Paradise in the Third World

I want to apologize to those of you who have regularly checked my page. I'm back at the University of Nebraska after a crazy summer and getting back into the groove of things. I'm going to try to really catch up on all of this. My next post will be all about adjusting back to here and other thoughts on Migori, but now I wanted to share with you my final days in Kenya.

Before heading to Mombasa (the beach!), a few of us students were talking about how it would be a nice transition to America. We were so wrong.

Trevor, Elise and I arrived at the Travellers Beach Resort in a daze. We had just gone from the bottom to the top in a day and were so unprepared. There were beautiful pools, we each got our own room,  there was a giant buffet of food in a beautiful dining hall, and- most shocking of all- there were white people everywhere. It's not that we hadn't expected it, but it just goes to show the reverse culture shock is a real thing.

I got to see all kinds of cool things while I was there. Our first morning, I stayed after the others to  enjoy some coffee and alone time. Next thing you know, there was a monkey making his way through the dining hall. Two of the children there and I were the only ones paying it attention- oohing and ahhing and giggling at each other until some grumpy old guy chased it out. Little did I know, I would be seeing all kinds of those little suckers.

Monkeys!

We spent most of our time in Mombasa relaxing at the pool, but I did have the chance to see plenty of wildlife when the three of us students visited Haller park. We saw hippos, zebras, giant tortoises, and I even got to feed a giraffe!

A giraffe taking my hand into his mouth for a little snack

Another day we decided to do a "sea safari." It kind of sounds like a lame thing, but they have actual high and low tides there. You could walk a mile into the shoreline without ever going deeper than your knees. That's really dangerous if you don't know what you're doing because of the creatures in all the little tide pools hence the sea safari tour guide. We saw starfish, sea cucumbers, octopus...the list goes on and on and we actually got to touch/hold all of them! 

Afterwards the tour guide asked us if we wanted to "fly high" and take a hike with him later after he visited his friend who had some "stuff." We decided to get out of there as fast as possible after that.

As fun and relaxing as our time in Mombasa was, it was also mentally exhausting to take in all the changes and adjust to a "normal" life. After 4 short days, I was so ready to head back to the United States. However, I had no idea that a lot of the learning involved in this trip would come upon my return.