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Jambo (Hello)!  What you have just experienced is a traditional Kenyan greeting.  Today, April 8th, is day number 50 of my 100 day voyage around the globe.  It astonishes me to think how fast time has passed by in the last seven weeks.  I remember vividly stepping onto the Logan Airport gangway in Boston like it was yesterday.  It's sad to see how fast things have gone but also exciting because, in the next 50 days, I'll be stepping foot in seven more countries (India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Japan, and the US)!  As you can probably imagine by now, Kenya was another fantastic country; so many adventures to be told!  We pulled into port on Monday, March 30th and my first task was to sort through the mail of the shipboard community.  Many thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write.  It truly does mean a lot to me.  I was ecstatic to get a package from my parents filled with Easter goodies.  At first I was worried that I would have to go one Easter without my favorite food in the whole world, "Peeps". . .  But needless to say, my parents pulled through and included a box of Peeps and Bunnies so it was a Peep-filled Easter indeed.  Suprisingly, I had enough will power to wait until Easter to eat them.  However, not suprisingly, once Easter came around, it only took about 8 minutes to eat the 20 chicks and 18 bunnies.  Yummmmmmmm!
Once I finished with the mail, I disembarked the ship and called a man named Francis Muniu.  Mr. Muniu works at the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), and I had been in email contact with him for awhile.  He had arranged earlier for me to have a tour once I got to Mombasa, and soon enough a land rover picked me up.  Inside the vehicle I met Paul and Martin.  Both Paul and Martin worked at KARI and were nice enough to give me a tour of Mombasa before we went to the research station in Mtwapa, a small town north of the city of Mombasa.  To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the city of Mombasa.  There were no big skyscrapers which had dominated the skies in all of the previous port cities and the streets were very dirty.  Not to mention all the people who tried to get you to buy their wooded giraffes and carved African masks around every turn.  Mombasa seems to be struggling to get by as well.  There is not a large tourist industry and many foreigners use it as a place to enter and leave the country of Kenya.  I can safely say that Mombasa is not a city I would want to spend any length of time in.  Thankfully, soon enough, we were on our way to KARI.  The road to Mtwapa was definitely an adventure.  The main vehicle of transport for Kenyans is a "matatu".  Most Kenyans don't own their own cars so they rely on matatus, which are like minivans, to drive them from place to place.  Matatu drivers love to honk their horns, blare rock and roll music, drive like bats out of hell, and start to take off before all of the passengers are safely in the vehicles!  It was an adventure to be driving along this pot hole filled road in a land rover with these matatus swarming all over the place.  Along the way to Mtwapa, we stopped at a small beach where I drank coconut milk from a coconut.  It was very delicious!  After a quick lunch, we made it to KARI where I was given a nice tour of the facilities.  I saw their nursery where they were growing numerous genetically superior tropical plants to be sold to farmers.  I also got to see their banana plant project which is run in conjunction with a group in Nairobi.  The main problems that they were encountering at present was lack of water and monkeys.  The monkeys had recently moved into the area and began eating all the research specimens.  Monkeys are as common in Kenya as squirrels are in the United States.  They're all over the place!  Paul then showed me other projects that KARI has been working on and then gave me a tour of his lab.  I was surprised to see the small amount of equipment that he has to work with.  It made me realize how fortunate I was to have worked in labs in the United States where money is no object.  Paul next took me to his second job, a small hospital.  He was in charge of doing clinical tests for patients.  He taught me how to give malaria tests to patients and I tried my hand at it a little.  In the town of Mtwapa they have the ever present problem of the electricity turning off all the time.  Even though this was a hospital, they were often in the dark!  Paul was very resourceful though and set up a system of mirrors which reflected sunlight into the microscope.  It was very ingenious.  The time wore on and it was now time for dinner.  Paul and I went around town and purchased the different ingredients for our meal and then I had an authentic Kenyan dish in his home.  It was delicious!  We then hit the town for a few drinks and some dancing.  It was a very nice evening.  The next day Martin took me to a wildlife sanctuary and then on a more extensive tour of the city of Mombasa.  Before I new it, it was time to say goodbye to my new friends and board the ship.  I had a lot of postcards to write and a three day camping safari to Tsavo East and Tsavo West to prepare for!
My safari group met in the union on the next morning.  You could sense the enthusiasm in the air, we couldn't wait to go on safari!  We went outside and were greeted by two mammoth British army trucks.  In the past these beasts of vehicles had taken the British army into war.  They were going to take us on safari!  They were painted neon orange and were driven by two Aussies.  Our driver had suffered through malaria twice and had typhoid at present!  This guy was made out of steal and we nicknamed him "The Iron Sheik" because he looked exactly like the WWF wrestler!  This is the same man who, when our truck later ran out of gas and the transfer pump was broken, took it upon himself to siphon the gasoline with his mouth!  Trust me, this guy was tough as nails.  He would walk around barefoot on ground that made me think twice about walking through it even in hiking boots!  There were about 20 of us in each truck and we had a great time, on the two hour ride out to Tsavo East, getting to know each other a little better.  