The details

Hi All!

E here. Since M led the way filling you in on the initial plan, I thought I'd give a few more details about our plan for the next year. We leave August 12th and the travel plan is Newark --> London --> Nairobi --> Mombasa --> Diani. We will arrive in Nairobi late on the 13th and stay the night before flying on to Mombasa on the 14th.

When we tell people we're moving to Kenya, we typically get the same questions: Where exactly is Kenya in Africa? Where is Diani? And how big will your hut be? Can M even fit in a hut?

Most people know that Kenya is in Africa and that it produces fast runners. In fact, I can't tell you how many people made jokes about me learning to run faster while in Kenya while I was training for the marathon - hey, one can only hope! Other than those two facts though, most of us (M and me included) know very little about Kenya.

Kenya is on the Eastern Coast of Africa on the "horn" part of the continent that sits below the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. It is bordered by Somalia and Ethiopia (to the north), Tanzania (to the south), and Uganda (to the East). The biggest city is Nairobi in the middle of the country and Mombasa is the second largest city on the coast. We're living in Diani about 45 minutes south of Mombasa. Click on the map above to see a close-up of our location.

Coincidentally, as soon as I told my friend Clementine that I was going to Diani, she said "oh, Diani Beach Hospital saved me after an episode of food poisoning". Of course it did. If you know Clem, this was a perfectly normal thing for her to say, otherwise, most people haven't heard of it.

We are not living in a hut. We will be living in an apartment-type of house that the lab owns. As previously mentioned, M will be working in a lab while in Diani and the lab owns this housing and has graciously offered us a place in that apartment (there are 3-4 bedrooms which are occupied with people coming and going on lab business). This arrangement is fantastic because it means that we don't have to find our own living quarters and know we have a place to stay immediately when we arrive. We've seen a few pictures but we will update you on the living arrangements when we arrive and figure them out. Very excited to get there!