I regret nothing

Definitely had a fun weekend. I started off by going to see
Katharina's site on saturday. She stays with a very friendly family,
so I enjoyed their company. Then, I went to see the blauhaus, which
was a nice bit of construction. It was a dome shape covering an area
of about 10 feet by 10 feet with a max height a bit over 5 feet. She
had planted some potatoes inside. In spite of the careful
craftsmanship, I could see that it didn't meet the specifications for
a greenhouse. We talked a bit about lessons learned and improvements
for the next blauhaus. Then we set out to wait for the greenhouse
expert who was supposed to come. We went to the well to bring back
some water for the family. I'm pretty sure that Katharina just wanted
to see how many marriage proposals I would receive at the well. The
family was kind enough to give us 10 liter containers so we were each
carrying 22 lbs of water back a mile and a half to the house. We
carried the water back to the house and arrived for lunch. They served
a very delicious meal and I cannot be sure what meat was served, but
it may have been illegally caught. After that, we played with the baby
a bit and watched the family making blocks that will soon be tree to
make a small room separate from the house. Katharina and I talked
German and Swahili a bit and she even showed me her German-Swahili
phrase book, which was pretty interesting. Then the father came up and
asked me to revise a proposal he had written for a solar system for
the local hospital. It seemed like a nice proposal and I only had a
few suggestions. At this point, I started to fear that the greenhouse
man wasn't going to come, so I excused myself and began my trek from
the village to the main road.

They warned me that it was far and that I might see elephants on the
way, but since there were no matatus leaving until the next day, and I
was supposed to arrive in Mombasa by nightfall, I said my goodbyes and
scurried for the road. Well, I was pretty tired when the matatu had
dropped me off, so the distance seemed a lot shorter. I wound up
walking about 7 miles just to get back to the main road and another
three before I found a matatu to take me the rest of the way to Voi.
The first three hours (the walking part) were a pleasant journey where
I saw some nice birds and plants and had nice conversations with
people walking in the same direction. The last 10 minutes (the matatu
part), I also covered 10 miles and was glad to arrive in Voi. I
hurried to the cyber cafe where I had forgotten my keys again before
grabbing some apple juice and hopping on a bus to matatu. The
conductor tried to charge me 400 for the ride before I insisted in
Swahili that the price was 250. He was taken aback and let me climb on
the bus. (I'd had a similar experience in the morning with someone
trying to overcharge me from Maktau to Voi and I nearly had to get off
the bus before the guy realized that I knew what I was talking about
and allowed me to pay the correct price.)

I made it to Mombasa only to find that the hotel where other
volunteers (the main reason for this trip was to get to know some of
the new health volunteers who had just sworn in) were staying had
already filled and was out of water. I walked half a block to a much
cheaper place that had water (the only trade off is that the bathroom
is shared) and took a glorious shower (I was pretty gross after
everything that had happened throughout the day) before meeting the
other volunteers for some pizza (mediocre seems a charitable
description) before heading to a club for the evening.

The club is in a parking lot, which was actually pretty cool. We drank
and danced and I met some of the new volunteers and saw some volunteer
I hadn't seen since April. Fortunately, we had had a bit to drink by
the time the rain started so we kept dancing and held chairs over our
heads, which were not very effective as umbrellas. It was a lot of
fun, but it was getting pretty late, so we went back to our hotels.

Sunday morning we walked around a bit. Several places were closed
since it was the start of ramadan and Mombasa is heavily Muslim.
Still, we saw some of Old Town Mombasa before grabbing some ice cream
and heading to an Indian buffet for lunch. After that, we knew it was
time to part ways.

The trip back to site via Voi was rather uneventful. The problem with
Sunday afternoons is that most of the stores in Voi are closed. I
found one open supermarket and grabbed some groceries before heading
home. I found another teacher from my school on the bus so we chatted
the whole way home. When I arrived, I decided that I would make myself
some garlic toast for dinner. I had noted with a chuckle as I read the
ingredients on the bread that it contained raising fruits. I assumed
that was a creative way to say yeast. Then on my second piece, I
understood what the intended message was. I continued unperturbed and
found my garlic-raisin toast surprisingly pleasant.

As I said, I regret nothing.