Mombasa

Well, I had a very relaxing weekend at the beach...Mombasa is so beautiful. It looks like a postcard everywhere you go. We left Wednesday night, and it took 8 hours to get there. We stayed at this very modest and simple inn (complete with running water though) and there was a woman across the street at a small house who made us breakfast and dinner everyday. I drank the most gingery tea you can imagine. We went to 3 different beaches. The first day started out with a sand castle building contest--guys against girls. ours was looking really sweet. we were making an african looking villa type thing. and we were using seaweed to make grass and palm trees around it and a thatched roof with palm trees. so it was super sweet until we took a break for lunch. i think the boys were kinda over the whole thing so they took to destroying our masterpiece before we could finish it. typical right :) the second day the beach we were at was a lot more touristy but still nice. the water was always super warm and very blue looking. and then we come to the third day... i was really excited b/c i negotiated on my own for 2 things at the market, a first for me. then we went to another beach--very beautiful. there was a long, long way out to the actual deep water. mostly it was very shallow with sand and shells everywhere. tara and i tried going out to the deeper part where there was a rock reef. the whole way out there was only about knee deep. but then we met this kenyan boy, rodger, who told us the tide was coming in, and we wouldn't make it. he was so right b/c we turned around and shortly later the tide was already up to the shoreline. rodger introduced us to his family. a lot of the villagers there, including his mom, were out collecting shells that they sell to a man who uses them for decorating sandals, necklaces, etc. kenyans are so hospitable and so rodger's mom put a whole bunch in a bag for us to take home, for free. i always expect people to be trying to selling me something for a special muzungu price. but no, she was just being nice. i felt bad b/c this is probably a big income source for them and she just gave the shells to us. but you can't exactly say no either or it would be offensive. anyway, so things seemed fine until....

tara and i decided to take a walk down the beach. it wasn't even a long beach, we weren't really that far from the rest of the group playing in the sand. but we were far enough away...here's what happened. i was walking along picking up shells. and i happened to be wearing my camera in its case across my shoulder. i NEVER do this, but we were on the beach with hardly anyone around. and it was so beautiful, so i naturally wanted to take pictures. we got near the end of the beach, and suddenly, these guys (about 4), who i think had been out in the water fishing came up to us. i still wasn't paying much attention, stupid me, b/c i was looking down in the sand for shells. so picture me, with 2 handfuls of shells. i look up, and these guys are pretty close. i hear them say something about my camera. and all at once, they surrounded me. someone grabbed the case and yanked so hard (i now have a burn mark on my neck from the this). naturally the strap broke off, and they took my camera. i looked up b/c at this point, i was practically on the ground from being yanked, and then i said something stupid like, "give me back my camera." something you only say b/c you panic...i mean clearly they weren't going to give it back. but it was bizarre b/c there wasn't really a good place for them to escape to. so i dumbly started lurching toward this guy as he was still pretty close. and i'll never forget looking up and seeing someone with a knife. no worries, it wasn't super close to my face or anything. tara told me later that she was ready to throw a big shell at their faces until she saw another man with a machete...lovely, right. so at that point, i pretty much froze or screamed, i don't remember. but i definitely stopped and then they ran away. and then i was just so much in shock that i started crying. it happened so fast that it totally seemed surreal. but i'm so grateful that we didn't get hurt. and praise God, i had just taken all of my pictures off of my memory card except for the ones that weekend. and i didn't have any money or my extra memory card in there. i'm also really thankful that the camera strap actually broke as quickly as it did. it had plastic snap sort of things connecting it, so it wasn't that hard to break. i think if it would have been stronger, it could have been a much bigger struggle to take it from me, which could have resulted in something much worse. okay, so i know you're really freaked out about my safety now. i'm doing much better today...i was so in shock for about 2 hours yesterday. i really don't care about the camera, but it has made me panic stricken about everything. like i woke up on the bus ride home last night. i must have been dreaming about this, and so i lunged forward and instinctively grabbed my bag and clutched it tight. i just don't want to walk around paranoid all the time. and really i don't think i was acting dumb by having my camera. everyone else had theirs out a lot this weekend. perhaps it was dumb to walk by ourselves down the beach. but really you can' t beat yourself up over things. so i thank God i'm okay, and pray for safety and wisdom about what i do in the future. i hope those guys at least do something good, like buy food for their families, with the money they'll make from it. you know this incident really makes me think about materialism. material posessions can fade so fast, and everything we have now will be gone when our life on earth ends. so i was reminded, not to be attached to what i have.

anyway, pray for my safety, but please, please don't worry. i trust that God is watching over me.