Mombasa

Flying to Mombasa was a welcome change, particularly after our security briefing at WFP on Monday morning, where the Security Officers ordered us to program their numbers into our phone and call us 24 hours a day, in case of emergency. He then proceeded to educate us on how to avoid being the target of a kidnapping, assassination attempt, and general mayhem. Later than afternoon, we heard terrified screams outside of our hotel, and a woman was bludgeoned by an attacker.

I don’t have a sense if this attack was coincidental, or typical – but nevertheless, we realized that we needed to shore up our behavior in Nairobi.

Mombasa, on the other hand, is much more mellow and laid back. About an hour’s flight from Nairobi, Mombasa lies on the southeastern coast of Kenya, about 50 miles north of the Tanzanian border. The neighboring Middle Eastern countries of Oman and Yemen across the sea have played a strong influence in Mombasa’s development and culture. Women wore full chador, men in skull caps and the call to prayer drifted through the air – I have always loved this sound, and have found it stirring and beautiful.

Unlike Nairobi, which was 70 degrees and cloudy, Mombasa was hot, humid, with some occasional relief from the ocean breezes. Each day topped out in the high 90s, and left us covered with a slick sweat and a fine layer of dust.

We were greeted at the airport by David Kamau, the Director of WFPs subdistrict office in Mombasa. I was quite surprised that David was assigned to us, as he invariably has his hands full overseeing the programs throughout this region, most notably the desiccating droughts leaving animals collapsed on the side of the road, and the earth petrified and cracked. Over the next few days, I came to see that David perfectly represents the incredibly passionate and dedicated staff that WFP employees in their field offices around the world. Trained as a social worker, David explained why he does what he does by saying, “it’s my job to give a voice to the voiceless, and to lift up the downtrodden.” So many of WFP’s field staff are just a special kind of person – innate humanitarians, who would do this kind of work no matter what.

At the end of our first evening in Mombasa, we asked David to take us to the best local restaurant in Mombasa – a place that a tourist would never discover on her own. David and the WFP drivers looked at each other, smiled, and took us to a place, which, quite frankly, didn’t seem to have a name. A roadside, makeshift restaurant, lit by bare neon bulbs, sheltered by corrugated tin; we sat on simple wooden benches lining a long wood table. There, over an open fire, the cook made us all of his specialties; chicken biryani, charbroiled goat, greens that I had never seen before, each dish more flavorful and spicy than the next.

We were in very good hands in Mombasa....