Breaking Up is Hard To Do

Empty House and a Killer View

We are down to 3 now. Our group of 12 wanafunzi is down to the last few stragglers: Jason, Catherine, and Me. Not-so-coincidentally, we're also the three who are staying around Afrika ya Mashariki the longest. While there weren't many Real World-esque antics, living/studying/hanging-out with 11 others for two months was quite the trip in and of itself.

While we were all united by the common desire to learn swahili -or just live in tropical mombasa- I'm amazed at the diversity within our group. The conversations, generally out of class and in english, were pretty awesome. We had experts in international relations, history, environment, communication, religion, and on and on. It was cool to be able to see East Africa through the lens of others who also feel deeply connected to the people and history of this place. I can't help but wonder where we'll all go . . . it seems as though the African Studies realm is pretty small so chances are high paths will cross again. I think I learned just as much -if not more- from all of those informal interactions than I did in the 4 hours of class a day.

It will be a relaxing couple of days until Abdul boots us out on Tuesday morning. While the third floor is all quiet now, I wouldn't be surprised if echoes of conversations over the past 8 weeks are still floating around up there.

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On a completely different note, I stared death in the face last night.

It was 2am and a couple of us were chilling by the ocean in front of our house (see picture above). It was a very relaxed round of late-night, class is over zungumza-ing and kula-ing. All was quiet and calm and then *THUD* a coconut landed an inch away from my foot. I felt it brush against my body on its perilous plunge from 30-40 feet up. Had I been sitting six inches to my left, things could have been horribly different. . .

Leave it to me to be nearly taken out by a coconut.

Ugh. Such is my life.

p.s. in an odd twist of sorts, i think we might be eating that coconut for dinner tonight.

mmmm, coconut.