The port town of Lamu, established in the 14th century within an archipelago of small islands near Somalia, is among the oldest continually inhabited places on Africa’s Indian Ocean coast. Arab traders sailed here in their wooden dhows on their way south to Zanzibar. They brought dates and steel utensils from Arabia; they took back mangrove logs and cowrie shells.

All morning long, along the old town seafront, men unload mangrove logs and palm fronds. Fishers bring in their catches. No cars are allowed in the old town. The only taxis in its narrow lanes are donkeys. The once-thriving tourism industry has shrunk sharply because of a series of attacks by the Somalia-based terrorist group known as the Shabab.

To get to the coal plant site from Lamu town, you have to hire a boat to cross the channel and then drive along a sandy path. Cashews grow amid the wilderness. There are patches of sesame, kitchen gardens of watermelon and papaya, and a lot of uncertainty in the air. No one here has seen a coal plant before. No one really knows how it will affect them.

Shebwana Mohammed, an 18-year-old who was riding his bicycle near the project site, said he felt a mixture of worry and hope. “If it comes with a job I’m ready to take it,” he ventured.