Travelling Teacher

Mombasa......what a place. I only have to take a look at a few photographs and the words are racing through my head in competition to get out on paper. This place is like no other; it has an incredible charm and is brimming with things to do. Despite the sub-optimal living conditions in the village (no running water for three days, cold showers, cockroaches, poor mattress and small living space) we’ve found ourselves to be so happy and at peace with the place’s bustling yet laidback nature. The heat was close to unbearable for the first few days with not only the scorching temperatures of 35-40° to deal with but also the immense humidity, which hangs heavy in the air, making it difficult to breathe at times. However despite our claims that the weather seems to have cooled slightly, we’re told by the locals that there’s been no change and it’s simply that we’re getting used to it. It’s not all bad though; whenever the heat is getting to us Khamis is always ready to scurry up a palm tree and throw down some coconuts, crack them open for us and let us sip the cool, refreshing juice of the madafu and then scoop out the soft, sweet inside, Mmmm!

Whilst at the Khadija Centre I have found myself to be useful not only as a dentist but also as a teacher at the school. A few times a week, I would take class six (11-13year olds) and teach them English and Maths in preparation for their end of term exams. When exam time came, I was responsible for marking their English papers and was impressed by both the standard of teaching and the pupils’ motivation and aspirations to learn. It was a very rewarding and eye opening experience and the children welcomed me with a special “Senorita” applause-highly entertaining!

Where there’s sun, there is sure to be sand and that’s certainly true for the beautifully sanded beaches of the Swahili coast. When staying in Mombasa at the weekends there’s only a single string of top end Mazungo-filled beach resorts between us and the sunny shores of the Indian Ocean. It’s a fantastic place to relax and catch the sea breeze.

It’s also not a bad spot for some souvenir shopping and once you’ve shown even just a flicker of interest, you’re bound to buy from them and nothing will come in their way. Even when we had no money on us, we managed to walk away with handfuls of woodwork which we hadn’t paid for-“I’m here till 6pm” the man said, “I trust you”. And so it was, as wrong as it felt, we actually took a load of goods home having agreed on a price but not paid a penny. Perhaps they know how to judge their customers because the guilt couldn’t keep us away for long and we soon went back to pay our debts!

One of the highlights of our trip here has been meeting some wonderful people, in particular the Fazel family who have become amazing friends to us and with whom we’ve shared many wonderful Kenyan experiences. We met them on our first visit to the Khadija Centre since Adel Fazel’s construction company is due to be involved in the expansion of the masjid there. We hit it off with their two young sons Atif and Mazin and accepted their kind invitation to join them for lunch the next weekend. Never had we been greeted by such immense hospitality. They picked us up from the house and took us around with them to stop for drinks, visit the Bombolulu Cultural Centre and workshop, enjoy a Chinese lunch, visit the children’s art display at school including Afreen’s (their daughter) stunning masterpiece of a rural village scene. We spent the afternoon at the impressive historical monument of Fort Jesus, with a guided tour around the grounds saturated with historical facts from the kids and sipped tangfastic lime juice on the fort walls looking out to sea. We then retired to their lovely home for a good old home made Pilau dinner in the garden. The night ended with an artistic take as we all sat round the table drawing and sketching and sharing our creative skills. (It turns out Adel, Asma and the children are all very talented artists). Asma and Adel’s generosity didn’t stop there. They were there for our every call, from DHL shipping enquiries to Safari and hotel bookings; they had a solution to our every query and went out of their way to arrange things for us including the best short stay safari package around! (Thank you Asma)

And so the very next weekend we were off to the Tsavo East National Park for a two day safari, eagerly in wait of seeing something far from tame. Having spent the Friday night at the Fazel’s after our dinner with them at Island Barbeque, we enjoyed an early family breakfast before being collected by our empty air conditioned Southern Cross Safari bus which drove us the two and a half hour journey up towards the Tsavo. We met our safari buddies Ruth, an English girl from Melbourne and Gabby, a Dutch travel agent who was on safari as part of work! (Lucky lady) On arriving at the park we were met by the most impressive of the vehicles available, our own open air land rover which took us on the first game drive as we made our way to the tented camps at Satao. It didn’t take long for us to spot our first sighting of some buffalo grazing under a tree only five to ten minutes into the park. And from there it began, the “stop” and “wait” every time “something brown” was spotted across the savannah. From waterbucks to eagles, Thomson gazelles to zebras, ostriches to hartebeests, we managed to see so many of the Tsavo’s inhabitants all on our journey to our new found haven amongst the wilderness. As we pulled up to the camp we were shown the twenty tents and waterhole before being greeted with a glass of fresh watermelon juice. After a quick familiarisation with our tent we reconvened with our buddies under the Tamarind tree for a sumptuous outdoor buffet lunch, before heading out again in the afternoon for a second game drive which was to be the most promising of them all. On this venture we saw everything from hippos to giraffes, elephants and lions; we even managed to spot a cheetah up on a termite mound prying on some hartebeest, which we were told was a very lucky sighting. The sun set as we made our way back to camp for a BBQ lit dinner before getting an early night in preparation for the sunrise game drive the next morning which brought us into closer proximity with some of the animals we’d seen the day before. After breakfast, we made a regretful drive back to the park gates along with Ruth to be met by our bus which sadly brought an end to our magical adventure in the wild as it drove us back to the unfortunate reality of sun, sand and sea!