Mombasa

This past weekend, Simon, Hilary, and I took a much needed break from day-to-day life at the orphanage and went to the coast to have some fun in the sun. Our vacation consisted of an equal amount of travel and leisure, but it was well worth the trip. Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya, lying on the Indian Ocean. It is an island that can only be reached by bridge or ferry.

Thursday eve, we set off to Nairobi to catch a bus leaving at 10pm and scheduled to arrive in Mombasa around 6am. We splurged ($15) on a more expensive bus that had reclining seats and air conditioning (Kenyans think 30 degrees celsius is cool, so the 28 degree AC did little good for us). And once we saw the other bus choices, we were SO glad we did! The bus ride went off without much of a hitch until 10 miles outside of Mombasa. We ran out of gas – awesome. And of course there is no announcement from the driver or member of staff. We just sit, and sit, and sit on the bus as people come on and off. We finally found out that the driver had gone looking for gas, however when he arrived, the bus still did not start until all the men (including Simon!) got off the bus and pushed it about 50 feet!


Since Mombasa is an island, and we were staying in Diani Beach, about 30km south of Mombasa, we had to take a ferry to get to the matatu. It was pretty amazing. It goes back and forth across a small river every 5 minutes. It is free for foot passengers and hundreds of people and a couple cars and bikes pile on. Apparently since there is no one regulating weight, the ferry has begun to sink on many occasions.

We finally arrived to our little piece of self-service heaven around 7:30am. We were staying past all the big 5-star resorts in this beautiful, enormous 2-bedroom cottage looking over the Indian Ocean. From our veranda, we had a view of a lovely, grassy lawn covered in trees and just past it was the idyllic pearly white sand and the crystal clear green/blue sea. The trees were each home to 1 or 2 energetic monkeys, one of whom made its way into our cottage, found our stash of cookies and stole the entire box – which we later found, empty and gnawed, under the tree!

Aside from the VERY persistent beach boys trying to sell us anything under the sun, we enjoyed 2 very relaxing days on the beach, going for long walks, and swimming in the warm Indian Ocean. We stayed in and cooked the first eve, and then went out for a fancy shmancy dinner and drinks at a beach-front restaurant our second night. The only negative part about the cottage was the salt water that flowed from the kitchen and bathroom taps, as well as the shower...
Our final day, Sunday, was a little rough as we had to be out of the cottages by 9:30am and head into Mombasa to buy our evening bus tickets home. It was so incredibly hot and humid, I think we all feared dying of heat stroke. However, we did visit Fort Jesus, which was built by the Portugese in the late 1500s to serve as protection for Mombasa Island and walked around the Old City. Mombasa is heavily populated by Muslims, so most of the women we saw were in burquas and there were temples everywhere. We filled the rest of the day by falling asleep laying on benches by the sea, and then going to dinner in a local shopping complex, where we played cards for 2 hours!

Our bus left at 9pm. We got into Nairobi at 4:30am. We were dropped by a matatu in the nearby town of Kikuyu, and since it was still pitch black out and relatively unsafe to be wandering around, we had to pay a matatu driver about 8 times the normal price to get us closer to home. We completed our journey at 630am after our 30 minute walk home, just in time to see the kids leaving for school. It may have been a long journey, but it was well worth it for a couple of days break in such an idyllic location.

Kibera: Africa's largest slum

On Friday we took a trip into Nairobi to visit Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, home to over 1 million people. Another volunteer had given us the contact of Raphael, a Kenyan who lives in Kibera with his family, and he agreed to show us around the slum.

First, some facts for you about Kibera:

* Kibera accounts for less than 1% of Nairobi's total area (encompassing 2.5 sq km / 1.5 sq miles), yet it holds more than a quarter of its population.

* The average size of each shack is 12ft x 12ft built with mud walls, screened with concrete, a corrugated tin roof, dirt or concrete floor. The cost is about Ksh 700 per Month (£6/$10). These shacks often house up to 8 or more, many sleeping on the floor.

* Only about 20% of Kibera has electricity

* There is an unemployment rate of 50%

* Until recently Kibera had no water and it had to be collected from the Nairobi dam. The dam water is not clean and causes typhoid and cholera. Now there are two mains water pipes into Kibera, one from the municipal council and one from the World Bank. Residents collect water at Ksh 3 per 20 litres.

* There are very few toilet facilities. One latrine (hole in the ground) is shared by up to 50 shacks. Once full, young boys are employed to empty – they take the sludge to the river. UNICEF recently built some more facilities.

* There are no government medical clinics or hospitals.

* At any one time about 50% of 16 to 25 yr old girls in Kibera are pregnant. Most of these pregnancies are unwanted, resulting in many cases of abortion – illegally performed in dirty and unsterile environments.

Our visit to Kibera was certainly eye opening. The first stop on our tour was in a church nearby to Raphael’s home. Raphael, who was living in the slum during the 2007 post-election violence, took note of the many children abandoned and orphaned, and sought shelter and educational opportunities for them. He used the church as a temporary shelter, and has now also begun a pre-primary school for 50 of the neediest children whose families cannot afford the schooling. From there, we walked around two of the nineteen ‘villages’ that make up Kibera. The roads were, well, unbelieveable. They were covered in trash, dirt, grime, feces, and urine. We often had to watch our step as we walked through the alleyways they call roads. The houses were tightly packed together, with huge families squashed tightly into the small one-room shacks. No one but the very ‘wealthiest’ residents have their own latrines, therefore, we witnessed urination and defection in the streets. The smell was unbearable at times, not only from the streets, but also the residents themselves. Bathing is a luxury in a place like this. The little water that each family is able to buy must be used for drinking, cooking, cleaning dishes, cleaning clothes, and bathing – and we are talking about the average family with over 8 children.

When Raphael told us we were heading towards to ‘river’ that runs through Kibera, it piqued our curiosity, but it certainly didn’t impress us, and looked like no river we had ever seen. This trickle of water that flowed under a somewhat sturdy bridge, acts as the dumping ground for all garbage/rubbish that people bother taking beyond their front door.

There’s really not much more to say. Walking around the streets of Kibera, seeing the mountains of trash strewn everywhere, we had the impression we were at a landfill site, only this was home to over 1 million people.