Wed. July 29
Today was nice, easy, fun, informative and all with good company. I woke up all night long thinking about the future, my budget, what I needed to get done, and itching mosquito bites. AHH! So this morning was just another time to be up, surprisingly I had slept enough. Jami and I washed clothes, went to the internet, and I had a mango while she slept before we went out for the afternoon. George had offered to be our tour guide to down town. Everyone else had gone to the beach.
George is such a great fellow who likes to laugh, enjoys good company but is both educated academically and in the world. He knows about his country, its people, the good and bad sides. He articulated a perspective of our two countries that helps me understand how differences can be so stark. When USA got it’s independence, it essentially came with a whole new group of people. The “indigenous” people of America have been put in a box, assimilated and melted in with the rest of us. Kenya on the other hand, gained its independence after colonial rule, tribal systems and manipulation from all over the world. When left to its own, Kenya is still made of many different cultures, tribes with their own customs. To run a country with so many faces is quite different from the one that has woven its many customs together to eat hamburgers with French fries and pizza with pineapple. Random but tasty.
Our tour included the many ports and the ferry dock where several hundred people crossed from one side of Mombasa to the other (part of the city is an island). We spent the bulk of our time at Fort Jesus. While not a total crucifix, the fort was still shaped like a body. This fort built in 1593 by the Portuguese was predominately a protection of the port from pirates. The Catholic Portuguese put a chapel in the middle of the fort which was later dismantled when the Arabs took over, torn down the chapel, dug a deeper well and built the wall up for added protection. The soldiers had dug down through at least 2 stories worth of coral in the gut of the fort for storing ammunition and other food. The history of the place sort of leaked out my ears as it came so fast in the great heat of the day in a thick African accent. Needless to say I might have to Google the site later, but it was a fun site to see.
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