Easter in Kenya

Thanks for the Easter posts McConnons! I missed you all yesterday. Although Easter here was really fun too. I woke up late that morning because the night before some friends and I were out all night (bars and discos don't close til 5 a.m... either that or they don't close at all). After my host sister had tried knocking on my door and calling my name, Mama finally sent me a text about a half hour before we had to go that said "hi we are getting ready for church are you okey?" It was funny, cause no one sleeps past about 7 a.m. in my house (except for me, of course, although the heat usually wakes me up by about 8). The majority of Kenyans are Christian, so the Easter holiday is big here. Friday and Monday are national holidays and most offices and schools are closed. My host family is Catholic, so they celebrated as well. We all went to church at 10 a.m., where there were hundreds of people crammed into a church the size of...well...the size that isn't supposed to fit that many people. The service lasted until 1 p.m., with lots of singing and dancing and sweating and more sweating. It was probably about 90-some degrees in there, let me tell you. After the service we went home and had lunch and just hung out for a while before two of my host sisters and I took 4 of the grandkids down to the beach for all the Easter discos. The whole weekend is literally one big party here, with giant signs all over the place advertising party after party. One sign near my house read something like, "Good Friday Party: Go-Go Dancers at 10 p.m." Slightly ironic? When we got there, the beach was absolutely packed. It was like walking through the state fair, but on the white sand of the Indian Ocean with hip-hop music blaring and camels weaving through the crowd (of Africans, not Minnesotans). We went to a disco called Surfside where people danced all night, even the kids. It was nice to be on the edge of the ocean, where we could catch some cool breezes and have some relief from the heat. We eventually grabbed a matatu home at around 9 p.m. because the 3-year-old fell asleep (miraculously, amid the blaring hip-hop and noisy crowd).

The previous weekend some friends and I caught a bus, and then a ferry, to Lamu -- an island off the northern coast of Kenya that's one of the oldest and most preserved Swahili towns in Kenya. It was absolutely beautiful, with over 12 kilometers of beach and old, traditional structures from hundreds of years ago. There are only two cars on the whole island -- instead everyone uses donkeys for transportation. Everywhere you walk there's donkeys just chilling by themselves, not tied to anything, or wandering along the beach without anyone with them. A couple guys we hung out with there said that when they're not using them, people just let their donkeys wander and eventually they'll come home again. It's so sweet how they treat them almost like pets. There's even a donkey hospital on the island! And trust me, that's pretty amazing in a country where it's often hard to find a decent people hospital. After a late night swim one night I rode our friend's donkey named Beyonce to get some nyama choma (barbequed meat) in the wee hours of the morning along the coast of the Ocean. It was amazing. His other donkeys, among them Obama and Shakira, were already at home asleep for the night. It was a pretty relaxing weekend in all, filled with lots of swimming, fresh fish-eating, and boating on a traditional dhow (like a sailboat).

Before I go, I have a quick note for the Bye-Nagels... The other day I was packed in the back of a crowded matatu when an old Backstreet Boys song came on the radio. For a moment there, I almost thought I was in the back of your mini van, squished between Kyla and Kyri and Katie and Krista in Germany, not in Kenya. :)