First day in Mombasa

We were able to sleep in a bit this morning to prevent the much dreaded jet-leg. There are 15 beds in this complex (divided into 4 rooms), so I woke up to the sound of people (with various accents) milling about in the living area outside our bedroom door. Many of those people are on their way out after having been here a month or so, but also a few who will be here for the month of July with me. We will be full again by the end of the weekend, which is a fun thought! I never thought it would be so unnatural to brush my teeth using bottled water, but I have to catch myself every time as i reflexively reach for the faucet. After filling my much appreciated coffee cup, I sat down in the living area and talked to the people with flights back home today/tomorrow. They shared their experiences in the hospitals and with the culture! One group got lucky and got to sit in on a neurosurgery done by some Spaniard doctors that were visiting only for a week! It sounded really neat, I hope I have similar luck! They gave us some suggestions of places to go while we're here as well. Everyone is so sweet and personable, just top notch people! I look forward to being surrounded by them all for this month, what a blessing of an opportunity!

Betty (the one who picked us up from the airport) will give us a sense of "orientation" today, but she was at the hospitals when we woke up, so we met some of the other elective africa staff! They are all so bubbly and sweet! They really seem to love when you ask questions about their world and culture -which is good because I've been asking bucket-loads! When Betty got home we walked to a development area -if you can call it that! haha it was an area with a few shops, a movie theater and a casino... but I'm not sure "developed" is much of a fitting term. It was a 25 min walk there on the sandy shoulder of a narrow street. There were little fruit, clothing and furniture markets along the side of the road. The drivers (which are on the right-hand side of the cars instead of left) were a bit crazy! Especially the ''Matatu's'' which are little taxi-like vehicles that will give you a ride for $0.20! They are little vans where the drivers stick their heads out the windows to see if you need a ride. Betty said they are not safe for us to use unless she (or somebody else from elective africa) is with us. "They may be cheap" she said "but often they don't bring you where you need to go" We later rode in one with her and understood what she meant. There are another form of taxi called Tuktuks that are safer and more like our taxi's at home. The tuktuks are little three wheeled covered wagon like vehicles. They are pretty cute, with cute little high pitched horns to honk!

When we got to this 'development' we first went into the casino of all places! Betty knew that they gave the best exchange rates, so we traded in our US dollars for Kenyan Shillings. It is about 90 Shillings for every dollar, so as a rough estimate you can just move the price over two decimal places. From there we went to a store from which I think the walmart founder got his idea; it is completely a one stop shop! -except, unlike walmart where the different sections make sense, here you had a dishwasher in the same isle as a charger converter and a towel! It was interesting! Many of the candies and snacks are the same name brands we have in the US except the portions are much smaller and the packaging is different. It is neat to think that some marketing crew for orbit gum (or any other brand) had specific thoughts about what would appeal to buyers in Africa! We bought a few things there (all very cheap) and headed back to our complex. We all listened to Betty on the walk back as she taught us different things. My favorite so far is learning (and using) the swahili words for different things! I'm not too good yet and i still pronounce things like the american I am, but:

Jambo means hi!
Asante means thank you!
karibu means welcome!
but i'm still learning...

When we got back Halley, Whitney (a pre-med student from Canada) and I took a 15 min walk in the other direction towards the beach! We heard that there were little vendors that sold authentic African souvenirs and I was especially keen to the idea of seeing what they had! Our first sight upon entering the beach area was a camel just lounging away on the sand! A kenyan tried to get us to buy a ride but we just wanted to look at it! We walked along the beach for awhile until we found our bullseye: hand carved wooden nick-nacks. The vendors are CRAZY! Betty said you should never go more than 30% of their first price. (I'm not very good at bartering yet, luckily Whitney and Halley kept me from being too much of a sucker) I found some really neat things! We spent quite a while looking through all of their items and were able to talk with the vendors a little bit. I suppose they don't really care or know otherwise, but it breaks my heart. I started talking to one of the ladies who had two kids; just thinking about how she has to put food on the table by trying to get me to pay $1 more for a bracelet. Her eyes were all discolored, which I had never seen before or known about, but apparently that is indicative of some sort of liver problem. Whether it was severe or not for her, it was still hard for me to stomach because you just get a feeling that she's not getting medical help. If only they could afford some of the shots I take for granted. I wish I could bring her my Hep A vaccine; or some for her children!

