Or: Ferries, Trains, Matatus

Wow! What a weekend. It’s Tuesday evening and I feel like I am still recovering. From the heat, the sun, and the travel exhaustion, not the jellyfish sting. I am pretty much recovered from that physically. Emotionally… well I’m not sure when I’ll go in an ocean again. (Probably the next time I see one I just don’t know when that will be.) It was actually about time I got a jellyfish sting, after all the swimming I’ve done in the Atlantic off the coast of Jersey #humblebrag and in Israel and Australia and Italy and other international locations with warm waters #regularbrag.

Anyway, let’s get this show on the road:

Bill’s company, Angaza, had their retreat in Mombasa last weekend. Seeing as we just arrived to Nairobi, his colleagues were very open to the idea of letting me tag along for the experience. The plan was to meet at the Angaza office before noon, and leave to the train station right at 12. I worked from home in the morning mainly because I had to wait for the property manager’s manager to come to the building and scan my finger. Our building has crazy security where instead of a key, you need to scan your finger for building access, going in and out! I had scheduled for the guy to come at 8am, so naturally he arrived at 9:30. One of the many differences I have noticed is people’s lack of concern for other people’s time, or their own even. Not in a rude way, just a cultural way. Around 10:30am I went to the Yaya center for breakfast/early lunch at ArtCaffe, which proved to be crucial as there was no food at the train station. Then I walked to Bill’s office, arriving with about 20 minutes to go before the official departure time at noon. We pull up to the new and unnecessarily huge Nairobi train station at

about 12:45 then it took at least half an hour to go through security. Pre-check is so much faster. The first step, after the security check on the taxi, is to put your bags on a long platform and step back while K-9 sniffer dogs walk along all the bags smelling for illegal substances. But instead of German shepherds they look more like your next door neighbor’s dog – not really intimidating or well-groomed or look like they care to be there – no offense to your neighbor. Then there is the regular x-ray bag check like at the airport, and the metal detectors, followed by a ticket and passport check to get into the building. Once in the station, there is about nothing to do, so we sat and waited for our scheduled 2:30 train, which left at 2:30 on the dot.

The train ride took 5 hours. The food service seemed to take about 4 hours. At least there was food, as most Angazans didn’t have lunch! Despite the less than mediocre food, and the entertainingly disorganized chaos of the food service, the ride was quite enjoyable! It was fun sitting in a group of 4 next to a group of 6 Angazans getting to know each other and grabbing each others’ attention when we saw something cool out the window. We saw ELEPHANTS!!! And zebras, giraffes, antelope, wildebeests, and a baboon! But when we passed the elephants the whole train car was going berserk.

We arrive at the Mombasa station at 7:30pm to a swarm of drivers wanting us to take their taxi. But Bill’s colleague Winnie had arranged for a pickup. But instead of two vans, we got one matatu, for all 14 of us. Mind you it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside and there was no AC. We thought it would be a quick trip to the AirBnB, and boy were we wrong. We were headed to Diani Beach, some 33 kilometers south, during peak traffic time. After an unsuccessful stop at a supermarket to buy beer (we left with water and chocolate bars instead) then missing the ferry and having to wait for the next one, we make it down a long dirt road to the Fair Haven Resort (after mistakingly knocking on the door of the 3 neighboring villas) 10 hours after we left the Angaza office in Nairobi. It really was a trip. Despite things going wrong and a much-longer-than-anticipated day of travel, we were all in great spirits. The house chef had a dinner prepared so we scarfed it down and went to bed after a refreshingly cold shower.

The full glory of the Fair Haven Resort Villa was revealed the next morning in the sunlight. By 8am it was 90 degrees but it felt nice in the shade when a breeze came our way. We ate all our meals outdoors under the roof canopy, and spent most of our time outside despite the heat. The post breakfast morning was dedicated to Angaza team building and workshopping sessions, so, after dousing myself in the strongest SPF I brought from the States, I left the crew at Fair Haven and walked to the beach. The groundskeeper was kind enough to escort me, as there was a short cut not shown on Google Maps. I plop down on the beach and immediately became the center of attention to all the local folks trying to sell me a boat ride, fresh coconuts, carved wood keychain things, and who knows what else. After politely(?) yet aggressively turning everyone down (it helped that I had my headphones in) I enjoy the type of peace that only comes from sitting on a beach listening to podcasts at 2 times speed watching the ocean rise and fall.

