A Training Day

It seems that we have covered all the required work in a far shorter time than was anticipated so today has been used as a day to train all the participants on some basic Geographic Information System (GIS) functions. These are things I learnt a long time back and the day has therefore, one the one hand, felt like a supreme waste of time but, on the other hand, I have been productive doing other work. I have had one ear listening in though just in case there were any tips that I would find beneficial.

Last night I took my young friend for a short walk on the beach. It was astounding that the little thing was not keen to touch the shells at first but eventually I had her collecting EVERY shell on the beach. Soon though she tired of that and insisted that we rather go and have a swim in the pool. So insistent that even I could understand her Swahili! On our way back to the hotel we had to face the barrage of local guys on the beach but it was refreshing to not be the focus of their interest as a possible wife, instead they wanted to sell me necklaces and bangles for my "daughter". The swim was very good and we only got out when the life guard was giving us dirty looks because we were in the water after the official closing time of the pool.

Early this morning the ocean looked really beautiful. The water inside the reef was a mirror!


The lack of anything interesting happening in the meeting and the boredom I am feeling regarding the hotel's food is really contributing towards me wanting to get home. I really hope there will be something interesting tomorrow otherwise my last day here will seem especially endless.

Location: Mombasa-Malindi Rd, Mtwapa, Kenya

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little fun in Mombasa

Image
It was so good to be back in Mombasa. It was 9 month since my last visit. This time I stayed at the Bahari Beach Hotel. Amazingly I had not stayed at this hotel before. Initially I had thought that I had been there but the beach hotels in Nyali are starting to all look the same to me. The Bahari Beach Hotel is a lovely place and I enjoyed it even though I was there for a series of back-to-back meetings. My bedroom was super comfortable with a lovely hard mattress. The only issue I had was that the in-room safe initially worked intermittently but eventually was fixed and for my inconvenience was given dinner and a glass of wine at the duty manager's expense. The gardens were really beautiful and a tranquil sight to wake up to every morning. And I loved watching the cats cavorting around the grounds while having breakfast. Unfortunately the tides were against me so only managed one walk on the beach but I did get to swim and I had fun one evening watching some Maasai dancers.
Read more

Roasting in Comoros

Image
After a dreadful series of flights on Kenya Airways to Mombasa last week, I started on this trip with some trepidation. My concerns were for naught really though. The inbound flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg arrived on time which gave me a lot of confidence that my flight would leave on time. In the end we left a half hour late but this was due to a passenger not having the correct travel documents and his luggage had to be unloaded. The wait in Nairobi was quite endless but I spent my time getting some exercise by walking up and down the departure gate corridors. There are only two so it was a bit monotonous but better than just sitting around. The flight to the Comoros departed quite late as the inbound flight was late. This meant that instead of arriving in Comoros at 23:35 we arrived at about 00:30. The Dreamliner arriving at OR Tambo International Airport There were ten of us that were arriving in Comoros for the same meeting and all of us needed to apply for a visa
Read more

Maputo

Image
My one night at home was a welcome change from sterile hotel rooms but there was so much to do and before long my suitcase was packed again. I thought that I would be nervous flying this morning since I was flying with SA Airlink who have had a bit of a bad time recently with accidents and incidents but I was completely okay. Maybe 2010 is my year for having discarded my fear of flying completely but the real proof will be next month when I fly from Mauritius to Seychelles and back on Air Seychelles since it is thanks to Air Seychelles that I developed this ridiculous fear in the first place. What contributed to my enjoyment of the flight was that it was on another cute little turbo propelled aircraft, this time a Jetstream 41. It only takes 29 people and there were only 11 on-board making it really comfy. Take-off was to the north-east so we had a lovely view of Durban and I couldn't help thinking as we flew over uShaka Marine World that that was the closest I have been to my off
Read more