the end???

Right now i'm freaking out that the term is so close to being over. Where did it go?? I got back to Mombasa yesterday, after pretty much the craziest three weeks I've ever had, and was surprised to find how comfortable it feels being back here. Lamu is wonderful but it is so small, and it just doesn't feel like home. Right now I'm staying with my host family again, which also means that I get to use my sister's laptop to write my 40-page paper instead of spending exhorbitant amounts at an internet cafe.
Yesterday I took a plane from Lamu to Malindi and a bus from Malindi to Mombasa alone, which stressed me out a lot. So much so, in fact, that I did anything but sleep the night before, and consequently was traveling alone with the large remaining portion of my budget for the month on five hours of sleep. Maybe not such a good idea.
Most of the trip was not a problem. The part that made me the most nervous was that once I left the Malindi airport, Omari, who works with SIT in Lamu, told me to just cross the road and wait for a bus or a matatu to Mombasa to pass. The airport is pretty isolated and I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work out.
In Malindi, I was walking down the long airport driveway with my big backpack on my back and my smaller one on my front when one of the women who had been on the plane from Lamu caught up with me. She asked me if I was taking the bus to Mombasa. I said yes. She said she was too, and I gave a probably audible sigh of relief. The second we got to the road a bus passed and when she raised her hand it drew to a stop. We got on, squished into the very back seat, where we were about 8 people in a space meant for five, and talked for the entire two hour ride. She's from Nairobi but works in Mombasa, and had just come back from a vacation in Lamu with her husband of seven months. Her husband was staying there because he is German and on vacation from his job in Munich, but she had to go back to work today. Her name is Purity and she speaks English, Kiswahili, Mehru, Kikuyu and Kamba. I wish I could speak that many languages. She's going to call me sometime before I leave if she's not busy so we can hang out and I can meet her husband.
But anyway, this is all to say that I worry far too much, and stuff works out in the end, but usually isn't improved by my freaking out. That's my life lesson of the day.
At my family's house, they were all busy getting ready for the dinner party they were having that night for a cousin who is visiting. I know most of the family from all the weddings I've been to (but don't ask me for names...no idea). They were all excited to see me. But I could summon up very little to keep conversations going. At around 9:30 I was laying on the bed talking to my sister and I fell asleep in the middle of the conversation. I woke up at 2 with my glasses on. I was very, very tired.
Today I powered through 15 pages of my paper, so that was good. Then I was locked into the house for a while because everyone was asleep and I didn't want to wake them up, so I ended up watching an 80's documentary about life in the Kalahari desert on KBC. I learned how to find water using some melon seeds and a baboon, so I guess that might come in handy someday. I also got really emotional when a group of pelicans almost died looking for water before the rains came. The music was setting it up to be really tragic but it wasn't in the end. All in all, it was better than my other choice, which was The View on Dubai One.
So I'm going to say goodbye for now because it's going to get dark soon, plus this internet cafe, while it is more than 50% cheaper than ones in Lamu, really stinks right now and keeps flaking out on me.