Crazy Roads In Mombasa by Alta Fairbourne

         

  Everyday when we are driving  I can see some pretty unbelievable things from outside a small car window. Mombasa is filed with surprises, especially on the road. People are always looking for ways to get things done with their limited resources; it can lead to some pretty weird things.

           This morning we were driving to school and we were looking out the windows in and there was a huge dead camel on the side of the road and about 5 people were arguing about it, maybe about who killed, who would pay for it or maybe who would take it home for dinner. I didn’t know how it died but it was really sad to look at. Camel owners never are nice to their camels anyway so I’m glad he is in a happy place.  Coming home from school when we passed where the camel was I almost dropped dead. There was a huge puddle of blood and guts scattered across the road- it was disgusting! I don’t think I want to know what happened.

           On the road to my dads office there is a couple of big billboards on the way.  Sometimes they have some pretty funny advertisements on them. Well the person who owned one of the billboards must have not paid their fee to the government. You would think that they would just take privileges away right? Nope! They get some big bolt cutters and chop it down falling straight into the road. What a waste of time.

           I swear we have seen it all. The streets are filled with different types of taxis and cars. There’s a small motorcycle taxi called a boda-boda and sometimes there can be up to 6 people on one of them, sometimes I imagine them toppling over because of the weight. We see packed matatus and tuk-tuks and even people nearly getting hit by cars when crossing the road.  We once saw a huge truck in a small ditch so they could load a cart without a ramp. We have almost hit huge herds of animals crossing on the highway with a person whipping them so they would keep walking. We see Kenyan guys walking around with Boy Scouts of America uniforms shirts on,  which is hilarious.

           Its super funny because there is these huge dump trucks that have smiley faces and rainbows on them and they say “Keep Mombasa Clean” and they are filled with trash and there is ten times more trash around them. There’s also super dirty trucks with a huge tank that say “ clean water” and trucks that say “ ? Meat ?” its really funny.

         Sometimes when we go home from school we see this lady walking to go set up her little shop. Its really cool to watch her strut down the road with a table a chair and a cooler on her head. She has some epic skill, I would never be able to do that.

           I love driving around Mombasa and seeing cool and weird things. I’m glad I live in Kenya it's never boring.

Exercise by Everett Fairbourne

Morning, time for exercise!

              Ah Monday morning, a nice relaxing time until, no please don’t… “It’s time to exercise!” dad says in a stern voice. “But I exercised last week!”

            “We have to exercise every day” mom exclaims.

            “Okay, what are we doing today?”

            “Running,” says Dad.

            “Noooo, running takes too much effort, and the only thing I want to give effort in is sleep.” But I knew I have no choice. So I put on my shoes and head downstairs.

            We walk until the end of the road then we start to run.  I run my first step then immediately get a side ache. My feet start to hurt, I want to cry and… oh we are half way. I still have to redo it all.  After a long time I finally finish, we all walk in the door and collapse on the couch, Then I smell it, the pancakes, oh I love the pancakes their softness and their sweetness. So I get up to get the pancakes.

“Ow, my foot is so sore!” This is a problem, because the pancakes won’t come to me so, I will have to go to them. I have to do it, I have to take the pain for the pancakes.

            The next morning I am having the best dream until. “Its time to exercise!” mom says in a sweet voice. I get on my knees and scream, “nooooooo!” Nevertheless, I still end up downstairs playing tennis. Just watch out for balls. All this exercising is so tiring.  However it is making me strong, just imagine me in 3 years doing this same routine, with my dad as my coach, I will be so buff.

         

I guess the lesson here is… screw exercise, it sucks!

Everett after his workout

Visiting Utange Primary School by Alta Fairbourne

Every Wednesday my mom, brothers, my cousin and I volunteer at a special needs class at a local public school called Utange Primary School.  It’s a huge school in a village and there is so many kids at least 90 kids in each class. There can be 5 people sharing a small table kids sitting on the floor and sometimes they are just outside wandering around and the teachers could care less! They wear checkered pink and grey uniforms, the girls wear dresses and the boys wear a buttoned up pink shirt with grey shorts.

