After extensive Swahili lessons I've had the rest of this week off. On Wednesday I went up to Diani in order to get money wired to me. Thankfully, the transfer was successful and now I can live off more than about 5 dollars a day - it's great!
About mid last week I found out that while I have a 6 month visa, since the immigration officer only stamped my passport for 1 month I am legally not allowed to be in the country. So that was fun to find out I had to go up to the immigration office and probably bribe them in order to stay in Kenya. So Thursday I and a few people went up to Mombasa, we had some good western food & then got to the immigration office. Luckily, a guy there knew of GVI and had absolutely no problem stamping my visa for three more months! Mombasa is 100% different from Shimoni where I work. In the city it is loud, and busy. There are concrete buildings (as opposed to the clay/stone houses in the villages), but in general most buildings are still small huts. I walked into one grocery store that had AC though and it was like heaven. The other staff members and I just stood there in awe it was so amazing.
Another adventure in Mombasa was Biashara Street. While many tourists travel to Mombasa, they primarily only stay in the resorts on the outskirts. So three white girls walking down a Mombasa street is a very very rare occurrence. The fact that we (or the other two girls) acted like we knew what we were doing, deterred many of the locals from approaching us. In Mombasa you can buy Kangas, fabric that local women wear and we often have tailored into clothing, for very cheap prices so we wanted to go barter on the city side streets. The haggling was rediculous because you have to talk in Swahili as much as possible to let the vendors know you work in Kenya; AKA we are not tourists, we don't have money, so you can't rip us off. At the end of the day I came home with 5 pieces of fabric for 1,600 ksh or about $17 usd. I plan on having a local tailor make a few things for me to wear/bring home!
Lastly, in Diani I got my package that was went from home!! Nearly all the packages sent from Europe or the US never get to Shimoni. People here have had things sent 6 months ago and they still have not arrived. However, since I came out with about 5 shirts and 2 pants; I really needed more clothing to last me until December. So my parents decided to ship a package through DHL with clothes, camera and a few other things. DHL, while it was very expensive and did have some issues at customs, was very good and i got my package after only about 3 weeks! It was so nice having clean clothes. The package smelt like home too which was a nice feeling :) I have today to rest and then I'm back to work starting tomorrow!
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