August 23rd - A Very, Very Simple Church

After having visited a ridiculous number of incredibly ornate churches in my three weeks in Italy, today I was in one of the most simple. In fact, you can't really call it a church - it is the largest room of the old school, where they have Sunday school for the kids and then after a service for the adults.

We went to the Sunday school - there were 10 of us from the project and we filled up almost half of the room and the rest was all kids. (This is the same room where 30+ kids were taught regularly.) Joseph, one of the teachers from the school, led the service with what I can only describe as very passionate and joyful preaching as well as some spirited singing which the children also participated in. The children all introduced themselves and then the new volunteers introduced ourselves to them – I was Susan from Canada where it is very cold ... best I could come up with on the prevailing weather theme and continuing the Canadian stereotype ... It was a great opportunity to start to get to know the kids we'll be working with as well as the founders of the school (more on the school later).

In the afternoon, we went into Mombasa for a tour of 'Old Town' with Moha, a young Kenyan and former GVI volunteer, whose family have lived in Old Town for generations. It was fascinating – we started at the local market (their equivalent of Granville Island) with great looking fruits and vegetables and some incredible spices and coffees – apparently Kenyans don't produce many spices but consume them in everything! The Old Town is very maze like with narrow streets winding their way along – the good news is that it is on an island so hard to get to lost. What struck me most was just how Arab and Indian influenced the city is, Arab especially in terms of architecture. From what Moha said Mombasa is very different from the rest of Kenya, the rest being "more Kenyan / African". He was a great source of knowledge and very open about the Muslim faith and customs as well as the politics and corruption within the government. By the end we were very familiar with the TIA expression - This Is Africa ... and we were encouraging him to run for office!

After the tour, we wound our way back to the main street where we were able to find a place open for lunch – many places were closed as Ramadan had just started. The main road really is just pure chaos – traffic and people everywhere, with lots of street / sidewalk vendors. We jumped in a mutatos and 30 minutes and 20 shillings (about 25 cents) later we were back home where everyone quickly settled into what I expect is the common routine – hanging out in the shade of the living room reading and napping – hard to go wrong really ... I fit right in :-)