Hey Mami, Kanga?

This weekend was full of adventures. On Friday I went to Mombasa and met up with a friend who’s doing her internship on the North Coast. I navigated the matatu and ferry rides by myself which was a major accomplishment—they can be pretty intimidating. We walked around the city on Friday and then at night went out to a club called ‘Florida’. There were some interesting characters there, but I did manage to make friends with some pirate fighters. Seriously, though. They were Italian sailors on leave from battling the Somalian pirates.

Saturday we decided to tackle some of touristy Mombasa things that we miss out on by not being in the city. We started out at Fort Jesus, a hundreds of years old building built by the Portuguese that was used by the Arabs and British at different time periods and even functioned as a slave castle for a while. Then we found our way to the famous Mombasa Spice Market. The aromas were tantalizing and the people were so friendly and willing to let us smell everything and try free samples. After that we headed to Biashara St., famous for the colorful cloth Kangas and Kitengas sold there. This place is insane. Calls of ‘Hey Mami! Kanga hapa!’ abounded, and the choices were enough to make even this seasoned shopper’s head spin. We finished off trip with lunch at a delicious Indian restaurant (it was my first time eating meat all week!).

When I got back to Msambweni Saturday afternoon, my weekend was really just getting started. Sunday was a wedding day! One of the neighbors was getting married, and I got all decked out in my coastal-finest and accompanied my mama and auntie to the ceremony. It was supposed to start at 9am but by 11 nothing had happened except we’d eaten and socialized. There was lots of Swahili gossip floating around that I couldn’t understand, and all my mama would tell me was that the groom hadn’t shown up and ‘he’s probably sick’. Thankfully I have a 15 year old friend Aisha here who came over later in the day to give me the full scoop! The groom wanted to attend his brother’s wedding first, which was also held today (?) but everyone got upset and the bride’s mother denounced the groom and it was just all sorts of news. Quite an interesting experience for my first African wedding! All in all it was a very successful first weekend in Msambweni :-)

Fort Jesus

Spice Market

SO many kangas!

Communal eating at the wedding

My Aunt and I at the Wedding