I've recently been to Mombasa with a few other trainees to see some business sites that support HIV centers. The Ministry of Health in Kenya does work with the UN on AIDS education and treatment but the US provides 83% of the medicine and maintenance treatment ABR's and training for the Kenyan medical teams.
More on that later. The trip to Mombasa was especially exciting because I may be placed there after I complete training (with ECO ETHICS, an environmental maritime conservation organization with three offices throughout Kenya). What a beautiful harbor with carribean blue water and a expansive coral reef surrounding. Vasco De Game first came here with his Portuguese sailors in 1498 to establish an east African base but they were met with hostility from the locals and moved up the coast to Malindi. The natural harbor here soon attracted the Turks who build Ft Jesus in the mid 1500's. The Portuguese prevailed however, taking Mombasa back and expanding on the fort in the 1590s. Completing the rectangular shape of the fort to resemble Christ on the cross (since they regarded themselves as representatives of Christendom first rather than Portugal) this fortress lies tranquilly in the sun. But it was not always so. Ft Jesus has suffered a history of murder, seige, starvation and treachery that makes our modern world of hi-jacking and thuggery seem tame. Every sail that appeared on the horizon must have caused nerve racking hours of anxiety to the small colony of around 100 men separated from home by six months of sailing.
This amazing place is a long clear vision into the past.
More soon, but here I am at the waters edge of the fort and then again looking out from an original canon portal to the harbor.
Lots of love Ma and Dutch
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