Journey to Kenya: saying "kwa heri" to Nakuru, arriving on the coast.

Wednesday was our last day in Nakuru.

We went back to stock up the food supply of the feeding program at the slum, give Pastor Antony another donation for water trucks to give the people at the slum clean drinking water, and say our final goodbyes to the friends we have made in Nakuru and to the family that hosted us.

We got to see Kennedy (one of the young adults we sent to driving school before we left for Kisegi) and he is doing very well. He has passed his driving test and has gotten a job driving a lorry for delivering goods. He thanked us for sponsoring him and believing in him, and he says he can't wait to start getting paid so he can plan to get his family out of the slum. People can change if you give them a chance.

It was sad to be leaving, and we didn't have enough time to see everyone that we would have liked to say goodbye to but hopefully that means that we will see them again, sometime in our lives.

We are happy with how the volunteering went, during our stay we were able to establish a feeding program, get about 60 young children from the slum into a pre-school/kindergarten, saw another 16 children going to a private boarding school, 3 young adults into driving school, and were able to get almost all of our older students into accredited secondary schools! There is a popular thought in Kenya that says - Education is the key to our future. We hope the children will make the most of the opportunity.

After a final meal at Guava (the local volunteer hangout place - excellent cafe) we were off to Nairobi. The drive usually takes about 2 hours, but as a final show of Kenyan corruption, our matatu took backroads and were able to avoid all the police checkstops (the matatu was not exactly in "working condition" for driving on highways with passengers). We literally would drive up to a checkstop, do a U-turn and find the next backroad.... the drive took a good five hours. Luckily, we got there with enough time to catch a night bus that evening to Mombasa for a coastal adventure.

We had planned our week on the coast like this - Tour of Mombasa's Old Town, A few nights at Diani Beach, Visiting Sea Turtles in Watamu, viewing the Gedi Ruins, Eating Pizza in Malindi, and finishing off the the Swahili island village of Lamu. (and then approx 16 hours on a bus back to Nairobi.. ugh)

We are currently on our way to Watamu - just stopped in Mombasa again to use the internet.
So, since we are done the Mombasa and Diani part of our trip, here are some photos. Get ready for jealousy...

Kyle and I on Diani Beach

In Mombasa, we arrived on the bus quite early, headed for Uhuru park to see the tusks (I won't post the stereotypical tusks picture that everyone who visits Mombasa probably has) and then went to old town where we saw Fort Jesus, and some pretty cool old Swahili buildings. People are still working to restore a lot of them with the carved wood exteriors. It's quite beautiful.

Some grafitti in Old Town Mombasa

In Diani we got to go snorkeling (I held a bright red starfish!), spear fishing (the boys caught an octopus!), and spent most of our time just relaxing on the beach. We met up with some friends (other volunteers we knew from Nakuru) and had supper at the cottage they rented with them one evening. By making our own meals most of the time we were able to save some money. We got bread, peanut butter, and bananas for our breakfasts. We stayed at a place called stilts in treehouse kind of villas, where we got to eat breakfast with monkeys! Or should I say - the monkeys stone some of our breakfast, haha. They seemed to like the peanut butter and banana sandwiches as much as we did. I even saw some dik-diks from my shower one morning. Everything was very open and beautiful and full of wild nature.