Orphanage/Diani Beach

After a very busy 2 days, I finally have some time to blog. It's very difficult to articulate exactly what I am seeing and experiencing here, but I will do my best! First, let me say I am so in love with Mombasa. Every day I am here I fall more in love with this place. I was a bit worried it was going to feel touristy and that I wouldn't get a real African cultural experience, but that has not been the case. We have been practicing Swahili often, but the words are so hard to remember! This is what Ive got so far (keep in mind I am completely making up the spelling): cuaheri is goodbye, somahani is sorry, tafadali is please, karibu is welcome. That's all I can remember. Haha. They seem to appreciate us trying even if we sound ridiculous.
Thursday we went to a place called Precious Vision Care Center, which is an orphanage that houses 250 kids. Some are orphans, some abadnoned by their parents, and others whose parents are too poor to care for them. The kids were so excited to see us that they were all screaming and running up to us to shake our hands. I brought a huge duffel bag filled with toys to bring to the kids. Right before we went to the orphanage I gave a few of the toys to Benson, Lillian and Dolas, who are part of the Elective Africa staff, to give to their small children. Benson got a little carried away and I had to tell him to save some toys for the orphaned kids. Anyways, watching them hand out the toys to the kids at the orphanage was one of the most gratifying experiences. All I could think about was how I wished I could have brought more... The kids were all so well behaved and were lined up singing and clapping "thank you." Its truly amazing to see how happy these kids are despite all of the obstacles they face on a daily basis. Truly inspiring. I could tell some of the kids had kwashiorkor from malnourishment (big bellies), their clothes were all ripped, almost none of them had shoes on, and there were flies on many of their heads. It looked exactly like what youve seen on the commercials on tv...I wish I could have taken them all home.
We took a walk around the village where the orphanage is and it was extremely poor, run down and dirty. The people lived in small huts and there were goats roaming around everywhere. It truly made me feel grateful for everything that I have. I was assuming we were going to take a tuk tuk home from the orphanage, but all of a sudden about 9 motorcycles pulled up and Betty said, "Do you mind taking a motorcycle home?" I've never been on one before but I was up for it! I wasn't quite sure where to hang on because I didn't want to hold on to this guy I didn't know...so I just gripped on to this handle bar behind me and held on for dear life. Of course my motorcycle led the pack...I wasn't scared at all though, and luckily the ride was only about 10 minutes long.
Other highlights from Thursday were purchasing a fan at the Nakumatt and having to carry it 20 minutes home. I bought the smallest one they had which was not small by any means...I felt pretty silly carrying it down the street and several of the local people made comments about it during the walk back. We happened to be walking next to this guy in a wheelchair who had very small,frail legs. He would not stop talking to us, and it seemed like no matter how fast we walked, he was always right behind us! We crossed the street to get to our house and he stopped and was watching us and waiving...super creepy! I asked our staff if they knew him, which they did...its a good thing we have security!
I learned I'm highly allergic to Pebbles the kitty. I must have touhed my eyes after petting the cat because my eyes were so itchy and then swelled and got extremely red. I've been trying to stay away from the cat now but it seems to really like me and always tries to sit by me on the couch and come into my room!
I've gotten used to taking cold showers and have just gotten very quick at taking them, but I finally had my first hot one on Thur! It was quite a treat. You don't realize some of the things you take for granted!
Friday, me, Whitney, Ann and the three Irish guys (Mark, Andrew and Simon) left at 10 in the morning to head to Diani Beach. We took tuk tuks through downtown Mombasa, which I had not seen yet since the compound Im at is in the suburb Nyali. We got off and got in the line for the ferry. It was so crowded and I was getting shoved by some of the locals. Once we boarded the ferry, it was only about a 10 minute ride. When we got off the ferry, we were swarmed with people asking us if we needed a matatu, which we did. They told us it would be a 10 minute ride, but 45 minutes later and after having been in a matatu with 20 people crammed in it (insane) they told us we were at Diani Beach. We got out and didnt see anything that looked like a beach. We asked several different people, and they all pointed us in the same direction... so we walked and walked and walked.... 45 minutes later, I was sweating buckets and still no beach was in sight. We saw a sign for a hospital and walked in to ask for directios. They told us to get in another matatu, which we did and only took us about 5 minutes up the road. We walked through a path onto Diani Beach but realized we were on the wrong side of the beach. The beach was covered in seaweed past our ankles, but we had no choice other than to walk. We could see in the distance where we wanted to be but it was a long ways away...1 hour of walking through the seaweed, dodging crabs, getting bitten by Mosquitos and getting swarmed with vendors (one guy told me to go back to my homeland after I told him I wasn't interested in one of his keychains), we finally made it to clean white sand. We laid down on the beach for about an hour but had to get up because the tide was getting stronger and had already drenched some of our belongings. We kept walking until we met some nice Americans and Brits who we hung out with for a little while. We continued down the beach to a restaurant called Forty Thieves which was filled with Americans and Europeans. We were planning on going to this restaurant in a cave that was supposedly really cool but found out it doesn't open until 730 pm. Considering it took us 3 hours to get there (should have only taken 1:15), we thought it'd be a good idea to leave before dark (it gets dark here at about 6:30). The journey back home was a lot smoother. Whitney hassled the tuk tuk driver because she didn't believe he knew where we lived and told him if he was lying he wouldn't get paid. Luckily the driver knew exactly where we lived and even gave us his number and said he'd come pick us up another time when we needed a tuk tuk. Next we took a ride to a private hospital since one of the people on the trip needed medical attention. Interesting to see a private hospital...haven't seen the hospital I'll be at yet but I can imagine there is a huge difference.
Edwin, who works with Elective Africa out of New Jersey, was in town for a few days and wanted to take us all out. I had spoken with Edwin frequently over the past several months leading up to the trip asking him all of my predeparture questions. I was excited to finally meet him and go out and see a local Mombasa club. The place he took us to had four different sections: The restaurant, room with pool tables, strip club, and dance club. Can you guess where we went? Obviously the dance club! It was a blast. These kenyans really know how to shake it on the dance floor! At 1 am there was a talent show with singing, rapping and dancing acts. There was one very strange act where I'm pretty sure a guy was trying to do a contemporary dance about delivering a baby. He something stuffed in his shirt...it was bazarre. My favorites were the dance acts and the girl dressed in cowboy boots and hat singing a Shania Twain song. I recorded one of the dance acts and will post the video on my facebook page. I think those are about all of the highlights so far! I'll try not to get behind again. Hope you are enjoying my blogs! See Facebook for pics!