oh my goodness. welcome to kenya. and what a welcome its been. kenya is so different from south africa and i kinda knew that but shit, it hit me when i got here. there are no road rules, you could swim in the potholes, i nearly got ran over by a matutu and a driver tried to shaft us and make us pay more than everyone else. welcome to kenya.
i spent the last two nights in a hotel in central mombasa, meeting all the other volunteers, the i-to-i staff and generally getting accquainted with mombasa. there's about 14 volunteers in total, they're all heaps nice and as daunted as i am about what the next few weeks will bring. most people are doing 2-4 weeks of vounteer work, and i'm starting to question what the hell i was thinking signing up for 8 weeks! its probably gonna take me a couple of weeks to adjust properly cos its a pretty big adjustment, but at least then i'll have a few weeks to kind of function and enjoy it. its just this initial what the f@!k stage that i'm trying to deal with at the moment!!!
we went to a beach about 20 minutes from town yesterday that was really nice, pirates beach. the ride there was an experience, packed into a matutu like a sardine, charlotte, one of the vounteers had to do some mad bargaining with the driver who was trying to charge us more than everyone else. she was just like we're paying 30 like everyone else, here's the money, see you later. i was so proud of her, there's no way i would've been able to do that! the beach was gorgeous, white sand, crystal water, but packed with people. and it was like we were the main attraction, 14 white women in bikinis, it was quite intimidating actually, i decided against stripping down to bikinis and kept my clothes firmly on. maybe somewhere thats a little quieter.
i briefly met my host family this morning, so i'm looking forward to getting to know them a bit more. starting my project properly tomorrow, actually going out into schools with some of the peer educators which will be exciting. its all fairly laid back, there's not a lot of structure to what i'll actually be doing, but hey, when in kenya!
peace...ange
