September 5th - Weekend in Malindi

Friday night we decided to go to the Reef Hotel - the hotel where we all first met, the jumping on and off point for arriving / departing volunteers. It is right on the ocean and has a lovely pool so we had a wonderful late afternoon swim, incredibly expensive buffet dinner and then watched an impressive acrobatics show. The view of the ocean was beautiful – especially of the night sky and the sun setting over the horizon off the coast. I was said to see the 3 volunteers go – it wouldn't be the same without them – and I was glad I was staying the extra week as I was looking forward to seeing the school in action

The next morning, the new group of 6 (we had gained a new volunteer) headed off to Malindi – the next biggest town after Mombasa about 2 hours up the coast. We hadn't had any luck finding a hotel in advance, so we just showed up. The matatu dropped us a ways out of the centre of town so we got into a couple of mini taxis – closer to motorized rickshaws - and asked them to take us to a “cheap” hotel. I confess, I did worry about the potential relative definition of cheap ... first time I've stayed in a room costing 400 shillings ($6) a night – but you know what, it was fine. I realized I can travel that cheaply – but with other people, I'm less sure about on my own :-)

Our first priority was finding lunch and after wandering a little we found a very 'local' restaurant – Kieran was now the only man and the owner would initially only talk to him – what did he want to eat was primary, what did we want was definitely secondary. A fried egg and some very greasy chips turned into quite the mzungu (white person) experience in terms of cost ... not my best meal. We were joking about the cultural norms when Kieran had the audacity to joke that he was with his 4 wives and his mother ... you know who the mother was ... needless to say, while factually possible, I wasn't impressed – we got it sorted out later, I'd prefer his second option of being the good looking for her age prostitute versus the mother ... :-)

Then a little more exploring – this is a very popular Italian vacation destination and so there were quite a few tourist shops to explore and also a tourist market with row upon row of stalls and with everyone wanting us to at least come into their shop and look around. It was dusk so we promised to return tomorrow – and I promised to publicize “mama's shop #4” in the first row run by a grandmother who wouldn't be there the next day as it was Sunday and she'd be in church. We also heard a new expression from the children – no longer was it 'how are you?' here it was 'ciao' - still my favorite greeting, just the way it rolls off the tongue. After our lunch experience, we found a nice restaurant for dinner – very comfortable, nice décor and very good food – relatively expensive for Kenya and a nice treat.

The next morning was shopping! After exploring the rest of town, we were back to the tourist market and got our negotiating hats on ... it is a sport, and we definitely had the home field advantage – I did my best to remember that the 30 shillings we're negotiating over are relatively speaking worth much more to them than me. I remembered the lesson I got from my Asian friends in Bali – bargaining is definitely expected and part of the culture / process, but the trick is to find the win win solution for both of you.

After spending our money, we found the beach – the coastline is incredible – there is a reef that runs all along the coast and it creates these incredibly flat beaches – especially when the tide is out which it was. There was also incredible surf – great fun - we were knocked as if we were in a washing machine. There wasn't a lot of sun bathing however as the wind was whipping along and taking the sand with it – you'd stand up and be exfoliated and dry in about 10 minutes max. From there we got the matatu home – another journey of jarring jolts as we sped over speed bumps – I had no idea the matatus could reach such speeds. I was also grateful for what I am sure is mzungu pricing – we may have paid more than the locals but at least we had our own seats ... the number of people that were crammed in some of the seats was crazy ... you'd watch 5 people, more if there were children, getting out of what was meant to be a row of seats for 3 ... It was nice to see the countryside and is definitely a different perspective than the city with small villages and fields of palm trees (very cute as they grow from a mini-me version to their full height from what I could tell).

We were back in time for dinner and to get ready for the next day ... the first day of the new term and teaching in the new school :-)