Categories
Mombasa

Ticket In Hand

So I said it before, but this time it’s far more likely to happen… I’m going to Lamu! I bought the ticket for myself and two other volunteers today.  Tomorrow I’ll be going up by bus, and supposedly at some point we’ll reach a bridge that collapsed during the recent rains, and then we’ll have to wade across the river and than catch another bus on the other side!  I’ve been prepping one of the solar labs’ iBooks so that I can make copies of it for all the 20+ others.  It’s close to done, and as much as I’ve learned setting it up, I look forward to being done.

Next week is exams weeks, meaning the class eight kids will take the KCPEs, and since it’s so easy to cheat using sign language, the test-takers need to be spread out all over the school, so all other classes are closed until the exams are done.  This gives me a pretty long time to get this lab set up without missing a class.  I just hope I don’s lose everything in the river tomorrow…

Categories
Mombasa

Safaricom Unlimited Package

OK fellow volunteers, this comes up a lot in conversation, so I thought I’d mention it.  Safaricom now offers an unlimited Internet package, which everyone’s been waiting for.  It’s 200 shillings… per day.  That’s a lot if you do it every day, but it’s not so bad if you just use it every now and then for Internet splurging with downloads and video Skyping.  Just send a blank SMS to 555 to activate.  For some reason this info isn’t on their website, but they spammed me with an SMS ad telling me so.  Enjoy!

Categories
Mombasa

Water. A lot.

The rains continue, and today the streets flooded, making my walk to lunch a real adventure.  The clothes I hung to dry a few days ago are still outside, enjoying their extended rinse cycle.  None of this, however, compares to what awoke me this morning: an indoor dripping sound.  I got out of bed, thinking that I must have forgotten to turn off the tap the night before, which is normally of no consequence, since the water only comes out in brief bursts, and besides, it would go straight down the sink.  As I walked to toward the kitchen, however, I couldn’t help but notice that my feet were sloshing in water even before I got out of the bedroom.  I turned the corner and saw that the faucet was running into a basin that was, in turn, spilling onto the kitchen floor.  Water was in every room of the house (granted, I only have three rooms), and as even underneath a couple different power strips on the floor!  I quickly switched off all the power and shut the faucet, and then I spent the next hour and a half scooping up water with a dustpan and tossing it into buckets.

So there you have it: Kenya’s in a drought and my house is flooded and surrounded by rain.  What kind of crazy place is this?