Thursday, March 17th, 2005- Mombasa, Kenya

I woke up at 7:00am and went to breakfast with Amanda and her friends. We ended up going with our Kenyan interport student, Adema, into the middle of Mombasa. As we left the port we hopped into one of the 14 passenger vans called a Matatu, which is like a bus, their form of public transportation. They’re probably not the safest vehicles because they go so fast and stop so abruptly. They have stops that really aren’t designated and when you want to get off you just knock on the ceiling or wall.

We went down to Moi Avenue, which is the center of the whole island of Mombasa. We walked around a bit and hit up an internet café. The weather was really hot and I was sweating profusely by 8:30am. I later found out that March is the hottest month.

In the afternoon I went on the City Orientation and learned that Mombasa is made up of an island that is 3 miles by 2 ½ miles and has 1 million people. Our first stop was these huge tusks that towered over Moi Ave. (from what I could make out, I think they were a gift to the city in 1952).

Our next stop was Fort Jesus that was constructed by the Portuguese and finished in 1593. The Portuguese left shortly after and the Fort was taken over by many different groups. Whoever controlled the Fort controlled the whole city. It had some spectacular views of the Indian Ocean and of Old Town.

Old Town was our next stop and we walked through some of the oldest established parts of Kenya. We then headed to a market that sold different meats and spices. It was mostly outside and around the back of it there was a Christian Minister preaching on a stage beside his van that had a speaker on top of it.

Our last stop was the Akamba Handicraft Center. It employs 7,000 carvers that make carvings in huts along the compound and then sell them through the corporation. They had a lot of really good stuff.

We then came back for dinner and afterwards I went to the parking lot full of about 100 vendors right outside the ship. As I walked through I constantly got bombarded to stop at each “shop” (a blanket with handicrafts laid out). I bought a couple of things and then ended coming back out to place an order with a guy. By this time it was around 9pm, around 3 hours after I had first went out there. One of Josh’s friend’s from school, Ashley and I ended up sitting down to chat with one of the vendors named Jacob to discuss the politics and economics of Kenya and how he thought the government was not helping the poor out. Jacob said that the government continues to tax so much that it is hard to make money. We talked for about an hour and then as I left all the vendors called for me again. Due to the fact that most everyone was on safari, I was one of the only ones around so they all wanted to make deals with me to give me small gifts in return wanting me to get people to come straight to their “shops”.