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.