute for Environmental Health Sciences in the village of Tumbe; nearby is a small leprosy colony ("Blessed Camp"), which takes care of Kenya’s last victims of this virtually extinct disease, and of their families ( → The lepers of Baraka).

The fishing village just behind Mbuyu Beach is called Sawa Sawa. On the beach front you will find no other hotels or touristic infrastructure, just some private holiday homes that are occupied occasionally, and a small fish market. The nearby "Club Salima", still mentioned in some travel guides, is no longer operating as a touristic facility. The whole Sawa Sawa area has kept much of the sleepy, peaceful charm from its earlier coastal days.