Arriving in Mombasa

I'm here, I'm alive and I'm loving the weather!  hahah.  Sorry, I had to rub that in.

It took about 24 hours from when I took off til when I landed, but I made and with limited jet lag side effects In just over a day, I lived through 3 sunrises (but only saw 2) .  I was so tired when I got on the plane to Nairobi, I lay down across my 3 seats and slept pretty much the whole way there.  It was amazing and helped me adapt to the fact that it was 8 am when I landed. I met up with 2 other girls from my trip, Melissa and Angela, at customs and we went to the next gate together to catch the flight to Mombasa. 

When we arrived in Mombasa, we went straight to our home stays and unpacked.  Melissa and I are sharing a room and Evan is in his own room.  The family is nice, but not so talkative.  We offered to help with lunch and learned that not everyone makes spaghetti but just putting the noodles in a pot!  They break them into 3 so that they use the space in the pot better.  They also have the pasta absorb all the water, so there is no straining...which is a good thing cause the pots don't have handles (they are basically metal bowls). To test if they are ready, they throw a noodle against the wall to make sure it sticks. I don't think that'll fly in my mom's kitchen.  For the sauce they cooked up some beef with carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. It was delicious. 

After lunch, we feel asleep til about 4:00pm and woke up to put up our mosquito nets and take a "shower"...yes, it is a bucket shower. Melissa and I are rooming together, but we didn't get the house with the running water.  This means that to flush the toilet, we have to take a container of water and add it to the toilet bowl and then try to flush it.  I got it to flush once...Melissa is still working on that.  The toilet is a proper toilet, but no seat.   I guess that's better than a hole in the ground, but it is still really dirty and is taking some balancing.  After 2 months, I'm sure I'll get more comfortable with this.

At 5:00 Hassan (a Kwacha volunteer) came to pick us up and go for dinner.  We went on a matatu into the city.  A matatu is a van that sits 14 people.  There are no bus stops, but they have a conductor leaning out the door yelling the route.  You flag it town if you want in.  The route, however, can change at any point!  We're really going to have to learn our way around.  They also don't fully stop, they do a Quebec stop to let you off and pick you up.  When they fully stop, anyone behind them starts to honk.  I think that also means that they are passing.  Keep in mind, that the roads are only 1 lane for each direction.  We did see a driving school today...it made me wonder if they were learning how to keep up with the crazy driving.  We made it safely to dinner, which was also really good...chicken with spiced rice (I can't remember the name).  We took another matatu back and here home by 8.  Matatus transform at night.  During the day, they play loud music, but in the evenings they have flashing lights, some have black lights and it's basically like sitting in a club!  It was strange when a hebrew song came on about loving Jerusalem!

Today we woke up to the mosque prayers at 4:30, 4:45 and 5:00.  I fell back asleep til 7 when I woke up to see a mosquito in my net!!!  AHH!  I got out of bed an hour early.  That was the only mosquito I've seen so far. I have no bites as of yet and am on a stricked vitamin b regiment.  At 9:00 Hassan picked us back up to go to a hotel for breakfast buffet where we had an orientation....and that brings me to now.  Letting you all know that I'm alive and well.  The weather is fanastic (at least in the morning and the evening).  Tthis afternoon, we're going to meet some of the youth. 

Oh, I almost forgot, when we came home last night, Mike (the son of the family was there).  He works for Kwacha and when I told him that I was interested in working with substance use, he said that they are working on a projet in that area and would see if I could be involved with it!  There are actually a lot of projects going on and we'll have a lot of great opportunities in many different areas.  I'll keep you updated on those as I go.

I'm running low on time so I apologize for the scatteredness of my writing.