Well, this is already the last story about my time in Kenya.

After the Safari I had one more week to spend time with the kids in Mukuru, before we actually went to Mombasa for the second time : ) This time we stayed for four whole days, and it was just as beautiful and relaxing as the first time. I don’t think i could ever get too much of the white beaches, the blue ocean and the perfect weather. Again, we travelled in a group of ten, which was really fun! Our accomodation were little cottages for 3-4 persons, which had a really nice bathroom, a small kitchen and even a living room each! Quite luxurios ; )

Some of the local people, we met during our last stay helped us get to a really cheap and amazing snorkelling trip and really tasty grilled fish! We had to order the fish one day in advance, then they went out in the morning to catch the fish and they called us to eat when they were ready. I don’t think I ever had fish that fresh and it was really cheap, too, only about 2€ each!

After my final short trip in Kenya I already had to start packing : ( I went to the school one last time to say goodbye and give some of the pictures we printed to the boys. Somehow saying goodbye was much harder for me than I expectet, everyone said something nice about what they will remember about me, it was almost to much to take..  There really is a big difference between saying goodbye, knowing that you will meet again or knowing that you most probably wont. Unfortunately, as much as I would like that, it will be quite impossible to stay in touch with the boys. It was very sad and I will really miss my host family and all those amazing people I met in school.

After that, everything happened really fast, one last goodbye at the family’s house and off to the airport. Just as it always is in Kenya I only got to the check in counter 5 minutes AFTER it was supposed to be closed, but thats no problem in Kenyan time, pole pole^^

When I had to transfer in Dubai, I met two friends travelling from Thailand, which was really cool! We had free breakfast together in the Emirates restaurant and we were on the same plane to Germany. What a great ending for an extraordinary trip : )

Now I’m back to university in Germany, but not for long. Only a few more months untill I am going abroad again and I can’t wait : )

The Safari was super super cool, we saw SO much, I don’t think I can ever list all the things without still forgetting to mention half of them. There were zebras, antilopes, gazelles, wilderbeests, lions, elephants, giraffes, buffalos, hippos, crocodiles, hyenas, vultures and many many more.
One really cool thing was, that we observed the lions mating and also a big male lion sleeping next to a dead, half-eaten wilderbeest and nothing could ever bother him enough to move. Then, at the Mara River we saw lots of huge hippos ; )

At the moment it is the time of the big migration and if you are lucky you are able to see large herds of wilderbeests crossing the Mara River at some particular spots. Unfortunately we missed it by a couple of hours, but there had been migration in the morning and a lot of dead wilderbeests, which didn’t make it, where floating in the river and being eaten by all kinds of other animals. The smell was quite bad, but it was really interesting to see. And I never knew, that crocodiles never eat fresh meat. They kill their prey and let it rot for a couple of days before they finally eat it. You can all try to imagine for yourselves what that smells like ; P

At the river we even got out of the cars, although it was prohibited in the whole park. But we had an armed ranger guiding us through the bush for a while and showing us crocodiles and the spot where the migration takes place. It was a little scary and everybody always wanted to be close to the gun : D but it was really fun!

We were acommodatet in a camp, which was far to comfortable to be actually called camping. We stayed in grass shacks with real beds inside and there even was a bathroom behind a curtain! With running water and electricity, which is not always the case here : D In the evenings we sat outside around a campfire and two Masai in traditional robes used long blowtubes to keep the fire going. A very relaxing atmosphere.

All in all a great weekend, if you don’t count the last day. Our drivers suddenly told us, there was a problem with the fees for the nationalpark and that they did not receive any money from our travel agency. So we could not leave before we paid 150$. They made up a lot of stories like “The car has been taken away because we didn’t pay” etc. However, when we didn’t believe them and drove there with another car, there the car was just standing in a parking lot and now it suddenly was a “misunderstanding”. They let us wait quite a while thinking that we would get scared and pay, but was not bothering us, we just pretended to not care, so they finally agreed to drive us back to Nairobi and there were no more problems, either -.-
I think with people who just got to Kenya, this trick would have worked and I am really starting to be fed up with all these lies and tricks. I don’t like having to distrust everyone I meet, but there are just a lot of people in Kenya who just see your money and how they can take it from you. That is definitely one disadvantage of travelling in Kenya as a white person.

Anyway, apart from this unfortunate incident the trip was really worth it and one of the best things i did in Kenya so far : )

The only cath: beachboys! This might sound positive for some of you, big mistake. Those people are the most annoying ones I ever met. If someone approaches you in Nairobi and you don’t feel like it, you just ignore them and everything is fine. It is NOT like that in Diani. If the beachboys approach you and you don’t answer, they follow you. If you tell them to please leave you alone, they will never stop talking to you. It’s unbelievable! I don’t understand how they can be like that and not feel stupid, talking to someone who ignores them all the way ; )

But you get used to it, and apart from that I had a great time! We went snorkeling, swimming, partying… And we also had a really cool apartment for the ten of us which was really fun. There, we were robbed by a funny thief: a monkey! He climbed in through the open window and stole our food, i was really surprised when I found one of them next to my bed! : D

Those three days at the beach were way too short for me, so Mombasa Volume 2 is planned already : )

By now i know my way around Nairobi a little better, though I still get lost sometimes when the Matatu driver decides to drop me off at a different location than usual.
We also found the hiding place for all the white people: The Java Coffee House we went there to finally get some GOOD coffee again and the place was crowded with europeans who all miss their coffee, too ; )

Meanwhile, I also tried lots of different Kenyan foods and most of it was really tasty! They eat a lot of rice and beans here, often stew and cabbage and I really like the spices they use here. The only thing I don’t like that much is Ugali. It is made by just putting maize flour into boiling water and stirring and cooking untill becomes solid. It does not really have a taste, but the texture is quite strange and not really my thing ; ) Kenyans really eat it a lot and for some tribes, especially in the western region the table can be full of food, if there is no Ugali, there is no food ; ) While in Kakamega, we had Ugali with cabbage for lunch everyday!
In my host family the cooking is very nice. Last week they had some visitors and prepared a big family dinner with lots of different dishes, which all were so delicious, there were almost too many tastes for just one mouth! Great experience, thats one of the reasons why I like living in a hostfamily!

We also went to the Masai Market to buy some souvenirs a couple of times. Thats quite an experience! Everyone tries to talk to you and get you to buy something from their stand, while asking for extremely high prices. I was never really good at bargaining, but here I am becoming a professional! It is fun and I often manage to cut the prices by half. And just telling them that I don’t have more money and leave is the best way, quite often they come running after me and sell it for “my” price : )

However, I still don’t think that I am really accustomed to life here. And I am not sure whether that would happen, even if I stayed two more months. I don’t think I can ever get used to the traffic here, it is just insane! And it is quite exhausting to be careful all the time, but now I am because a lot of things were stolen from the other interns already. Luckily, nothing was stolen from me yet : )