from Dadaab to Mombasa

 

Wow.  I found a superfast internet cafe so i'm uploading lots of pictures, yay!

These are:

1 - some of the people we worked with in Dadaab

2 - Marika, Josh, and Erin looking tore up after our hellish busride from Garissa to Mombasa.  There was a hole in the floor of the bus near josh's feet that was like a direct funnel of dirt and dust, in addition to the mouthfuls of dirt coming in through the open windows (which you wanted to have open, otherwise you'll pass out from heat stroke).  The passenger next to Marika threw up into a plastic bag, which then split open and coated Marika's leg and seat.  The passenger in the aisle next to Erin and I (they pack the bus so full that the aisles are FULL of standing passengers...on a 10hr bus trip) threw up several times straight on to the floor, so we had to sit with our legs up against the seat in front of us, until someone brought a bag of dirt on to the bus to coat the vomit-soaked floor.  It was as if it wasn't the first time it had happened.  Oh yeah, I was sitting on the sun-facing side of the bus and got a nasty sunburn on the whole left side of my neck and arm.  It was one of those experiences that really makes you question what the hell you're doing there, but also so bad that you just have to laugh.

3/4 - of course we forgot all about the bus from hell when we found Vindigo Cottages in Diani Beach (south of Mombasa), where Josh and Vanessa and I had stayed almost 3 years ago...simple little cottages right on the beach, with a local fisherman who rides by on his bike everyday.  We bought red snapper from him, which he's fillet-ing in this photo...other days we got prawns which he cleaned and deveined, and he also had a basket full of crab, lobster, squid, etc.

5 - This is our friend Geoff who we met when we stayed here almost 3 years ago...we ran in to him this time on the beach during a morning walk near our cottage.

6 - little bastard monkeys that are ALL over Diani beach...when we were here 3 years ago they broke in to our cottage and stole a bag of pasta, took it up to the roof, and proceeded to taunt us by eating it within our sight and dropping pieces on us while we layed in the sun.  This time, while we were preparing lunch in the kitchen, we saw that one of the monkeys had let himself in the front door and was perched precariously on our dining table.  When he realized that he'd been seen, he grabbed our giant, perfectly ripe avocado like a football and made a b-line for the door and escaped.  We chased him out but by that time he was sitting smugly on the roof and the avocado had already been pillaged.