Our honeymoon began with nonstop travel from Melbourne to Mombasa. Three flights and a 45-minute taxi ride finally settled us into a social dinner at Nguuni Sanctuary hosted by the East African Conference on Communication Disability.
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| Giraffes came to pose for us in the sunset! |
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| I took a picture of everyone taking a picture of the event's cake :-) |
There, we met with some incredible people from all over the world. Perhaps about half of the attendees were from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, but the others were from Rwanda, Ghana, Germany, the USA, and even Australia (besides us, that is). I was also surprised to find that only some were speech therapists! The rest were special education teachers, general education teachers, PTs, OTs, and school directors.
Exhausted, we slept very well that night.
September 5
I spent the following day attending conference proceedings at the hotel while Dan had a relaxing time editing papers on the laptop we brought. Views from around the hotel overlooking the Indian Ocean:
The population of Kenya is about 43 million. The country does not have any training or degree programs for speech therapists, so it is quite amazing that the Association of Speech and Language Therapists Kenya (ASLTK), founded earlier this year, already has 17 members, nine of them practicing SLTs. The others are volunteers, affiliates, assistants, or honorary members. Of the practicing SLTs, seven work in Nairobi and two in Mombasa. I was one of the only ones at the conference representing therapy work in the rural Western areas.
One of the presenters invited her Ghanian colleague to the front to show us a song and dance she invented to encourage kids with and without special needs to participate together. In Ghana, it is typical for a person to be given a nickname based on the day of the week he or she was born. This song celebrates each birthday-name. This example was for Thursday birthdays.
September 6
Finally, a whole day to ourselves! We decided to visit two places -- Fort Jesus and Bombolulu Village.
Fort Jesus(Forte Jesus de Mombaça) is Portuguese fort built in 1591 by order of King Philip I of Portugal (King Philip II of Spain), then ruler of the joint Portuguese and Spanish Kingdoms, located on Mombasa Island to guard the Old Port of Mombasa, Kenya. It was built in the shape of a man (viewed from the air), and was given the name of Jesus. In 2011, the fort was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, highlighted as one of the most outstanding and well preserved examples of 16th-century Portuguese military fortifications. Between 1631 and 1875 the fort was won and lost nine times by the nations contesting control of Kenya.
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| Dan pretending to push me along in the seat in which Queen Elizabeth II sat when she visited in 1952. |
I knew that we ought to get a tour guide from within the museum to ensure we get a fair and honest tour guide. Well, Kenya got one over me anyway. The guide showed us around the inside and then said we were now his friends and as friends, we would get special treatment. By that he meant he would show us the outside of the Fort and even take us on a tour of Old Town. And at the end of it (actually after I told him we ought to return to the taxi driver who had been waiting for us the past two hours!), we got his special request for his extra services... to the tune of 3,000 ksh! We only gave him about 1,000 ksh (about $11-$12 USD/AUD) for his guilt trip and parted ways.
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| This is how we got into/out of the Fort's perimeters! VIPs only! |
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| A snippet of what Old Town looks like |
Our taxi driver said this tour guide was employed by Fort Jesus museum and was not allowed to ask for money within the walls... that's why he gave us this "special" tour outside of it. In any case, Dan was glad to have seen it because of its historical and cultural value. Old Town has actually been submitted for approval as another UNESCO World Heritage site, but it would not have been safe for us to explore the area without a guide. We decided it was worth the few extra bucks solicited.
Our last stop was to Bombolulu Village. The following is their own description.
Bombolulu Workshops and Cultural Centre... works with more than 100 people with different abilities, men and women artisans to help them overcome their physical limitations and empower them economically and socially to become fully integrated members of their communities, also providing social benefits to the workers e.g. Clinic, Nursery School, Social Hall, Sports, HIV Prevention, etc. Bombolulu started in 1969 and the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya took over in 1987.
My favorite part was discovering that their Mobility Aid Workshop is a Wheelchair Provision and Assembly Center (WPAC) through Whirlwind Wheelchair International! Run by local people with disabilities, they put together the RoughRider all-terrain wheelchair and distribute them as their own independent shop. I've run into two other functioning and fantastic WPACs in other countries as well. Always satisfying to see great international development models succeed!
September 7
Spent the day lounging in the hotel before taking our one hour flight back to Nairobi for the night. There, we were picked up and welcomed by a Village Volunteer driver and host. We were fed dinner and had a nice night's sleep in preparation for our early morning flight the next day, to Kitale (See: blog Part 2).