I head back to Fair Haven via the short cut about an hour before lunch. I had enough of the heat and the sun, and I wanted to listen in on the “Unconscious Biases” session. (I had prior permission from Jennifer, who gave the session, as it was not an Angaza specific workshop.) I listened from the hammock.

After lunch (the food got better with every meal) the whole gang went off to the beach. I led the way since I was pretty much a local by this point. We set up camp at the edge of the palm trees in the shade and most of us go running into the water. It was the warmest naturally occurring water I have ever been in that wasn’t a hot spring. It’s warmer than when you pee in a body of water. Or maybe it is about that warm. We swim, joke around, take pictures with a waterproof camera, and are generally having a grand ole time. Ahadi takes a ride on a small wooden boat and as they are coming back and we all grab on to the side, I feel something latch on to me. It was a cute little clear-with-a-blue outline jellyfish on my right shoulder.

Naturally I freak out as I pull it off and fling it back into the water far away from me. Bill is right next to me but I yell to him that I have just been stung and run out of the water. At first we were skeptical it was a jellyfish, because no one from our group seemed to think there were any in these waters. But man did it hurt a lot. Priscilla runs over to the place where the shops and hotel is to ask the locals what to do. Three local dudes come over carrying an aloe frond. They open it up and we start rubbing the inner goo on my arm and shoulder. It cools it down a bit, but nowhere in our Googling did it say to do that. We sit down at our stuff, Google what else to do, and what kind of jellyfish it could have been. Since 5 minutes had already passed and I was still alive, we figured it wasn’t one of the deadly ones. Side note: you are NOT supposed to pee on jellyfish stings, and we found out the easy way, by Googling. I watch the group volley around a volleyball as Bill and Reed go to get beers. They come back with a pina colada for me. Instant jellyfish cure. I feel even better after I finish my ice cream sundae. We hang on the beach a little while longer, play convergence, watch Ahadi ride a camel, then head back for showers and dinner and games.

Camel

Ahadi on the camel

Post Jellyfish sting, post pina colada, post ice cream sundae

Boat near where I got stung

Trees and Angazans

Back at the Fair Haven we play Positive Reinforcement until dinner is ready. About half of us got a turn to be It. I love Positive Reinforcement. It is a great game to play in a big group. One person leaves the room and the rest of us decide what that person needs to do when they come back. For example, Steve needed to take the hat off of Victor, put it on Reed, then get on the table and do a pushup. And the only way Steve could figure it out is by following  guidance of the group’s claps and cheers. When he came out to start the game, we all clap and cheer like crazy, then we go silent. He starts walking toward Victor we start clapping. He walks away from Victor we stop clapping. It is like the hot-and-cold game but way better because there is no booing or negative enforcement, only silence. It is amazing what complicated tasks we got people to do! Then we eat dinner to a soundtrack curated by everyone, mainly 90s and early 2000s hip hop classics, then play a round of Celebrity. The long day has wiped everyone out so we all hit the hay. Except for 4 brave souls who hit up the night club.

Sunday was a lazy morning of relaxing, breakfast, and packing. We left the Haven at 10, this time in two very spacious vans, stopped in town to grab some train snacks, took the ferry, went through security and napped at the foodless station until we boarded the train. 5 hours after a retreat weekend go by much more slowly than on the way there. This time I only saw two elephants. We land in Nairobi at 8:30pm and have two cars waiting to pick us up. Since Bill and I live the furthest west, we are the last to be dropped off. We run upstairs to drop our bags, then call an Uber to take us to the one 24 hour supermarket. We get the staples (thanks Wunderlist for making it so easy (throwback to the first post with a Wunderlist shoutout!)) then go home. We eat and pass out around midnight. It was a wonderful weekend spent with wonderfully welcoming people and I didn’t get a sunburn.