The Holidays

For a little R & R I went travelling across Kenya to spend a little time in Nairobi, Loitokitok and up and down the coast. It was an interesting trip that I thoroughly enjoyed. Although it was funny in how it managed to both highlight the typical and atypical things in Kenya.

Nairobi
So I set off a day early than most of those I was travelling with to deal with a broken seal on one of my teeth. I’ve been in and out of Nairobi so many times in the last few months I’m getting pretty used to the 8-9 hour bus trip. Oddly enough I run into another American on the bus this time. A pastor from Oregon who was doing some travelling/volunteering. We both thought it was pretty interesting that we were the only foreigners for hundreds of kilometers and we both happened to be born in the same town, Portland.

Nairobi was fairly routine. Dentist visit took 30 minutes or so and had some good food. A good number of my friends from my training class were in town either to travel with me or had their other travel plans that started there. Our class has garnered the reputation of being the party class. Wish I could argue with that, but its well deserved. Not that we don’t know our stuff or don’t do our jobs, but we know how to have a good time too. We figure the other volunteers are just jealous. Well, our last night in Nairobi we made a trip to a place that has sounded too good to be true. Its a mall called Village Market. It sports an impressive array of nice stores and a up scale food court complete with mini-waterfall and river cutting through the whole thing. The parts that really grabbed our attention though were the pool hall, bowling alley, water park, and mini-golf. Not that I’m particularly a big bowler, it was nice to do something we might do back state side. So that’s how that night started, and I’ll leave out the details but the rest of the night included dancing and a few adult beverages. Suffice it to say, some of us were a little slow to rise the next morning.

Loitokitok
So while some of were still in recovery mode, a group of 6 of us decided it made sense to just rent one of the matatus headed to Loitokitok. It took a little wrangling at the stage and some bad kiswahili (and even some bad kismasai from Megan) but we worked it out. So with some extra leg room we left Nairobi. I sat up front with our driver who was a nice chap, with what I thought was quite an interesting hat, it was essentially a green trucker hat that said “Northwest Fresh” on it. I pictured it on the head of some grocer working in one of the Pacific Northwest’s supermarket’s produce sections.

It was quite funny as we all called our families as we got close and were all met or picked up at the stage in town. I felt like we were coming back from summer camp or something.

While originally I was thinking as this stop as a duty or responsibility owed to the family that hosted me, I quickly realized how wrong I was. I felt instantly comfortable and felt like I had returned home. Shortly after settling in I sent Brian a text saying, “Feels good to be back home.” He heartily agreed.

I got the necessary scolding for losing too much weight and not staying for long enough. Then spent some quality time catching up with the family and cooking with my mama and sister. My mama insisted on doing my laundry despite my protests. But she sure can make my Adidas bright white. They always look brand new when she’s through with them.

I even spent some time with the extended family. My cousin Edwin (whose actually the “brother” of another volunteer) took me hiking around the forest. He took me up near the border with Tanzania where we got to see some motorcyclists smuggling stuff through the forest to avoid customs. My uncle also took me a long hike up to the village him and my mama are from to see the compound where they grew up and meet their father, a hardworking over 80 years old man. The village where we were was only accessible by foot or motorcycle. It was pretty interesting.

One last cooking session with my mama and sister and the next morning we were off.

 

Coast
Another 8 hours or so of bus travelling and we made it to Mombasa. We stayed that night at what was definitely the most casual hostel I’ve ever been to. It was more like some guys had just started letting people stay at their place and charge them a few shillings. It was a pretty cool atmosphere though.

Me and few ladies decided to go out for drinks and dancing which was pretty standard, although they had draft beer which was a nice surprise, even if it was just Tusker. The real excitement came when the cab driver on the way home tried to, well I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to do, but I think he was trying to make it seem like we stole his phones and extort us by threatening to take us to the police. Being in this country long enough, none of us in the cab took very kindly to it. After screaming at him for a bit (the contents of which my friends would be happy to share with you), we got back to the hostel and sent him on his thieving way.

The next morning about a dozen of us piled into a matatu rented out to take us to One Love Island up north of Malindi. En route we were stopped by 4 or 5 police road blocks and only extorted for bribes by 2 of them. Luckily we didn’t pay, not that we would have been willing to be, but the drivers and guy organizing the island stay footed that bill. After about 4 or 5 hours by matatu and a quick canoe ride we made it to our own private island. One Love Island is a small island that you can camp out on. It was originally helped to be set up by a PCV. If you can’t be at home with family for Christmas, why not be on private island with friends. We were provided with great seafood cooked by the, we’ll say “manager” of the island’s mother. Two nights there, swimming in the Indian ocean and fooling around on the beach. It was quite nice.

We then made a trek back down to and through Mombasa, to a little place called Diani beach. Diani was a blur of beaches, dancing all night every night, swimming, snorkeling, and big “family” dinners. Brian and I were the only ones staying some place nice. We had a nice little apartment to ourselves, while everyone else decided to camp. So we played host to about 10-15 people every night. We had BBQ night, Mexican night, and pasta night. We also let people nap at our place almost daily since we had fans above our beds.

New Years was spent at a beach bar called 40 Thieves. It flew in some really great South African DJs and set up for a long party. I was one of the few that made it to sun rise. My main motivation being to take a matatu back to the apartment (30 shillings) rather than a cab (500 shillings). I told my dad due to all the dancing this week I was finally convinced I was his son.

So after a nice (and towards the end a bit pricey) vacation, Brian and I decided to take the train back west. That was an adventure in of itself. It was nice to be able to sleep in a bed for most of the ride (and have the option to order cold beers), but it was still a distinctly Kenyan experience. There were two toilets, one western and one a choo. Essentially they were both still just holes in the floor. Additionally, the first train to Nairobi was supposed to take 14 hours, but due to another train on the same track further ahead derailing, we were delayed some six hours. Yup, another train literally derailed further down the track. The Nairobi to Kisumu train was much more uneventful. Then once in Kisumu, we hopped on a matatu north to Webuye.

So there it is, one from side of the country to the other. From fancy malls, to secluded villages, from private islands to crowded beach bars. My first Kenyan vacation.

Oh and I didn’t take much pictures but I’ll try and collect some from others to post.

This picture is funny to me (because I have a dark sense of humor), but that chicken is warming itself and its chicks next to the fire cooking another chicken. This chicken literally watched my mama prepare the other chicken start to finish, plucking, cleaning, gutting, etc. As my mama put it, “It is wondering, ‘I am to be next?’”