I’m home safely from Mombasa (read on). I spent the week wandering around Mtwapa, Nyali, and Mombasa itself while my friend Anique was at work. I’ve been to the coast before but I have never had as much fun as I did this visit! I don’t have any pictures because my camera is dead… pole sana (so sorry)!

Highlights

• Salsa dancing lessons
• Swimming in the ocean for the first time since April
• Bus home to Nairobi being attacked by people with crude weapons
• Kid on beach bouncing a dead, but fully puffed, puffer fish
• Being in a matatu (public service bus / minivan / taxi thing) which got in two crashes, the second one after the conductor and the door operator were yelling at each other about the first one
• Browsing a spice market and being asked if I wanted to buy something that would let me “touch the sky”

The Bus Attack

The bus attack was pretty hardcore actually. I was on the 10pm Mash Poa bus from Mombasa to Nairobi. Mash is one of the coach carriers in Kenya (think Greyhound). I think it was around 2 am and I was asleep, but I awoke to some commotion and banging sounds around the bus. People around me were wincing and ducking, and the women were yelling “Twende!!” (Swahili for “let’s go!”). At first I thought the bus was broken but then the guy next to me said something like, “Alan, they have crude weapons!” Sure enough the front windshield had two large cracks in it from rocks. It was over as quick as it had started.

I guess what happened is that there was another Mash bus with a flat tire and we had pulled over to see if everything was ok. That’s when the commotion started. There were a bunch of cars and police after about 10 minutes and we all got out. The other bus wasn’t as lucky, several windows were completely shattered and some passengers had been robbed/beaten, including the driver.

Karibu Kenya (welcome to Kenya)!