I am in Mombasa, Kenya at a resort and I must say that it is nice. The Brits knew how to live in Africa. The resort appears to have been built in the 1940's. It's clean and neat, just not new. We are on the Indian Ocean and there are not too many people on the beach. That, I must say, makes it even nicer.
The Kenyans are friendly and most people speak English. Some of them have a hard time understanding it. They smile when you say, "Jambo", which is Swahili for "Hello". "Asani santo" is thank you very much. Most people in the world are pleased when you learn some of their native language. I would like to learn more.
The project at the port is a large one. We seem to have competent contractors. Jon is a young 24 year old engineer and is in charge of the project for the local contractor. He spent the last year in southern Sudan building a road through a country that is in civil war. He seems quite competent.
Africa is better than I thought. Mombasa is a third world port city and it appears to have better than normal accessibility to consumer goods for the third world. You do need to be aware and careful about crime. It is safe during the day time for the most part, but you do need to be wary at night outside of the compound. It is not recommended to travel at night.
The weather is warm and muggy, but not excessively hot. The overnight low is in the upper 70's and the high around 90 degrees. We just had a rain pass through which cooled things down. It's decent weather as long as you can stay out of the tropical sun.
The food is quite good. The fruit available at breakfast is fresh...passion fruit, pineapple, mango (about the end of the season for mangoes), melon. The coffee is excellent....Starbucks can take a back seat to this coffee. The ratatouille is excellent....It's a mixture of cooked tomatoes, green peppers, vegetables and spices that is perfect with an omelette.
I'll try to keep this blog going with weekly posts.
2 comments:
This sounds nice, Ben. Glad that you have a good place to stay, and are having good food over there. Thanks for keeping us posted, and you take care. We'll see you in a couple of months. God bless you.
Betty and family
Well, I'll be, honey! I didn't know you were blogging :). Wish I was with you enjoying the coffee (better than Starbucks, not surprised, we've had better coffee in other countries, haven't we?) and the ratatouille. I luv you and miss you. Please, keep posting. Check out my blog. Dave helped me get rid of the silly background and helped me with the 3 columns to go where they are supposed to go. You've got a real friend! I am glad he is mine too!
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