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Nobody expected -well, at least I didn’t- that easter in aalborg was so sunny, as we thought that Spring in danish was just an imported concept.

But just when the sun begun to shine and the weather become to allow us to live in the street and be in an -even- better mood, it come the time to cometravel to Kenya. As we started to write the first lines of the project way back in October, the possibility of going to Africa seemed a somehow exotic hope in the future, but without noticing the end of April suddenly approached, and we were in the last day of preparations, running up and down to set everything for the travel, buying pills for Malaria and wondering what the next days would bring.

Day 1: Going down.

Monday begun in sunny but empty Aalborg. First breakfast with Malarone. After taking a bus we were in the airport ready to take our plane. The luggage was not as heavy as it could be, as we were expecting a really welcoming weather and to have room to bring back some Kenyan souvenirs. After taking our first plane, an hour and a half later we landed in Amsterdam, the capital of Netherlands, well known by their channels and hospitable architecture, and also for some souvenirs they sell to really happy tourists from everywere in the world. As we have 4 hours remaining in order to take the next plane to Nairobi, we decided to go down to the center for a city walk. Our first impression was that the city streets were incredibly active, we were definitely not used to so many people coming up and down the street. There were people sitting everywere, and as the weather was nice, many people had their house opened and were having dinner in their doors. Channels were bursting with people laying at the sun in their boats. We had lunch there and then just time for a walk and some photos, -we didn’t smoke any cigarrete and we just ate healthy food- and then back to the airport-controls-queues and then long distance flight. This first stop become a shiny but fleeting remembrance in a few hours.

Day 2: Mambo.

Karibu would have been a more appropriate title for our first day in Kenya, but as we are writing this two days after, we have learnt that karibu (welcome), jambo (hello) and asante (thanks) are the three swahili words that every tourist try to say while in Kenya. But between Kenyans, they greet themselves with mambo (at least that is what we have been told). And as we want to be cool swahili speakers, we just use the local form. The plane arrived in Nairobi, and three hours later we were then heading to Mombasa. The eastern coast of Kenya welcomed us with a grey cloudy sky, so from the plane we were still wondering if we somehow had travelled back to London. But before landing, the humidity reminded us that we were almost in the equator. After reaching the hotel, we went to have lunch and a small walk through the beach. As we walked throught the beach, many people started approaching offering fruits, bracelets and many other typical goods from Kenya, so we realized that, even thought we come here to develop a project, we were still seen as tourists.

And as we didn’t wanted to be the tourists that come from Europe to do a Safari, this afternoon, as we had to go to the supermarket, we decided to begin a little inmersion in Mombasa culture. We took the very local mean of transport, the Matatu. The matatu is like a public bus in Denmark, the only differences are that it is not a bus but a van full of people and with Bob Marley’s music in the background. And of course it is cheaper than in Denmark. After buying all the materials we needed, we came back to the hotel to try to eat something. The first day in a so different country is always really exhausting, as you always try to “save” everything into your mind, looking to every building, new ladscape and new people. As as Kenyan are naturally really hospitable people, you cannot feel but a little overwhelmed by so many interactions.

This entry was posted on torsdag, april 28th, 2011 at 21:22 and is filed under Kenya trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.