Although the weather was steamy, the truck's plastic flaps were rolled up, thus allowing the cool wind to whip through our hair and cool our skin.  We bounded along the Kenyan roads, again lots of potholes, and waved to the screaming children who greeted us around every turn.  We made it to our destination and were waved through the gait.  Even though we weren't on an official "game drive", we were just going to our camp to eat lunch, we saw numerous forms of wildlife.  I saw elephants grazing under trees, baboons basking in the sun, hippos bathing in the lakes, and wild dogs running along the African savanna.  This place was absolutely beautiful.  I'm not going to recount every last animal I saw on safari because I don't have nearly enough time.  All I will say is that it was an unforgettable experience.  I will however treat you to some of the highlights. . .  As a result of my safari I have huge scratches on my left arm.  Although I like to tell people I was attacked by a lion, the scratches are actually a result of the fact that acacia trees have thorns.  Our mammoth army trucks put us at the level of the trees.  This was good because it put us at a better vantage point to see the animals, however, it also lead to some interesting, and menacing, situations.  On numerous occasions, we had to "hit the deck" because branches covered in thorns came swinging through our open air truck.  Most of the time I was prepared enough to duck out of the way, however one time, I wasn't paying attention and my left arm got it bad.  I was thoroughly scratched with thorns, however, some people got it much worse than I.  "Queen Thorn" (Laura) as she was later knick named had the whole left side of her face scratched with thorns, and "King Thorn" (Ryan) had to have a two and one half inch long thorn removed from the palm of his hand.  Ouch!  Although there was rain, the dirt roads remained VERY dusty.  The dust was orange in color and covered just about every inch of our bodies because of the open air trucks.  When we finished a long drive we look like the "Oompa Loompas" right out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!  There are so many more stories to tell but I don't have nearly enough time.  Sorry!
Between Kenya and India, the "Lost games of Atlantis" were held onboard the ship.  Each floor was organized into "seas" (Red Sea, Bering Sea, Dead Sea (the faculty!), Mediterranean Sea, etc.) which competed in numerous Olympic-like events.  I was on the Aegean Sea but we were simply referred to as Bali Deck; a.k.a. "the ghetto".  Each sea was designated a color to wear for the Olympic games as well.  Most seas had nice colors like blue, red or green, however, being from Bali Deck we were designated the color brown because supposedly, we live in a swamp (reminiscent of the great Bali flood of '99).  Events included; a lip-synch contest, synchronized swimming, mashed potato sculpture contest, pie-eating contest, sleeping bag relay, Jeopardy, tug-of-war, volleyball, bat spin and many others.  Bali Deck proudly took the gold medal in the human pyramid competition because we secretly held water in our mouths and spit it out simultaneously thus making a "beautiful" fountain.  I, along with my friend Jessica from safari, competed in the mashed potato contest.  The rules stated, "The bigger, the better" and "Be creative!"  Well, we put our heads together to come up with the idea of a "mashed potato angel", you know, like a snow angel except with mashed potatoes instead of snow!  We were allowed to incorporate three objects into our sculpture so we used black trash bags, packets of butter, and aluminum foil.  We laid our mashed potatoes on the large trash bags and Jessica rolled around in them thus making the outline of angel.  To complement our angel, we gave her a halo of gold butter packets and outlined her in aluminum foil (both objects go well with potatoes).  The judges were not amused or impressed with our attempt at creativity and we were not even awarded a medal.  The gold medal was given to a sculpture of our CORE professor, Elaine Leeder's, head.  Jessica and I, along with many other people, felt that we were robbed from a much deserved medal.  Of the 9 teams that competed, we were the only one which actually used our heads to be creative and made something different than just a mound of potatoes.  BORING!!!  Oh well, life goes on.  I was however honored as the first person to be injured in the games.  During a valiant attempt in the sleeping bag relay, I took a bad fall and cut a gaping gash on the big toe on my right foot.  It wasn't too terribly painful but it definitely didn't look pretty.  I was rushed to the medical doctor's office where he cleaned me up nicely.  In the end, even though Bali Deck had a lot of spirit, we ended up in 8th place out of 9 teams.  We beat the faculty though (they came in 9th)!  Not to make excuses but Bali also had the smallest sea in the competition, therefore we had, fewer people to work with and had to spread ourselves out thinner.  Oh well, we'll get them in the Alumni competition, more on that in another email.
A few days ago, we held a "Crew Appreciation Day."  Of the 1001 people on this ship, about 100 are crew.  The entire shipboard community took part in making them signs and leaving them little gifts.  In all honesty, the S. S. Universe Explorer crew works extremely hard for our safety and comfort and I'm entirely grateful for them.  That evening, we were treated to a tremendous talent show of singing and dance.  There were many acts that lasted well into the night.  One of my favorites was an "authentic" Hawaiian hula dance complete with grass skirts and all!  Ladi, my cabin steward was involved in a Copacabana lip-synch that was very humorous.  Our crew are a very talented bunch and it's obvious that they definitely put their karaoke machine to good use!
Well, I'll be arriving in India tomorrow so I must take some time now to prepare and pack.  Plus, I have a five page paper that I must write for my Intercultural Communication class as well!  Until we meet again. . .
      Your friend,

              -Pat

Last Updated September 28th, 2001

© 2001, Pat Lilja
Semester at Sea is a registered mark of the Institute for Shipboard Education