Mombasa Yacht Club

We visit Wendy's workplace, Kwetu, a training center working with farmers. The center is 5 km out in the bush, down narrow dirt roads, past farms and banana groves. We're in Kwetu's 4-wheel drive vehicle. The Kewtu Training center is a series of pretty white buildings, all solar powered. The vista is fantastic. Because the buildings are locked up, we walk the grounds and visit the garden and bee hives at the bottom of the hill. Afterward, we drive back through the bush to a restaurant built on the "creek," complete with houseboats and speedboats moored in a marina next door. They call the water a creek but it's as wide a river and beautiful, flowing toward the Indian Ocean. The service is spectacular under this vaulted, thatched roof. The bathroom is the best decorated and most clean of any I've visited in Kenya. We could be in San Diego or Miami. Wendy has a sailing lesson today so she brings us with her to the Mombasa Yacht Club. We drive through back roads to pick up her fellow sailor, Fina, a single, black woman with grown children who owns her own shipping business. At the Yacht Club, we sit on a veranda as the sailing folk gear up, plotting the course of their afternoon race. These nice people are the jet set of Mombasa. They stagger boat departures according to each team's handicap and when all boats are on their way, we swim in the pool overlooking the bay. Jose from Kakamega has traveled with a friend to Mombasa so they join us at the club for the afternoon. While we take turns showering back at Wendy's, the TV is showing the US sitcom, The Hughly's. Ed seems to be getting into the show, saying he watched it back in the UK. As we step out of Wendy's apartment building, the laugh track from the Hughly's can be heard coming from just about every apartment in the complex. It's a little strange, hearing African-Americans while standing in East Africa. We head to Yul's, an Italian restaurant, where we eat seafood pizza and Italian ice cream. Tom joins us for dinner but doesn't eat, just sips the red house wine. Tomorrow we head to Watamu, a tiny hamlet about an hour north of Mombasa. And while I'm tired, anticipating the early departure, Ally McBeal is on KTN when we arrive at Wendy's. She and I sit up and watch Ally, commercial free. Sometimes I miss the US.