Mombasa and onwards

We just got back from three luxurious days in Mombasa, staying at a tourist hotel where, for the first time in two months, we could be just the two of us. It was very relaxing. The beach has a coral reef about a third of a mile offshore, which means warm, salty water inshore with no waves to speak of. You float higher in the water that you’ve ever imagined, thanks to the salt, and the water is bathtub warm. One day at low tide we walked out quite a way with guides who showed us amazing creatures like sea slugs and sea worms as well as octopus eggs with little well-formed octopi visible inside. Another day we got an outrigger canoe to take us out snorkeling on the reef, which is a lot like swimming in the most wonderful aquarium you can imagine. We saw loads of monkeys and brilliant lizards, too, on the hotel grounds.

Most of the time, though, we sat under the palm trees on the hotel lawn, reading in our chaise lounges. There was a fabulous sea breeze that kept us at a perfect temperature. Occasionally we got up to walk down the beach or to jump in the ocean or the hotel pool. It was just what we needed to get ready for the last two weeks here in Nairobi before we start off on the European side of our adventure. Most of the time when people ask whether we are on vacation, we are not quite sure how to answer. But these last days really did feel like a vacation.

The only painful side to being there was the conversations with Kenyans trying to sell us things on the beach. They were polite and friendly and not too pushy, but the desperate poverty that grinds at their daily lives is not too far under the service. It’s hard to know how to live in a world with such extremes of wealth and poverty, which are particularly evident at a beach tourist hotel.

We did see some wonderful creativity in the ways people seek to make a living. We loved experiencing camels every day—such grave, awkward beasts—because some Somalis have brought them down to give tourists rides up and down the sand. And it was sheer pleasure to watch a remarkable gymnastic troupe of very young men, probably in their late teens, practicing their routines in the early morning on the beach.

This Saturday is Jan and Daphine’s wedding—the couple whose negotiations we chronicled earlier. We’re at Jan’s parents’ house where family members are beginning to gather, including David, their son who is studying medicine in the UK, now beginning his specialization in kidneys. (He’s a very likable young man whom we will see again in England.) Also Dean and Wendy Hirsch, our American friends who are Jan’s godparents. They are flying in from Geneva for three days just for the event, and we’ll have breakfast with them tomorrow. This wedding will bring together many people whom we love and enjoy, and we are really looking forward to it.