EXCITING NEWS!!!

This is our last post!

On this blogsite anyway so don't panic. We have, in the brief month we've been back spent literally millions of pounds of developing a state of the art website that will hold you enthralled with it's technical wizardry following our adventures across Africa...

Well, we've done the best we can to cobble together something with our limited knowledge and expertise. So please in future access our blog at

www.outofitinafrica.com

Cheers for now

The Litts

A thought for pause

Well, I've been meaning to tap something out on the blog ever since I got back but I've been foiled by recent events thus far. Unfortunately, last Wednesday, just 5 days after my arrival back in the country and the 3rd day back on my bike (after a 6 month break) I managed to confirm Newton's first theory, gravity does indeed still work exactly as he predicted. As I flew from my saddle and crumpled to the road I proved not only that gravity is still working just as it should do but also that when faced in a competition between bone and tarmac, I can assure you that tarmac remains the more resilient substance in repelling forces. So as my clavicle (that's a collarbone to me and you) bore the brunt of rules 1 and 2 above, and separated neatly into 2 pieces, leaving me sat on the said tarmac lamenting the weakness of bone in the tarmac/calciferous composite competition, I have since had time to reflect at length that after a 6 month break from the bike, cycling no-handed in strong side winds is something best avoided.

My 6 year old nephew summed it up best when told of my predicament he commented helpfully, "Perhaps Uncle Jamie needs to keep his stabilisers on for a bit longer..." Yes, thank you Benjamin I really am very grateful for the timeous advice.

Anyway, enough of my moaning, it certainly could have been far worse. It was only 1 bone, my face is still fine, yes yes I can hear the "we couldn't tell the difference anyway" jokes from here thankyouverymuch. The bike is made of tougher stuff than me and bears not even a scratch and I was assured by the consultant just this morning that I won't need surgery and that it should heal in good order within the next few weeks. And at least it happened at the start of our trip back and not the end.

Thankfully this means that our planned trip back to Kenya in mid-October with the roadtrip thereafter will go ahead according to schedule exactly as we've intended...HURRAH!

So how have things been since we got back. Well, notwithstanding the fears of reverse culture shock and the unplanned visits to A&E it's actually been a fairly smooth transition back to Blighty. The tube is still horrendously overcrowded, the pubs are obscenely expensive and there are more cars on the road than even Nairobi can muster at rush hour. Albeit that every single car seems to only carry 1 person whereas from what I've been used to for 6 months, every single vehicle has been crammed to bursting with adults, kids, chickens, boxes and bags....mainly of coconuts.

Although has it been so smooth? Talking to Kate this morning I've realised that I've been in a fairly anxious and unsettled mood ever since we got back. I've not been freaked out by the UK or how busy things are, but there has been a distinct underlying feeling of anxiety or something being not quite right. Perhaps this is the reverse culture shock I had been promised. I fear that now having been away for a while I'll be left feeling not quite sure where home is. Will I miss here when I'm in Africa only to hanker after the wide open plains, sweeping savannahs and seedy cities of Africa when I'm back in the UK. Where will my heart settle from now on? Perhaps that's what has caused my anxiousness, as it's a question I haven't got the slightest answer to at present.

Now though, almost halfway through my trip home I think I am finally settling down to actually enjoy the break ('scuse the pun), the return home and the fact that I am allowed to relax without thoughts of lists of things to do and people to see. I think the broken bone has thrown me a bit as it was most certainly not planned for and I am a man that likes to follow a plan I think. But over and above that I think perhaps I was floating along on top of what was bothering me thinking I was fine the whole time while my sub-concious was doing it's best to give me a psychological dig in the ribs and make me face up to how I felt.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellll that's quite enough of the deep soul searching shenanigans for now I think. As I said above I think now that I have grumblingly confronted my sub-c and listened and dealt with the psycho dig in the ribs I can breath a sigh of relief and relaxation and settle into the important business of enjoying my time over here and catching up with family and friends like I've been looking forward to for ages.

It really has been wonderful seeing my family and being able to talk around the dinner table with a few glasses of wine whilst enjoying a big roast dinner. Talking about nothing in particular but most importantly doing it face to face and with no delay on the line. Seeing friends has been weird in some respects, not the friends themselves but just the feeling that we've never really been away. It felt a bit like that when we landed at Heathrow. As we disembarked with all the hoards of tourists that'd been away for their 2 weeks safari etc, it all seemed a bit surreal that we'd actually not been back in the country for 6 months.

So here we are, 2 weeks down out of 4 on our trip back to Blighty. It still feels like there should be a list of things we should be doing but I think I am coming to terms with the fact that notwithstanding that feeling I can still relax, take it easy and enjoy myself. I intend to pursue that whole-heartedly for the next 2 weeks come what may.

