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| Village huts right outside the main Kilifi office |
Alright my first full week of work. Everyone is so friendly to each other - saying hi to every one. Nothing too much happened besides more meetings to get to know all the different departments. One day I went to the Nursery - where they grow the seedlings for the Eucalyptus and Melia trees. This was a cool experience because I got to see more modes of transportation in Kenya. So there’s the tuk-tuk and bota bota. But there’s also the matatu (mah-tah-tu) which is a small passenger van which locals take cause it’s cheaper. There’s usually a bunch of them, so chances are there’s one that’ll get you where you need to go. There’s a guy who’s a conductor of sorts who sticks his head out the window yelling to get people to hop in the van - so it gets very very crowded. I took this on my way back from the nursery. It was hot, cramped and there were chickens under my seat. On my way to the nursery I took a probox, because my coworker was with me and he’s taller than me so he tries to avoid taking the cramped matatus. A probox works like an uberpool or a carpool. It’s usually a white small Toyota (they love toyotas here) box shaped car that also resembles a subaru. So you walk up to them, tell them your destination, and they get other passengers going the same way. So less people than a matatu, but sometimes just as cramped. When we went, my friend sat in the front cause he needed the leg room, but the driver also squeezed in an extra person in the front of the car - the guy sat on the console. One leg in the passenger leg space and the other leg in the driver leg space.
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company probox. The public ones usually don't have words on them
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| Tuk-tuk |
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| Example of a Matutu with a guy hanging outside the door - either to get customers or because it's too packed |
So of course as I’m getting my around feet on the ground in Kilifi, time to move! But Diani (Dee-ah-ni) is known as the best beach in Kenya and I read also on East African coast. We took a probox since I had all my luggage. My other coworker came too because he had field work and he would’ve had to take a bunch of matatus and a ferry from Mombasa (they really should get a bridge) to get to Diani. My first weekend in Diani was beautiful. It was raining so we sat on a couple nice beach bars but the view was still beautiful. I was introduced to boss’ friends (whom he just met on Halloween). They invited us to the beach on Sunday. They went to a different beach- more secluded which was nice and they had a private area. So I still haven’t swam in Diani beach yet but no complaints!
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View from inside the car on the ferry. Since we were on the ferry with cars, there was room. Usually it gets packed. |
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| Saturday rain- but still nice from a beach bar |
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| Sunday beach time with new friends who have access to a more private beach. |
Oh and this is my new office in Diani/Ukunda! (I spy monkeys!)
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| My guest house is somewhere left of this picture |
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| Monkey! |
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