following strange men onto islands. and not getting arrested.

so the coast--- i love it so much!! the people, the culture, the architecture, the beaches, the food-- ninapenda samaki!

that means 'i love fish', one of my best swahili sentences. I know a very random selection of words. I can ask for rope and shrimp (they are the same word, confusing if you want to tie up a bundle of shrimp with some rope), say the basic greetings/thanks/etc, and ask for music, medicine, the chemists, fried dough balls, potatos, roasted meat. oh, and say that i like horses and please can i have some firewood? oooh-- and that i like blood.

we took the night bus from nairobi a week ago. when we arrived at the bus depot in the east of nairobi (the part that the lonely planet describes as dodgy), i jumped out of the car to ask about our bus-- they informed me that there was a problem with the bus we had booked. but then a guy that i had talked to the day before explained we would just be given seats on another company's bus-- and said, oh emma, so sorry so sorry-- i could not believe he remembered my name. i mean granted i did not see too many mzungus around but still. i think it was because my name has led to a conversation about whether i was muslim and then about how i should come at 5pm the next day to chat and have chai until the bus left at 9!

The reason we were late and rushing around that night is that we had gone with Shiro and her theatre group to perform at Precious Blood Kilungu Secondary School-- and yes, i was in the cast. As the random white woman who works at the church and delivers medicine to a woman who has been beaten by her husband. The woman-- named Ahoya, a well known British name-- has strange opinions on wife abuse and I was really unsure about the message of the whole scene.

That all went well, I knew my lines, caused some stirring among the audience...but then at the end of the play...I had gone backstage from my seat in the audience where I had been since my scene had ended to find the book i had forgotten there. I ended up passing by the stage around curtain call and was basically pushed on stage. I thought, ok, line up, i can do curtain call, shouldn't be too complicated. then when i got on stage, to my horror i saw, ahhhh, they are in a line. ah, and they are doing a dance...ok....yeah, so totally danced on stage to a dance i did not know. Then, after bowing, the leader of the group said, "Ok, now we start with introductions..." and looked at me.

Er, introductions? "What do I say?" I whispered. "Your name"...so i said, "Hi I'm Emma," not knowing that everyone after me would basically say a little speech about themselves to raucous applause.

Oh well, everyone has to rack up a few embarrassing moments in their life. I just hate that i had to reinforce the impression that mzungus can't dance...

Yes, so the coast-- we arrived in Mombasa last week and spent our first morning resting. We stayed in the New People's Hotel, quite possibly the loudest guesthouse I have ever encountered...not only is it right by the bus station where the horns just keep on hooting, and by the mosque with the electronic prayers blasting out, but it also has a very echoing courtyard in the middle where whoever was doing the washing up and laundry was really just having a field day. I was not quite sure how they were making so much noise but it really sounded like they were taking a saucepan and bashing it against a wall periodically...

We made our way to the old town of Mombasa, where the streets narrow, trying to find Island Dishes for a feast of biryani and curries. People would occasionally point us in the right direction, until a torrential rainstorm stopped us and we waited under a balcony. Then we met Ramzy, a very friendly guy who found us a bench upon which to watch the rain. When the drops were lighter, Ramzy took us to Island Dishes, actually leaving his phone number with us in case we needed help. That first encounter with coastal friendliness may have biased me from the very beginning but I have felt so welcomed here. Maybe it is partly being away from the intensity of Nairobi. You don't realise how tiring and stressful that is until you leave.

While we sat at Island Dishes, sipping our tamarind juice, a guy with dreads and a bandaged finger sat down next to us. He ordered some food and proceeded to chat to us as he ate, spewing rice while he talked (Tiff insists that I mention this-- I must admit, it was quite impressive how messy an eater he was).

Mohammed Mahdi is in the process of setting up an ecotourism venture in his village. During a relationship he had with a Peace Corps volunteer, he began inviting guests to come and camp on an island by his village of Ngomeni, wanting to preserve some of the coast for a gentler type of tourism than that found in the huge hotels and resorts that dot the coast around here (strangely enough, very dominated by Italians-- people here actually know quite a bit of the language even). Apart from camping on the island, people can tour the mangrove swamps around the island, sail on a dhow, enjoy fresh crab, and just generally chill on a rather private beach.

Mahdi told us all of this-- he had a flyer typed out and a phone number-- and an website address. Tiff and I at first sighed. Nairobi makes you suspicious of everyone. people are always claiming to know you, getting upset if you don't 'remember them'... Being approached by a random man telling you he will take you to his island smacks of a scam in major way...

So we decided to go. Actually he made it hard for us to refuse, offering to show us round Mombasa the rest of the day for free and saying we would not have to pay until we arrived at Mahdi Island. Still, we were worried...imagining arriving on the island, then being abandoned there, losing all our bags...

Actually Mahdi was amazing-- he walked us all around the city. We ended up listening to prayers in a Sikh temple. I love how this city has so many religions and temples crowded into it. It gives me hope. We had walked past multiple mosques and churches, visited one of the Hindu temples, and now sat on rugs listening to the words of the Sikh Gurus.

We met Mahdi again at 7 in the morning and went with him to the Gede Ruins, the remains of a Swahili city-state from the 14th century. Stuck out in a rather rural area, the ruins do not appear in many historical records and are a bit of a mystery. And a sense of mystery did hang in the air -- baobabs in the midst of the crumbling walls, ancient plumbing and cooling systems more advanced than much of what you see in come cities today, and monkeys rustling in the treetops. i did have to laugh though-- the rooms have been titled to reflect what was found there: the Room of the Iron Lantern, the Room of the Scissors, the Room of the Cowrie Shells...oh, and "We think this room was a barbershop because we found scissors here."
"How many pairs?"
"Oh, just one."
"Ah ok. Yeah I guess it is a small city and maybe people did not need to cut their hair very often. Would suck if the scissors broke though."

After Gede....a matatu from Malindi (read Italian resort town, complete with Italian supermarket) to Ngomeni and then a boat across the water to Mahdi Island.

.....

To be continued. I am quite tired of being in this internet cafe and have some bag shopping to do. Just wanted to say that there is more of the story to come...at the moment Mahdi is hiding from the police...

ps don't worry though, we are fine and dandy, looking forward to a lovely experience on a night bus to Nairobi tonight!! Woohooo.....