I had asked Betty earlier about the education system in Kenya and her answer adds another dimension. She explained how the private schools are excellent, but the public schools are crowded and not efficient. Since Mombasa is more of a tourist area, people (like me) often bring toys and necessities for the children. She said an interesting thing, "it makes the kids not want to try very hard, when they can just get free donations from the people coming through here and there."

Anyway, on our walk back from the beach we passed some little fires, bon fires, except they were burning their trash I think. I think that is a normal thing to do around here. It is not the most pleasant smell, thats for sure. Not to mention how the humidity holds the scent in the air. It was very warm all day, we were sweating and all dusty and dirty. It was as if we had spent the whole day rolling around at the state fair. So when we got back we went for a refreshing swim in our pool. Sylvanos (the grounds keeper) keeps it clean every day (we checked to make sure it was sanitary!).

After our swim, we came in for the absolute best tasting meal of my life. Granted, I hadn't really had a real meal in 2.5 days (I had been munching on triskets and cracklin oat bran cereal without much of an appetite throughout the traveling). I ate a vat's worth! It was an african dish of rice with ground beef (meatballs) with potatoes and veggies in a tomato based spicy sauce! Right up my alley!

With a full belly, Betty took us to another market/group-of-stores-area. On our way there is where we took the Matatu (taxi in the form of a van) They have one man driving it and another collecting money (20 shillings each = $0.20 a person). The one collecting money hung out the window during the ride and the driver cranked blast-from-the-past songs that were remade with an african beat! I'm glad Betty was with us, but it was neat to drive around the town!

When we returned to the complex we chatted with some of the people staying here. Now, here I am at 1 am local time documenting my experiences! (its 5:00 pm where most of you are right now). I'm used to being able to fall asleep at any time of day, but I think I am so hyped up about being here and going over all of my experiences that I can't sleep. Not to mention these beds aren't the most cozy/conducive to sleep.

Tomorrow we head to an orphanage/school of children ages 2 to teen. I'm trying to brace myself/teach myself to have a bit of a backbone so I don't have a heartbreaking moment every day. I feel like it is going to be a hard lesson for me to learn: the difference between caring about people and letting go when I have no power to help. Thats hard. I still haven't accepted it yet. Its like the vendor with the discolored eyes. I wonder how much longer she'll live, whether or not she's happy, what she would do if she had my plush life. It's daunting, I haven't even been to the hospital yet! haha I guess I'm just glad that I have something to believe in, a bigger picture, with a Savior for everyone...

Overall, it was a fun-filled and powerful first day in Mombasa! I feel better about all the little tricks of the trade I've learned today and am excited to wake up again tomorrow in Kenya!

kenya bound (27 straight hours of travel)

June 28th: And so it begins, my first trip abroad! As I woke up in a plush bed in an air conditioned room, I had thought little about what being a part of Africa would be like. I had thought about what Africa would be like, what the complex (where I'd be living) would be like, what the Kenyans would be like...but I had yet to actually include myself in those visualizations. So the alarm goes off, I get ready for the day, and mom, ellie and I head to the cities! After a long snooze in the car, last minute trips to target with mom, quick lunch with mom and ellie and IM OFF to the airport! -filled with an excited anxiety about what was to come! I arrive at the airport, check my luggage (one suitcase of my belongings, another with medical supplies and toys to donate once in Kenya), hugged mom and ellie goodbye and met my new friend Halley, a registered nurse, at the security checkpoint! We were wide eyed and ready to begin our adventure together! 

