My Visit With Maruge 7 and 8

Today was Friday, Maruge's last day of school for this week. I went back into the town after Maruge had left for school. I went back to the market that I had gone to a few days earlier. It was bustling just like before. Though this time, it seemed like it was all different people. Some of the people that I had met at the market on the first day weren't there, and there were other people selling things at stalls in their places. I asked one man about this and he told me that some people only come on certain days, and then other people use their spots for stalls when they aren't there. So every day of the week there are different people selling things at the market. The next day was Saturday. I was tired from my whole week of adventures and Maruge let me sleep in. When I finally woke up he told me that he had somewhere that he wanted to take me today. He apologized for not being able to do it sooner, but he had school. As I had learned during my visit, he would not give up school for anything. Something really big had to happen to make him even miss a day of school. Today Maruge made us a special breakfast. He made us eggs to go with our toast. He told me that they didn't have eggs often, because chickens couldn't find anything to eat on the parched land so eggs had to be bought at a store. After we had eaten we got into a van. Maruge told me that it would be a long ride. We were going to the Mombasa Carnival. "It will take us about 3 hours to get there, and we will stay the night there," said Maruge. The Mombasa Carnival is a festival with a parade of floats representing all of the different cultures in Kenya. Maruge said that he hadn't been in years, but he remembered loving it and wanted to show me. It was good timing that I was there when the festival was being held. Maruge also informed me that there would be traditional music and dancing at the festival.  Since we left Maruge's house late in the morning, we got into the city where the festival was being held quite late in the afternoon. We got some dinner and walked to one of Maruge's friend's house. Maruge's friend had kindly agreed to house us while we were at the festival. The next morning we got up early, ate and made our way to the festival. Maruge said that there was no hurry because it would go on all day. The floats were parading around town, going up and down all of the streets. I don't think that I have ever seen so many floats in one parade. Then we went on to the music. There was a whole block that was open, with no buildings on it. There were two tribes playing instruments and singing. There were hundreds of people milling about and lots of food stalls. When Maruge and I had eaten our fill and listened to the music for a few hours we got into a van to go back to Maruge's house and home village. We got to his house late at night, and the stars were out just like the first night. It was perfectly calm and still except for the occasional animal noise and the sound of the van driving away. Exhausted from our day, we went to bed right away. The next morning we said our goodbyes because I was leaving on my plane back to the U.S. later that morning. I was very sad to be leaving and Maruge was sad to see me go. "It has been great having you; I haven't had a visitor for many years," said Maruge. As I was leaving, he slipped something into my backpack. I was instructed by him to open it once I got on the plane. I got my final glimpse of Africa as the plane flew into the clouds.

Here is one of the acts we saw at the carnival: