Saturday, January 30

Well, two days worth of updates at the same time. We've had some difficulty getting a good Internet connection here in Mombasa, so pardon the length of this post.

Saturday:
Here's a picture of Hampton House where we stayed in Nairobi.
We had a very leisurely breakfast with Albert and Nancy at Java House. We learned more about their ministry and heard their stories about coming to the Lord and getting married. They are from two different tribes and so the result is close to being disowned from their families. They are beautiful people serving the Lord and pastoring one of the Nairobi churches.

We eventually made it back to the airport, stopped in traffic for at least 15 minutes. Dead stop. Then to our surprise the President and Vice President went speeding by in the other lane of traffic, so we've joked that even the President came out to see us :)


This guy isn't the president. He's one of the thousands of street vendors or beggars selling anything someone will buy. There are too many people and not enough jobs so that creates quite an entrepreneurial spirit. And when they see "tourists" we are easy targets.

Here's some more Swahili:
acunatabu, or acunamatata - no problem. You don't hear it much but it's the real deal here.
asante - thank you
supende - no thank you
Interestingly, English is the official language, but Swahili is the predominant. Most people know at least three languages: Swahili first, English second, and their tribal language 3rd.

We made it back to the airport where they found the missing luggage, and we headed for Mombasa on Kenya Airways. The airplane taxies right up to the terminal, the gate agent makes his announcement by yelling out that boarding is beginning, you board on air-stairs having to be very careful for baggage carts and buses that are running full blast across the tarmac, then getting on an older 737 with no air conditioning, at least while it was on the ground. It was great!


This was the greeting committee at the Mombasa airport. They had 3 bouquets of roses, and we began handing them out one at a time to all the girls. We were very popular. Pictured right to left are Benjamin and his wife (he is an elder and musician; she is in the choir); Simon's wife; Esther, Doris, Emily, Lillian, Catherine, and Gloria. Can you guess who the tourist is?

We got to our hotel in Mombasa - a fascinating city of about 800,000. There are people everywhere, mostly walking, and everyone struggling to make some kind of living. They sell everything they can. The hotel we are in is like another world.



I want to be respectful of the people by not taking pictures of general life in the city, but it looks like the scene from Indiana Jones with all the street vendors, goats and cows scouring over the local trash dump areas that are set on fire, women carrying water jugs on their heads, traffic that has no rules but somehow works, and thousands of Toyota "Caravan" private taxis that are used to supplement the public transit. Seems like most people walk. I'll see if I can get some street scenes through the week.

Security at our hotel is high. They search the underside of the vehicle when we come through the gate with mirrors. The hotel served us Hibiscus Juice, which tasted like a combination prune/cranberry juice...it was...interesting! We had a late dinner and headed for a good night's rest.

So while everyone is back home enjoying 6 inches of snow, the three of us are kicked back with our feet in the 90-degree Indian Ocean (ok, we really don't have our feet in the ocean), but it's quite the resort.