Ironically enough and without planning our flights together (and on a double decker 747) we were seated exactly next to each other! This allowed for our first flight to be plump full of scrabble, uno!, gin and many excited conversations; great bonding time for the two of us! The most often topic of conversation was the 8 hour time change that we would be experiencing! (It can be much more confusing than one would think!) We had a lot of trouble trying to figure out when to eat, sleep, take our malaria meds, etc. Not to mention, we experienced about 3 hours of darkness that whole night and by the time we got to Amsterdam it was already a bright morning! 

June 29th: Halley and I had only slept about a half an hour on our first 8 hour flight and upon arriving in Amsterdam (to a 5 hr layover) the adrenaline was starting to wear off and we were getting deliriously sleepy! but we plugged on in the Amsterdam airport, meeting some cute old people who LOVED to travel and LOVED to share their experiences with us (they were on their way to explore gorilla trekking in another region of Kenya!). We got a good dose of the do's and don'ts of Africa, which was helpful! Our second 8 hour flight was from Amsterdam to Nairobi (the capital of Kenya), and holy kazoa did I make use of my well polished sleeping skills! The neck got a little uncomfortable by the end of the flight, but it flew by. (Pun intended) 

The arrival in Nairobi was when I first started to feel outside of my comfort zone. The flight attendants had given paperwork to fill out on the flight to Nairobi so that we could get our visas. Everything looked good on paper, to get from point A to point B during our solid 3 hour layover. Unfortunately, both planes had been delayed up to this point and we landed about an hour behind schedule in Nairobi. To make matters worse, we idled at the gate for quite awhile before we actually pulled up to the gate and de-boarded -leaving us a little over one hour to get to our next flight. 

We had asked many times (probably 7 times at this point in our journey, to various airline employees) "will our checked baggage make it all the way to Mombassa, our final destination" "yes yes", we were told. Passing the baggage claim, we walked through customs and Halley asks the attendant one more time: "will our bags make it on to our next plane with us" and the kenyan attendant looks at us (like the ignorant little white girls we are! haha) and says "no, you have to go get them!" At this point time was ticking until our flight to Mombasa departed. We rushed back to baggage claim and luckily our bags had made it that far! We load up our bags and head on out towards the check in. 

The international and domestic flights are in separate buildings, so first we have to leave our building. We pass the pick-up location (where people stand holding the signs with peoples names on them), and it was really crowded. We walk out the doors and it felt like we were on a stage. I have never felt such a feeling, it was like "holy smokes miss bergstrand, you are wayyyyy out of your element." I have never known the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb, but I felt it in that instant. Truly feeling like a minority is a strange feeling; and strangely, a humbling experience. It really shows you how big this world is, how much there is to experience, and how small a piece of the puzzle I am! It wasn't as if I felt unsafe because of it, I just felt extremely different from everyone around me. It is a weird feeling to explain, but that was an instant that I will never forget.

We rushed through security one more time, checked in, and boarded our next plane. There are no jetways for any of their domestic flights, so once we checked in at our gate, they opened the doors and pointed to a plane and we criss-crossed across the planes' territory to climb to the plane (the whole airport seemed very unorganized!). Halley and I are seated next to what seems to be a wealthy Kenyan woman, we chat with her for awhile and she asks what we were planning to do for our time in Kenya. We tell her we will be working at Coast General Hospital in Mombasa. We ask her if she has ever been there and what it is like. She nonchalantly describes her experiences with the hospital saying "they treat you like criminals" "my friend died there" "the doctors are ignorant"... And so continues the unsettling feelings within me! I don't know how I can say this in a non-cliche, non-cheesy way, but the only thing I could think was "I hope I can make some sort of difference." I guess we'll see... :)

We arrive safely in Mombasa (after I successfully slept the entire flight, go figure!) and for the first time I find my name on one of those signs, this one labeled "elective africa." Halley and I meet Betty, the sweetest kenyan lady who brings us to our complex. It is a beautiful looking place, with all the necessities one could need! At this point, it is a little after midnight Kenyan time and so we crawl into our mosquito nets and onto hard-as-rock mattresses. What a difference a day makes, eh?