December 19, 2010

Woke up this morning with a killer headache and nauseous.  The heat is physically whooping my a$$ right now.  Hopefully lots of water will help!



The i-to-i volunteer house



i-to-i orientation started at 10:30am.  I met Meri (Meredith) from London and Meng from New Zealand who will both be at New Hope (our project) with me.  Angela made us lunch; vegetable stew, rice and chapati.  Chapati is a traditional Kenyan bread, it sort of looks like a tortilla but thicker and is fried in oil.  It's DELICIOUS!!!

Took the tour of Mombasa with Meri and Lucy again, hoping that I would remember where things were this time.  We decided to take a matatu out to Pirates (public) beach.  A matatu is the most popular form of public transportation in Kenya.  Nairobi (the capital) has buses, but Mombasa does not.  A matatu is essentially a mini-bus that seats 14 and has a sliding door.  One man drives and another hangs out the door shouting the destination, with his money folded in his hand.  It's quite an interesting ride, especially when the matatu gets full!  Our ride out to Pirates was about 25-30minutes & cost 30 shillings (aproximately 27cents). 

View from the 2nd to last row of the matatu

Lucy keeps promising that we'll get used to the heat, but I'm not quite sure that I believe her just yet.  Everytime I do anything more strenous than breathing I feel like I'm going to pass out!  I enjoyed another nice cold shower & then relaxed in front of the fan on my bed before dinner.

Dinner was pilau; a Kenyan spiced rice with beef.  Again, soooo good!  Meri and I walked over to Tusky's to get food for lunch and more water.  We bought stuff to make good old PB&J sandwiches and a 5L bottle of water, EACH!

Tomorrow is the first day at the project!!

Observations on day 2:
I would say the population is about 50/50 with traditional muslims.  Lots of women in traditional muslim wear covering everything except their eyes.
It's still SOOOO HOT!!!  I know I keep saying that, but words can't describe this heat & the fact that I am sweating non-stop, even while sleeping.  Sounds fun, huh?!