In which I FEEL rather than hear lungs crackling, and go to Mombasa for the second time in as many weeks

Apparently, I just can’t stay away from Mombasa!

Well, we diiiid end up going snorkeling just at the coral reef, off a little catamaran, and it was preeeeetty cool. Except that my goggles were leaking salt water into the space my nose was supposed to be occupying. And that my snorkel was filling up with drool, basically, because I was trying not to swallow, because I didn’t want to taste the salt. So…uncomfortable, but very interesting to see. Even waaay out in the ocean the water was still only about 10 ft deep before the reef. We asked if we could go past the reef, where all the waves were breaking, but the fishermen or sailors or whatever you’d like to call them said there were sharks and it wouldn’t be safe. So we stayed back and saw just what you’d expect…some fish and lots of coral and urchins and unfortunately, jellyfish. Heidi got stung on the nose, and Jennifer got one caught on her leg that ended up being quite painful afterwards. We suggested peeing on it but nobody was interested in volunteering. Instead we tried another potential remedy, tea. That didn’t work either…maybe because it was hot, and spiced tea? But then the medical half of all our brains kicked in, and Benadryl was taken, and that actually helped. :-D

Our last day was just gorgeous peaceful relaxing by the pool, trying to cut open and scrape out the meat from a coconut shell, when there was all of a sudden a crowd of people standing at one end of the pool. We went over to see, and there was a maybe 9-year old boy who’d just nearly drowned. Someone’d pulled him out and a retired nurse who was nearby started CPR and he coughed out a bunch of water. We got there to see what was going on about a minute after that. He was conscious and had good capillary refill and wasn’t looking blue but you could actually FEEL the water rumbling around in his lungs by putting your hand on his rib cage. So some people went to find his parents (his older brother had been watching him, but left to go pay at the front desk because they weren’t staying at the hotel, so had to pay to use the pool) to tell them he should go to a doctor to get some antibiotics, because he’s pretty much guaranteed to have a nasty case of pneumonia after that incident. So all was well, and after that adventure to liven up our afternoon, we headed back to town to get on the train!

The next morning we stayed in the dining car a while after we’d finished breakfast and were looking out the windows over the grassland we were passing through, and it was better than a safari, almost! We saw gazelles, impalas, wildebeest, hartebeest (the ugly duckling cousin of the wildebeest), bustards (some silly-looking bird), giraffes, and lions…sitting AMONG the wildebeest. I guess they’re pretty forgiving, and after the lion eats a few of their friends for lunch they know he’s not hungry for a while and so don’t mind hanging out with him??
But we weren’t even going through a game park, so it was preeeeeeetty cool to get to see all those animals!

Now ‘s the sad part. When we got off the train we took a taxi to the bus station where I had to say bye to my Heidi so she could go back home to New YORK (where she has arrived safely by now) and to my new friends who I very much enjoyed meeting and getting to know. Also, I have the skin of an old woman who’s spent too much time in the sun on my shoulders, except where it’s peeled and left me nice baby-fresh skin. So the contrast is kind of scary and I think it looks like I have leprosy. :-p

Theeeeen I went back to my home base, the Bass’ house.
Monday morning we went to EAST- The East Africa School of Theology- for the dedication of the new clinic they’ve just opened there. It’s right across the street from a very busy shopping center, on a main road, so it should get a good number of people. There was a short indoor ceremony where Chrissy and Dr. James spoke for a little about the clinic and the vision of the clinic, and announced to the students that it would be completely free to them (applause), then we went outside for the official dedication prayer and cutting of the ribbon and revealing of the dedication plaque (which has some black electrical tape over the “erend” part of “reverend” because someone spelled it wrong when they said it was dedicated by “reverend…I forget his name” .

Afterwards Dr. James wrote us out and handed us invitations to his wedding on April 9^th. I’ve never watched someone write out my invitation to…anything…before, or been handed a wedding invitation…but there is a very good chance any mail you send won’t make it to its destination, so it’s better this way. So I’m quite excited to go to a Kenyan wedding and see how everything’s done, especially since I also was at the dowry negotiation for this one. I didn’t really bring anything to wear to a wedding though. hmmmmmm

Soooooooooooooooooo Then I basically just killed a day and a half relaxing and re-packing for THIS Mombasa trip. It’s a conference/gathering/team meeting-slash-family vacation for all the AG missionaries in Nairobi. We left at 5am today and will be here until the 25^th. My very small job here is to, with another girl who’s here for 4 months living with another missionary family, entertain/occupy/babysit the 5-12 year olds 3 of the days while the parents are in a meeting for like 2 hours in the morning. Other than that, I’m pretty much beaching it up for a couple days…a 3 minute walk from where I was last week.

So hooray for vacation time! Next week I’ll be heading to either Naivasha or Limuru to stay there for a month at the clinic (I’ve heard both, so I’m not sure which one is true…but it never does matter anyways…this is, after all, Africa. ;-) )

Hey lookie here!
Chi Alpha is taking their annual spring break missions trip to the Dominican Republic and they’re leaving this weekend, coming back….you guessed it, next weekend, so if you would be so kind as to keep the team in your prayers that would be fantastic! They’re working with an organization called Book of Hope to distribute books (of hope) with the gospel story (hence the hope)(geared towards several different age/understanding levels) to hundreds and hundreds of school kids, and doing skits and sharing testimonies for the week. So pray that God does awesome things in their lives and the kids’ lives!

Somehow I’m getting tired around 10 these days…long gone are my stay up til 3 and sleep til noon days…Mom is really excited about that one, but I’m bummed about not having slept past 8:30 in over 2 months. Even the days I can sleep are interrupted by my self waking myself up, or some random dog or rooster or car or leaf rustling too loudly. Maybe tomorrow? Unlikely, but I can hope.

PICTURES from Mombasa are here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2504201&id=428882&l=966c169676

You should be able to see that even if you're not on facebook!