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Published: April 21st 2007
Mombasa Rooftops
This is the view from the hotel room. Well here I am. Mombasa. The last 7 or so months have built up to this and now I'm finally here. Weird. The journey over was relatively uneventful. I had to check-in my hand luggage at the last moment as I wasn't allowed sun cream on board the plane with me so I spent the first journey with just the bare minimum and Nairobi airport was a little complicated to navigate but I arrived in Mombasa just 1 hour later than my expected arrival time (this was due to a cabin crew member at Nairobi not turning up!). Isaiah (the assistant in-country coordinator for i-to-i) picked me and another girl, Karen, up and brought us to the Mason hotel. It's a reasonably nice hotel - has a shower and a Western-style toilet anyway! Another two volunteers will join us later tonight. We will sleep at the hotel tonight, have an orientation meeting tomorrow morning and then move into our new digs and start our new jobs on Monday morning! I slept a little after Isaiah had dropped us off and as we have the whole rest of the day to ourselves I've just wandered up and down the main "high
Manson Hotel Room
First port of call. The Manson Hotel. Don't worry the beds were pushed apart before night time! street" of Mombasa and found this little internet cafe almost opposite our hotel! I walked around and had some lunch for a total of about one-and-a-half hours and in that time I saw 2 other white people - who looked just as out of place as I felt! Everyone seems to be very friendly so far, but more often than not it's because they want to sell you something or offer a service for a bit of cash. They seem to see my pale skin and the $ signs roll up in their eyes (rightly so I might add!) I still haen't got used to the exchange rate or what is accepted as decent tipping so I've probably been over-tipping to the max so far but I'll learn! Mombasa is a lot poorer than I imagined and a lot more run-down. I haven't explored very far but so far it seems very "shack-ey" and in a little disrepair. I should get a better chance to explore tomorrow in the orientation but we'll see. I'm going to go and have a shower and another kip before dinner (which is provided for us!) and my time at this caf has nearly run out.
Please leave me messages or send me emails - I'll appreciate it so much! And also a
huge thank you to everyone who wrote in my book (or in Jack's case, on a piece of lined A4 paper!). It means so much to me to have something like that with me so thank you - especially to Amy and Spud who I assumed plotted the whole thing (and my "suspices"
were right about you two!)
Love to you all,
Ben xx
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Lol where do I start...
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Winner, winner, chicken Dinner!
Well shotgun! The first comment! :) I hear Amy completely ruined my efforts in the book and stole the first and last words, I'm gutted! Glad to hear that things are going well so far, I can't believe that you're half way around the world... crazy schtuff man. When you get a SIM card let me know so I can text you. Your mum says it's pretty chezp to text tho' so if you haven't got a new SIM card I'll give you a text in a couple of days. Well I have to say it's all kicking off hear... I've literally just got dressed (13:30...)! And it's half time in the Spurs vs Scummers games, thought you might want to know that the white half of North London are 1-0 up :) To be fair though you did just hit the inside of the post about 2 minutes before the half time. I'll try and leave another comment with the final score. I got a text from your mum saying that you had arrived and that you were in a hotel with some girl, I almost wet myself thinking "fair play, that was quick!" You don't waste time do you? :P well, hopefully speak to you soon pal :) Spud/The John/Rick/"insert pretty much anything you want here..."