Mombasa!

So I arrived at Chesire bright and early 8.30 Sunday morning raring to go! The bus was coming at 9 and the girls were excited. Andree and Ruth (a volunteer with another program who knows Andree and came along) got the girls singing and drumming and dancing. My worries melted away as the excitement caught on and I started to feel good about this trip!
An hour later when the bus still hadn’t arrived the excitement had started to wear off and an hour later still when we were broken down just at the end of the road I was beginning to have doubts. After half an hour of having no clue what was happening we managed to get started again just to stop in Nairobi for 2 hours having something fixed! Finally over 3 hours after setting out we were actually on our way!
After that we stopped only to pick up extra passengers (despite having ‘hired out’ the bus – any excuse to make more money) and for one five minute loo break.
The journey stretched out into an endless monotony of endless miles of road and dry bush. Around 6.30 we arrived in Voi where we picked up more extras (though where they put them I don’t know, there were already more people than seats) and were harassed as usual by guys trying to sell us warm sodas and biscuits through the windows. One tells me I ‘look so smart’, everything is ‘smart’ in Kenya, your clothes, your necklace, you sandals… It made me laugh anyway, trying to flatter me into buying something, typical!
From there we headed off into the evening and the girls began singing again. And as I sat there watching the sun fade to pale orange in the west and the hills and trees deepen into silhouettes and listening to the song of the girls I felt suddenly blessed to be in this country and with these girls and suddenly the past 8 hours crammed in the same sweaty seat didn’t seem to bad after all. And so we drove on into the ever growing humidity, the girls still singing as the darkness took over and the stars came out in their thousands.
Finally after over 10 hours on the bus we arrived at our destination – a dingy scruffy little hostel place that did not deserve grand name of ‘California Dream Hotel’. However for 600 shillings a night (the equivalent of 5 pounds) including 3 meals we could not complain. The shower and fan worked and the room was not full of bugs and what more do you need!
Monday morning we got up, had breakfast and took the girls to Fort Jesus. One of the sisters (the school is run by nuns who came too)managed to wangle us in cheap and the girls had a tour round the place which they were very attentive to, English girls would had wondered off half way I think! It was there they had their first glimpse of the sea through the cannon holes in the walls. Some of them could not seem to tear themselves away I guess it was like nothing they’ve seen before. One girl Maggie was there for so long, and saw a boat, another great cause of excitement – ‘teacher teacher!! Look!!!’ – pointing through the gap with a look of amazement!
We went back to the ‘hotel’ for some Kenyan pilau for lunch and then, the highlight of the trip, took the girls down to the beach. It was the most amazing thing. The beach was nothing special, it was one of the only places close by that was free and not owned by a hotel. But they had never seen the sea let alone gone in it! They all came and stood by the edge and gradually one by one we persuaded a few to get in and then suddenly they just took off. They lead each other in and went in deeper and smiled and laughed and bent down to touch it. Maggie was just jumping in circles laughing to herself! We got some to sit down and float with us holding them. It wasjust such an experience to see how happy and excited they were. Ater a lot of persuasion - colleta was sure she would drown - we got the two girls in wheelchairs out and sat them in the edge where they loved it too and were the last out!
That evening Andree, Ruth and Jess (another English girl they know who happened to be in Mombasa) , went out for a meal to the most beautiful if pricey restaurant and ate delicious fish! It was so good after two months of none!
On Wednesday we took the girls on a ferry just over this stretch of water and back. It was a grubby dull car ferry but they had never been on a boat so anything would have been fun! In the afternoon the sisters took the girls shopping and to some place where they had a bead making workshop or something – I don’t really know what they organized it, so us English girl went to the beach again and actually went and sat in the back of one of the hotels and used their pool! We bought water off them for the privilege!
Then the journey home – pheuff. We were doing fine, left at 10 and seemed to be on time until we got to Nairobi. There it was raining and the bus being old and shoddy leaked all over me and to make things better we got stuck in Nairobi traffic and took 3 and a half hours to come through!! 11 and a half hours on a bus with again one five minute loo stop is not something I want to repeat in a hurry!
But the trip was defiantly so worth it! I was talking to some of the girls on Tuesday evening and they were all just so happy to have come. I will leave you with the words of Colletta - ‘imagine me, sitting on the sea! Imagine me riding on a ship! Oh it is a miracle! I will never forget this all of my life!’ And if that doesn’t make it worth it I don’t know what would!