Jun 29 2008
(From Claire:) Today we just moved to another hotel in Mombasa. It’s very fancy and I like it. I really wish we could stay longer at A Rocha though. I loved it there and I want to go there again when I’m older. There’s a pretty beach just like Diani, but the waves were too rough to play in now, so we could just get our feet wet. I miss Seattle but I love it here!
Jun 29 2008
(From Lyanda, who passed me scrawled notes to transcribe in this stuffy internet cafe while she headed for white wine by the pool-ed.)
Takaungu was very good to us, and we were reluctant to leave. While Tom was at his long Swahili lesson (should be “Kiswahili”-ed.), and Claire in school, I spent my last morning there walking the long, (illegible), red-soil path to the next village, Vuma. Second growth forests of palm, mango, and cashew-nut trees were dotted with traditional shambas (or family compounds - 3 or 4 small mud and thatch homes and shared gardens, goats, chickens - I am constantly amazed here by the tidiness of the shambas - the dirt floors are swept, the yards are raked, and it is all orderly).
Outside of Takaungu, where there are now a few pink-skinned volunteers all the time, “muzungu” foreigners like me are fairly rare, and so whole families would stand and stare , then would all smile and wave and say “habari” and invariably an adult would offer “karibu”-welcome.
The palm eventually gave way to maize fields and glistening views of the Indian ocean. I walked for hours, and can’t think of a better way to have ended our visit there.
If we needed cheering after the sadness of leaving Takaungu, the Golden-Rumped Elephant Shrew picked us right up. The Arabuko-Sokoke forest is pretty incredible and its most famous inhabitants the strangest, most wonderful little creature I have ever seen. It sure let us watch it, which is rare, and the more we watched it, the more weirder it was. Digging little holes in the leaf litter with its funny brown front legs, and sniffing around with its long “nose.” And its rump is SO golden!
The many endemics in the forest (shrew, birds, reptiles, and others) are depressingly endangered, depending entirely on this forest remnant. We feel fortunate for our hours of peaceful wandering there, in their presence. Many thanks to the lovely folks at A Rocha Kenya for their great conservation work, serene hospitality, and for the simple, perfect guest house at the edge of the forest and the ocean. XXOO - Ly
Jun 29 2008
Hi from a shopping mall in the northern outskirts of Mombasa, as we end our sojourn in Kenya and prepare to head to Tanzania where camping safari and other adventures await. I’ve left the girls by the pool at a luxury beach hotel and braved the mad traffic jam to find internet, a few supplies, and foreign exchange.
We have had very limited internet the last 10 days, and it’s interesting to see how my phone posts are going - it seems to work so-so, but at least it works. I’ll edit them now, and try to keep posting by phone this week in Tanzania when we will have zero internet in our tents.
To catch up, we finished our week in Takaungu village, with me squeezing in as many Kiswahili classes as possible in Mr Aziz’s living room with the other (longer-term) volunteers, Lyanda wandering the village happily, and Claire in school. I did some photography and video for the project including attending a growth monitoring session 30 minutes walk outside the village, where the East African Center’s community health aides were weighing local kids ages 0-5, as they do monthly, recording their growth, and giving them vitamin E supplements. (See photos)
Most looked pretty healthy and well fed, except for the one kid in the throes of malaria, who was dispatched to the clinic. Interesting to see them weigh the kids by hanging them from a mango tree full of ripe mangoes!
Friday afternoon we said our goodbyes in Takaungu village and taxi’d up 45 minutes to Watamu. Watamu is an amazing natural place, at the mouth of Mida Creek there is a vast mangrove estuary, rich with tidal life and birds, and six kinds of mangrove trees. Then, inland a bit, is the Arabuko-Sokoke forest, a 425 Kilometer-square forest reserve that preserves three types of forest that once stretched along this whole coast. Heavily threatened by wood and animal poachers, the forest is rich in birds and animals, including several endemic species. The most amazing of which (at least for non-birders) is the Golden-Rumped Elephant Shrew.
We stayed at the beachfront guesthouse and research station of A Rocha Kenya, a Christian conservation organization (with sites worldwide) working to preserve the forest and estuary and running several innovative ecotourism schemes which fund school scholarships and other tangible evidence to the community that ecotourism is of benefit.
Saturday we took a guide into the forest and had the most AMAZING, long, close, intimate view of the Golden-Rumped Elephant Shrew, such a great sighting that even our sweet, understated guide was a little flabbergasted. That thing is COOL! And also saw great birds, many many kinds of lizards, ants, butterflies, and even a nice little snake (hi Tauna!). Then we visited the estuary, and the historic, forest-covered ruins of the ancient medieval Swahili trading city of Gede. All in all a great day.
Jun 28 2008
Jun 27 2008
