Mombasa

After leaving Bodo we went to Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya, where we stayed in guesthouses for four days. Mombasa is an incredibly interesting city—as the majority of its citizens are Muslims. I was awoken each morning my the dawn call to prayer, and this chanting could be heard throughout the day. As it was Ramadan, most food shops were closed during the day—and instead stayed open late at night. It felt almost like being in a Middle Eastern coastal city. The buildings are mostly whitewashed, almost everyone you pass is dressed in traditional Islamic apparel—and many women are wearing the full higab. It really felt like another world. While there we broke the Ramadan fast with Jamal and his family at his home—his wife had made about 25 dishes, toured around the city, hung out and visited a school for children with cerebral palsy and autism (which was so sad, as the school was so so poor,) visited an AIDS orphanage (also sad) and had a few lectures about Swahili Coastal culture, in addition to continuing Kiswahili. I liked Mombasa, but in many ways prefer Nairobi. Mombasa is first of all, hot. And second of all, I felt more heckled on the street by men than I ever feel in Nairobi—which I think because in Mombasa whites are even more of an oddity. I feel like in both cities you have to adopt a hard front—you have to embrace the New Yorker within and walk purposefully, alertly and essentially radiate a message that says “you don’t want to mess with me.” Perhaps I feel this more acutely in contrast to the village… Anyhow, the highlight of Mombasa was seeing Gabi, one of my best friends from home who is now there on a research grant. I met the family she is living with in Likoni, a part of Mombasa and fell in love with her sisters Cynthia, Queen and Molly, as well as with her dear friend and translator Quawme. Just such good people. It was wonderful to see Gabi, and I was able to go with her on one of her interviews. She is researching the way in which Kenya’s development policies impact street vendors, and has been working with several of her subjects since she herself was an SIT student a year and a half ago (on the Mombasa program). She has also set up a scholarship fund that pays for 6 children of street vendors to go to private school. Here in Kenya there is a huge gap in public and private education. It is said that if a 10 year old who has gone to public school switches to private they will not be caught up until they are 12, a pretty massive difference. So we talked with Mama Someu, one of Gabi’s long time subjects who has five children, and owns and cooks in two cafes in order to have a prayer of feeding and schooling her children. I was so moved by this woman’s story. I saw with Gabi, holding Mama Someu’s youngest, a six-month-old boy (the cutest baby I’ve ever seen I might add) while Gabi asked questions and Quawme translated. Gabi’s scholarship sends Mama’s second oldest daughter to school, and helps pay for two others. This woman works all the time, and makes between 50 and 100 shillings a day (64 to a dollar), thus constantly struggling to feed her children and paying little by little for their schooling. She has no husband, and one of her cafes is in the quarry, where the purchasers do not pay with cash, but with stones, which Mama then has to sell to people who buy the stones—quite a physically taxing process. To boot, her oldest daughter, who runs the café in town hasn’t been coming home, has been lying about where she is, refuses to go to school and has been missing for the past four days at the time I spoke with her. At this, Mama Someu just broke down and began to sob—as the assumption is that the girl is off with a boyfriend, and in Likoni in such cases…it’s only a matter of time before she is pregnant. It was incredible to get to hear her story, as well as see Gabi in action. Later, Gabi took me home for dinner where she, Queen, Cynthia, Molly and I made dinner, and had the best time. Like I said—people here just take you in as their family. Afterwards, the girls Quawme, Gabi and I went out (thus the pictures on the ferry) and had a ball at a crazy African club—dancing the night away together. Gabi is coming to Nairobi with Quawme and Queen (who lives here!) tomorrow for the week and we’re going to go see a rugby game, some theatre, and just hang out! I can’t wait. I feel so at home here, and it’s great to be back in Nairobi, home with Mama Rose—who missed me a lot. And although I had such amazing experiences—the feeling was mutual.

Here are some pictures!I think now I've figured out how to rotate them---sorry about the others!

From top to bottom:
left: a mosque, one of the many in Mombase, right: me drinking the most AMAZING avocado juice--Gabi introduced me and I'm hooked!
next row left: me and Gabi, right: me, Gabi, Queen and Cynthia cooking dinner
next row: us on the ferry about to go out! left to right: molly, cynthia, queen, gabi and me.
last row: left to right--Queen, Gabi, Quawme, me and Cynthia.