The first week we went in to the special needs class and introduced ourselves to the kids; some of them were really funny. I can only remember the names Edna, Job, Wanda and Ali but I can basically remember everyone’s face.  Some of the kids can’t talk, and only like 3 kids can speak a little bit of English, so sometimes it can be hard to communicate with the kids. There is at least 14 kids in the class and the youngest is 8 and the oldest is 16, a huge age difference! We are learning Swahili so we will be able to talk to the kids better. To ask someone's name you say, "jina lako nani?" Or to say my name is you can say, "jina langu ni …"  There is this one kid named Job he is very hyper and he can't stay still, and if you try to talk to him in English he wont understand and he will just say in English, "my name is Job." There is also this older girl named Warda she is super strong! She grabbed my arm when I wasn’t looking and squeezed it as hard as she could and it hurt really bad. Some of the kids can’t read or write so we are going to bring in ABC flash cards to help them improve.

This week we went and brought big globs of multicolored homemade play dough and they loved it. We gave everyone a piece and they mashed it, rolled it,  made balls and they really enjoyed it.  Job was running around stealing some of the kids play dough and squashing it into one big ball it was a gross color of dark green. It was really easy to make them laugh and they were always happy.

I feel really good making these kids happy and I always look forward to bringing in something that will put a big wide smile on all of their faces.

Using colored rice to write their names

Their work on display

Cutting Valenttine's hearts out of paper

Dinner Disaster by Alta Fairbourne

 My family always looks forward to a delicious dinner after a long tiring day.  Salma, our cook and maid, made us one of our favorite family meals, beef and barley soup. The big pot of warm soup was on the stove waiting for dad to get home so we could all eat. We excitedly ran into the kitchen grabbing plastic bowls and shiny spoons, wrestling each other to get first in line. After a long graceful prayer, we dug in. We served ourselves huge ladles full of soup into our bowls. I got a plate of salad and topped it with tangy Italian salad dressing. My family was already outside on the deck, sipping their hot soup and munching on the purple grapes in the middle of the white plastic table. Off our deck while we eat, we can see the dark blue ocean and the waves in the distance as they crash onto the coral reef.

“I think this is a bug!” Porter said as he held up a small black dot on his finger that looked like pepper. “ No, that can’t be a bug,” my mom assumed. She looked closely at the dot and noticed its small black legs. “Its definitely a bug,” I said, trying to make my mom puke. “Ahhhhhh! There is bugs in my soup also!” my dad screamed, knowing what I was trying to do and following along. Everyone started to pull out little bugs out of their soup freaking out in disgust. I laughed because I hadn’t even taken a bite yet; I was concentrated on eating my salad. We ran into the kitchen to check the barley that the cook used to make the soup. We pulled it out of the cabinet and we didn’t see anything until we shook the bag. There was a grey webby egg sac at the bottom of the bag full of little eggs waiting to hatch and multiply in our barley. Tons of bugs crawled out of every corner in the bag eating at the barley my family had just devoured.

We all went crazy! Adam was puking up chunky yellow barf in the guest bathroom as he had eaten the whole bowl of bug-infested soup! Porter was trying not to puke as we watched Everett hurl in the kitchen sink. My mom was walking around plugging her hers and humming to herself to block out the barfing sounds of everyone in the house; she hates barfing more than anything in this world. My dad and I made gagging sounds to try to make my mom barf. Porter finally cracked. He ran to the kitchen and started to puke like crazy. Then he left the room when my mom called for him. When he came back, we noticed there were crawling bugs in his barf! My dad and I started to laugh so hard when he continued to puke more. My dad and I don’t barf easily or get grossed out easily either so we continued to say gross things and make people barf. It was so fun.

Once everyone started to settle down we took videos of the bugs in the barley and laughed about everyone’s puke show. My dad and I never revealed that we were the ones who but the bugs in Porter’s barf. I wonder what gross food we will have next. Moths in my cereal, maggots in my noodles, ants in my cupcake frosting - I will just have to wait and see.