October 17th

Friday, October 17, 2008

Road trip! When we made the arrangements to go to Mombasa, I was thinking that it wouldn’t be much longer than the trip to Arusha, which I was on last year. But it was quite a bit further than I thought! And not only was it quite a bit longer, but the road from Nairobi to Mombasa is currently under construction, which makes it quite a bit longer. It is not longer because of detour, but because the half of the road we had to travel on was in very poor condition. Many kilometers of the road going out of Nairobi toward Mombasa was little more than a dirt (or rock road). It reminded me a great deal of my childhood traveling on the dirt roads of Nebraska out in the country. The only difference was back then I was usually riding in a four wheel drive pick-up truck and now I am in the back seat of a tiny little Toyota Corolla!

It was a pretty boring drive. The land is pretty desolate and very dry, and doesn’t change much. Most of this land is grazing land for cattle, goats and sheep, but we also saw a few monkeys along the way! There was a section of land that was dedicated to growing sisal, which is harvested and used for making rope. This land was very similar to the land between Nairobi and Arusha, Tanzania to the south. We saw some termite mounds that were as tall as a man, bat nests hanging from trees and other typical Kenyan scenes!

We stopped for lunch at the half way point, and ordered “chips” (french fries) and cold cokes. Then we were back in the car again for another 4 hours or so. We left at 9:00am from Nairobi and arrived at around 5:30pm.

As we approached the city of Mombasa we began seeing more and more semi trucks. Mombasa is the major shipping port of Kenya and a the main means of transporting those goods inland is by semi. The commercial shipping companies and containers that we saw along our route was simply staggering! Finally we were able to see water. The water we saw though was not the Indian Ocean as we thought but the bay that separates Mombasa from the mainland. We crossed a bridge over the Bay and saw huge ships lined up and ready to unload (or load) their cargo.

We had called ahead to reserve three rooms at a hotel that Charles suggested. They told us that we needed to be there by a certain time or they would give our rooms away. When we arrived we found that the place was about empty! And not only that but the rooms were not really singles, they were more like a small apartment! After looking them over (and finding out the price) we decided to share one room instead of have three. Each room had a bedroom with a double bed, a bathroom, kitchen (with a fridge), and living room with two couches and two chairs. It was a nice room but I didn’t think it was worth what we had to pay for it. The cost of this one room was almost twice what our two rooms were at the Southern Blue in Nairobi. But this is a tourist area, and it was the cheapest place in the area!

After checking in and unloading we decided to walk down the road to the local internet place to do some e-mail. We also found a mall close by that we decided to check out. It was good exercise for us after having been in the car all day!

Tomorrow is another big day as we meet with the church leaders of the Mombasa churches, and visit one of the churches. We ask the Lord for His blessing on our work!

In His service,

Nathanael