The big kettle of Fort Jesus and how it came to being

The famous huge co ee pot outside the Fort Jesus Museums which was built by Hussein Alawy in 1988 as a decoration, June 25, 2015.

One evening in 1987, two men working at a curio shop outside Fort Jesus in Mombasa conceived an idea to erect something to mark 10 years of former President Daniel Moi's rule.

"My boss insisted we do something to commemorate 10 years of President Moi's reign the following year. But after pondering over the idea, we saw the need to do something that had historical bearing with the local community. It was a matter of killing two birds with one stone," says Hussein Alawi, the man who built the big kettle, locally known as buli, outside Fort Jesus.