The Coast
“This cannot be less than natural beauty, the endless sand, the reefs, the lot, are completely unmatched in the world” Ernest Hemingway.
I spent last weekend in Mombassa which is located on the coast of Kenya. I was invited by my friend Rinah who is also working at the UN HABITAT Partners and Youth Section. Rinah is from the coast and was returning home to celebrate her parent’s 28th wedding anniversary. Having heard so many wonderful things about Mombassa how could I say no? Rinah, Faith and I spent a wonderful nine hours on a bus and made our way to Mombassa. Faith is a woman who I met at the World Urban Forum 3 in Vancouver but is from Nairobi. She volunteers at the UN and works on an endless list of other initiatives within the city.
The weekend consisted of wonderful tea, Kenyan food, warm sun shining weather, beautiful beaches and of course karaoke! Rinah’s father has a love for the Karaoke so after dinner on their anniversary night the family and friends all took turns singing their favorite tunes!
Before coming to Kenya so many people told me that I was going to find it hard to be a vegetarian - I have yet to encounter this as an issue. Though meat is very much the main source of food and vegetarianism might be considered an odd choice I have been enjoying my vegetables and sweet fruit. I have also enjoyed my chapatti and ugali. Ugali is maize meal cooked into a thick porridge until it sets hard, then it is served in flat slabs. Chapatis are similar to roti. I also ate gatheri which is a mix of beans and corn, and cooked red kidney beans.
I had never heard of a Jiko before – A Jiko is basically a stove. It is an way to try to minimize the use of firewood, based on a Thai design that was modified to suit the Kenyan way of cooking.
Though the weekend was far too short a stay I did manage to ride a horse and a camel, see the Indian Ocean and Fort Jesus. Of course there were the alligators and the python!
Facts on Mombassa -
Mombassa is the largest city on the Kenyan coast and also the largest coastal port in East Africa. The population is overwhelmingly African, many who are Swahilis, but there are a remarkable range of races and cultures from Africans to British expats, Omanis, Indians and Chinese.
The most interesting part of Mombassa is the character Old Town, with its narrow, winding alleyways and historic Swahili houses. In the middle of the Old Town are the remains of Fort Jesus, which played a pivotal role in the various power struggles over the dominion of East Africa. Fort Jesus was built in 1539 by the Portuguese to enforce their rule over the coastal Swahilis, but they rarely managed to hold onto it for long. It changed hands many times in bloody sieges between 1631 and 1875, before finally passing into the hands of the British.
