Midnight train

Our finals are done, and we have left Nairobi for good - at least until we pass through to fly home. They were moderately hard- I'm really not sure how I did onthe Swahili exam, but since the politics course is going to be graded on a curve and half the class claims to have understood next to nothing, I'm sure I'll befine for that class. We could have flown to Zanzibar, but as a group choose the much cooler option- taking the overnight train to Mombasa. The train left the station at around 7:30, and arrived in Mombasa the next day at 11:00. A longer journey, considering that even with bad roads it only took us 10 hours by bus. However, the unique opportunity was worth the time spent. The trains in East Africa, some of you (Kate) may be interested to know, are all on narrow gauge tracks. This means that the rails are closer together than they are in most Americansystems, but exactly the same as the ones that I got to walk when I worked at Disneyland.

I can't recall if I've ever even walked around an overnight train before,but I don't think I have. I think I would have remembered how incredibly small everything is. The corridor is just wide enough to allow two people my size to pass- anyone larger and you had to duck into a door way or have one person retreat to the end of the compartment. The compartments are two seats with fold down beds above them – maybe 8 feet by 8 feet total. I slept on a bottom bunk, but those on the top had straps across the opening to keep them from falling out when the train jerked or stopped! One thing that is probably different on an American train- the toilets were basically holes in the floor of the train. This kind of toilet is pretty standard in rural areas here. The difficulty going to the bathroom was, however, greatly increased by the bucking and swaying of the train.

We spent just one day and night in Mombasa and flew out the next morning to Zanzibar Island – a short flight, but the only direct route since the ferry closed. While we were there we visited the Portuguese Fort Jesus, and it blew my mind. Every thing that I have seen- in person or in pictures- in America is puny in comparison. Our wooden stockades seem to belong to a different category than this thick solid stone monstrosity – some of the walls must be 4 stories high. It withstood a multiyear siege by the Omanis – in the end it was being successfully defended by only nine men.