Asante sana

This is my 100th post.  Not bad, for a self-proclaimed "I'm not that into blogging" blogger.  Let's celebrate by talking about Kenya!

Today is my third full day here. I made it safe, I'm all settled in my place, and I intentionally had a crazy sleeping schedule on my 28-hour, five-city flight so I could sleep through the night once I got here at midnight. It actually worked - I slept like a rock and was mostly awake for the whole next day.

Just to orient everyone, I'm working in Mombasa (It's an island. Sort of.) and living in Nyali Beach, just north of Mombasa. (It's the "rich" area, where supposedly all the white people live...although I haven't seen any other white people yet.) You can see them both here. Not such a bad living situation. I think it'll suit me just fine. So far, there are two other interns here that I live with, Aaron and Andi - an awesome couple that got married about four months ago and will be working here for a year.

There is a mosque right by my apartment. Cool, right? You know how Muslims have their call to prayer five times a day? It's really interesting - I've never been to a place where it's actually announced and done all over the city. Anyway, one of them is at 4:30am, so every day, bright and early, we hear it over the loudspeaker. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to that?

I'm at Yehu now, with at least a vague idea of what I’ll be doing. In short, I’m going to be organizing and aggregating all of their important data into a readable summary for the important people at varying levels of the organization. It’s all about the efficiency. I met the CEO, Adet, yesterday. He said that soon we'll get to do some visits to the villages where we give loans, to see how the process works and meet with the people. That is what it's all about. I can't wait! This weekend we're going to take a trip to Coast Coconut Farms, a for-profit social enterprise that works alongside Yehu and offers employment to the rural poor.

This is the desk/office area I share with Andi and Aaron (and probably soon to be a few more), and we're fixin' to dig into our lunch, which was conveniently brought to us in little black baggies that were tied shut.

Mmm…beef stew and rice…

Yesterday after work, I made everyone walk a little before we jumped on a matatu and headed home. I just wanted to be out in the middle of everything, in slow motion. It's so much easier to experience the true character and personality of a place.  We were able to get a closer look at the people, the street vendors and their wares, the scents and billboards...the general pulse of Mombasa.  We even stopped to help a guy whose cart had tipped over, spilling mangos all over the sidewalk.  I don't feel at all unsafe in this city (and I say that in the least naive manner possible).  We stick out like three sore, white thumbs since we’re the only caucasian people as far as the eye can see, but that doesn’t really bother me at all. Sometimes I forget that we're not like everyone else, except when I notice everyone staring. It has actually been quite liberating for me - it doesn’t really matter what I do or how I look, since people will be staring at me regardless. With that in mind, I tried to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) snag some photos of the real world - Mombasa style.

Just some random nappers, relaxing after a long day's work.

This needs some explanation.  Anywhere there is a pothole around here, the lid is missing.  There's metal in that lid, which means quality material for a roof.  Thus, the lids never last.  Rather than leaving a gaping hole in the sidewalk for people to fall in, they just cover it up with something else!  (Sorry this is blurry - like I said, trying to be subtle and there were a lot of speed walkers behind me!)

This is the view from the bridge we cross to get back to Nyali.  Since Mombasa is technically an island, it's all salt water.

This shows you two very typical sights - a matatu (the van on the right, probably loaded with people since it's rush hour), and a man pulling a cart.  Compared to what I see in the mornings, his cart is pretty empty.  Hopefully he had a successful day at the market.

This morning on my way to Yehu, I kept seeing these men pulling their overloaded carts. Most of them were barefoot. Often, their loads were so huge that there were two or three more men pushing the cart from behind. These were seriously heavy loads - you could see how hard they were straining, how much they were sweating, and how hardened their muscles had become from doing this every day. I even saw one guy hanging from the handles of one, putting all of his body weight into it, while three other guys lifted it from behind so they could get it started rolling. It was deeply humbling to see how hard they were all working, and then to think that this was all probably to take home the tiniest fraction of what we'd make in a half hour of sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned office in America. It was a powerful reminder - this is why I'm here. I can't help all of them, but I can help some.