safari ya kenya :: Day 11 :: in Mombasa

Sunday, June 22

We left for breakfast a little after 7:00 this morning and I didn't get back to the hotel till about 10 pm. Long day.

I went to the English service at church this morning. Rod didn't make it because he had to go back to Agie's house after breakfast and change clothes. He wore blue jeans to breakfast, was thinking of wearing them to church too, and he looked nice. But since he was preaching in the main service he had second thoughts about his outfit and went to get nice slacks, shirt, and tie. He looked VERY nice in that. :)

The rain at church

After the English service was a Bible study, during which I had no idea what was going on. Rod had arrived by then, but was sitting in the back. He had left William responsible for me, but William wasn't translating for me.

By the time the main service started, Benson had arrived, and he did translate everything for me.

The English service was from about 9-10. Bible study ~ 10-10:30. Main service ~ 10:30-2 pm. No breaks in between.

Rod preaching

After the main service, the pastor gave me a kind of formal farewell and sent his greetings to America through me. I guess specifically my church, but I hereby extend the greetings to ALL OF AMERICA.

Then, when all the extra stuff at the end was over, I went out of the building, headed for the outhouse. Rod had been standing right outside the door since finishing his sermon, so I was going to talk to him before going to the outhouse, but I had to wait for him to finish talking to someone else first. While I was waiting, one of his cousins (I think her name is Esther) put her arm around me and led me aside so we could talk. She calls Rod "brother" even though they're cousins because Swahili had no word for "cousin." She said she would call me "wifi" (or something like that) which means "one's brother's wife." Her sister also joined us after a while.

Finally, we went to eat some pilau, and I got to use the restaurant's outhouse, which is a nicer one that the one by the church. [This is an important part of the African experience so I will describe it. If you don't want to know about outhouses, skip to the next photo.] There's really no plumbing, just a hole in the ground. But the hole isn't like our outhouses that have a little chair over the hole. It's actually a hole in the ground that you have to squat over. The ways the restaurant's outhouse was superior: 1) It (the restaurant's outhouse) has four full walls, a door, and a ceiling. The one by the church is a corrugated tin lean-to. 2) You can't see down inside the hole at the restaurant. By the church, you can see everything that's in there, which is mostly...um...worms...So that was nice.

Me and Benson Sunday afternoon, after chai

Then we went to Aliston's for chai, which was made from a plant we were sitting next to. At first I thought it reminded me of chamomile. But it may have been something like lemon grass. They crushed the blades of grass and made chai with it, which we drank sweetened but without milk.

We sat with Aliston, Ben, and William for a while, then went to Pauline's. She made us Mahamri. We didn't have time to sit and eat with her, but she wanted to make us mahamri anyway and send it with us.

Then we went to dinner with Florence, who I was originally supposed to stay with. It was a great dinner, with great conversation.

With Florence and her sleeping children, after dinner

Coming back from her house was a muddy adventure. But none of us fell in the mud. I did slip and slide around on the mud a lot, though.

Rod says that mud is my official welcome to Kenya.

Our muddy shoes, though not as muddy as the next day...