Alli and Flo!

So I arrived in Kenya and I already have told you a little about Christmas (mid-night mass in Swahili, billion course meal on the roof after mid-night mass, opening stockings sent by mom). All and all a fun couple of days. Then Alli, Flo, and I headed 8 hours north to the small island of Lamu.

The buildings of Lamu were built long enough ago that no one considured making the streets wide enough for cars. None of the streets are more then 8 feet wide - there for there are no cars. All transportation (human or frait) is done by donkey. There are 6,000 donkeys on this very small island. As far as I could tell many of them did belong to any one inparticular. We would walk down the alley-like streets and see 3 donkeys walking towards us (no human to be seen) who would then casually make a left hand turn - like they had somewhere particular they were headed. I found the donkeys all very funny.

Also in Lamu we went out on a very small wooden sailboat (a dow). We went snorkeling

around coral and spent the afternoon on a picture perfect beach with out another person in sight. I (like a champion) ate most of a fish - in the spirit that the captain had caught it off the side of the boat and fried it there.

The only way we afforded this luxurious (not actually luxurious) vacation was Alli and Flo renting out there apartment for more then a week beyond the time we were actually gone. There was a huge religious event happening in Mombasa and people were flying in from all over the globe desparate for housing.

Back in Mombasa Alli and Flo returned to work after 2 weeks off for the New Year and for holidays. I began volunteering a little bit a school for orphans that was just getting started. Alli and I swam across the channel that separates the island of Mombasa from the rest of Africa. You could say we swam to Africa. I'll have pictures up as soon as I can - but internet in africa is very slow.