Heather: Lamu! (and then home)

We arrived in Lamu last Saturday afternoon, after a night bus to Mombasa and then a very not fun ride from Mombasa to Lamu. We took a boat to the island and found a place to stay for the next two nights. We stayed at a place called Yumbe House in Lamu town, which is an old coral castle! It was a great place, and we had a couple rooms on the top floor so we had an amazing view of the city! Great architecture in the city and around too. All for $10 a night. We went to the Shela, where the beaches are and found a place to stay for the rest of the week.

Because it’s low season, there’s absolutely no one else here so we got a really good rate for our rooms. We basically have the entire building to ourselves, so the top level and rooftop are all ours! We have fully taken advantage of the kitchen. The first night we made white snapper, sauteed veggies, and red wine and noodles. So delicious. Last night we bought fresh crab (~$18 for 12 pounds!!) and made more veggies and rice to go with it too. Fresh fruit juices as well (banana passion=great mix!).

We’ve just been hanging around Lamu town and Shela and going to the beach. We ran into one problem though. On our first night here some drunk guy wouldn’t leave us alone and tried kissing Sara and actually grabbed me inappropriately. So I turned around and would have given him a new face. However, two of our guy friends were there and stepped in between and wouldn’t let me. But the next day he found us again and followed us to the beach. Still drunk, and still groping at all the girls. We finally just had to be extremely rude to him and were actually causing a scene, but then a local man came up and started yelling at the guy and lead him away. The next day at the beach I was laying there and he came up to me again. I don’t know how he keeps finding us! Another local guy came to my rescue though, thank god.

There are donkeys everywhere here, as there are no cars or any other transport except for boats. We tried renting donkeys the one day, but the guy totally tried screwing us over, so we unfortunately haven’t had a chance yet. But we will! Everything else is going great! The place we’re staying at is very nice and the guy is extremely helpful and nice too. We went on a dhow trip on Tuesday. It rained the entire time, but it was so much fun! We met two people from Holland so they came along with us. We went to some ruins from this old village and got some great pictures. We did some fishing as well! This was fun, but I didn’t catch anything. It was difficult to cast because our rods were literally blocks of wood with fishing line wrapped around it with shrimp as bait. Two people caught fish, and Michael caught a rock. We had a sunset ride last night, absolutely gorgeous!

Anyways, I’m having a great time and am getting excited to come home! We are heading back to Mombasa on Saturday morning and we’re taking a night bus back to Nairobi and flying out to Egypt on Tuesday morning at 4am. Then I’m home!!

Heather: Snorkeling and Fishing

It was a weekend on the water! On Saturday Liana and I went to Wasini Island (south coast of Kenya) to do some snorkeling. We took a dhow boat out onto the ocean to Kisite National Marine Park. Before we jumped in to start or snorkeling, we of course had to see some dolphins! There were about 5 of them that we saw. Unfortunately they weren’t jumping or anything, but they were swimming between the dhows.

We did two sets of snorkeling. I’ve never been snorkeling before so it was kind of hard to adjust to the flippers and breathing out of your mouth, but it was actually quite easy once you got the hang of it. On the first one we saw a TON of really cool fish, really brightly colored and they were just all over. We also saw some sea cucumbers. Then we swam back to the boat to get some oranges and drinks and take a break for a few minutes. On the second swim we didn’t see as many fish, but we did see a sting ray, an octopus, and a water eel thing. We loaded back on the boat and it took us to our place for lunch. It was this really, really nice restaurant on the beach of Wasini Island, which was pretty secluded. We had a red snapper coconut soup and chapati for an appetizer. Then fried red snapper, crab, coconut rice, cassava stuff, and a few other not so exciting things for the main meal. So good! I even ate the crab, and normally I don’t do that. But the red snapper was delicious!

When I got home I started cleaning out my bag and realized that there was definitely something in the shell that Liana and I found. They told us we weren’t really supposed to take the shell because it was a national marine park, but no one would know. And they said as long as it was empty, we could just put it in our bag. So they even looked inside to make sure there was nothing in it. Well, apparently it was hiding because THERE WAS! So I had to figure out what to do with this thing, as I wanted to keep the shell. Finally, I just poured bleach in the shell and left it sit overnight.

Today Rebecca, Danielle, and I went deep sea fishing. We unfortunately did not catch ANYTHING! It was so sad. I guess that’s the risk you take. They said yesterday they had some pretty bad waves and the fish weren’t biting much, so they thought it must be because of that. I don’t really know. But at least it was a nice day and we got some sun and hung out on the Indian Ocean for 4 hours. I was going to take some home tonight to cook for my family, but that didn’t work out! I wish I could have said I caught something. Anything! Oh well. Dad, I tried!

For other news: my host dad came home from Southern Sudan last week so I met him. He was there for work; he’s a mechanical engineer. I told them that my dad and sister do that, and my host mom, not kidding, said, ”Oh good, they can get him a job in the states.” But he’s pretty nice. My host brother is home from boarding school too, he’s maybe like 16? I don’t know where my sister is. I think maybe living with the grandma? This is whole thing is kind of weird, but whatever. I get my own room so it’s ok with me.

Other than that, it’s just been hot like normal here! Going to go back to Nairobi and need a sweatshirt! And then come back to the coast and die again. Ahh. Getting excited for my adventures after the program though!