So until next time, not sure when that'll be but at some point in the next couple of weeks, also enjoy yourself (anxieties aside) and make sure you take some time out to relax. This really is a very hectic country and one should always remember to take a sideways step outside of it even if it is for just a few minutes each week.

So that’s it! We’ve finished our 5 months with GVI in Kenya. There were times when I was really really tempted to throw it all in and run back home. Other times I wanted to quit and just run off around Africa. But those times have been thankfully few and far between. For the first couple of weeks here everything was so new and exciting that there was no time to feel homesick. For the next 3-4 weeks after that I had a real struggle as the realization hit home of how long we had committed to and how long we would be away from everyone we love. That period was very hard indeed and I was sorely tempted to throw in the towel and head off around Africa, rejecting the restriction of the programme that we had signed up to and just drifting around and seeing some more of the world. Recently with news from home there has been another period of difficulty coping with the distance. The delays on the phone and the simple fact of not being able to sit down and have a proper face to face conversation has hit hard at times. That has left the last few weeks with me feeling at times like I was treading water and counting time before we left. But for the last 2 weeks the time has started rushing by and the realization that we’ll be leaving here for good and saying goodbye to the very good friends we have made here has tempered that and has made me appreciate the time we have had here.

All the experiences we have enjoyed and that I’ve been able to share with you by writing this blog have been quite simply some of the most amazing and enriching experiences of my life. At last I have a wider view outside of the world I had always lived in and that was completely outside of my comfort zone at times. The things that I now accept with an easy shrug might have made me scream with rage before. The food that once I would have turned my nose up at I now crunch and munch with relish. And the sights, sounds and SMELLS of places like Mombasa now provoke nothing more than a misty eyed smile as I think about what a crazy place it is and how charming it is in it’s own chaotic and colourful way in a crumbling, dusty and dirty, rundown and rusty way that you just don’t get back in the UK.

But for sure I have never been so pleased to have done something in my life before. I’m not quite sure what I’ve learnt from it. It’s hard to pin down how I have changed or grown in this time away. Perhaps when I get back to the people that know me so well I will be told. Perhaps I’ll be told I haven’t changed at all…I really don’t know. But for sure I feel far more ready to approach that unknown than ever before and I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that I have never been happier in all my life.

I am really really excited about coming home but slightly tredipatious at the same time. Before now I had never been away from the UK for more than a 3 week holiday. And since being here I have been told many many times about the reverse culture shock being 10 times harder than the culture shock you have when you first arrive. Kenya is a crazy country with so maybe differences from home. Some huge and almost overwhelming but the ones that you really notice are all the little day to day ones that make your life just that little bit different all the time. But from what I’ve heard when I get back to the country I’ve lived in for my entire life and the city that’s been my home for almost 15 years it’ll be very very strange indeed. That in itself excites me as it’ll be a whole new and interesting experience that I’ve never had before. But please bear with me if I freak out a bit for the first few days :)

I’m so pleased that people have enjoyed reading this blog, but I think I’ve got way more out of writing it than anyone has from reading it. It has helped me make sense of the things that I’ve done here and the experiences that I’ve had. It’s made me think a lot more clearly about what has gone on and how I can understand it, make sense of it and communicate it. I’ve tried my best and I would say that I’ve achieved about an 80% rate on a good day and maybe 60% on bad days or when I’m feeling too lazy to try harder and get it just right. But that’s way better than not having done it at all and I know that what I have managed has been really worthwhile for me. In total I’ve written 26 entries with somewhere in the region of 30,000 words which is a pretty fair amount. And thank you for reading whatever you have and for some of the wonderful emails I’ve had from people that have enjoyed it.

I’m very excited about the next stage of our trip around Eastern and Southern Africa. I’m sure we’ll have some amazing experiences and I cannot wait to enjoy them and write about them. But for now I will spend my last few days of Kenya soaking up as much as I can and then I have a whole month at home with friends and family to look forward to as well and boy am I looking forward to it a lot.

So I’ll say cheerio for now…or Kwaheri as they say here. The next blog I write will be on a computer not cursed with power cuts, on an internet connection that doesn’t collapse every 10 minutes and in the comfort of my own home!

Love to you all

Jx

PS Since first drafting this I have been for my first scuba dive which was absolutely amazing. We had an incredible day, almost all the staff out on a boat together. What a great way to round off our time here.

On the downsie we have now left Shimoni and have had to say huge goodbyes to many many great friends which has been not so great. But I hope through this and the many other wonders of the internet that we can all stay in touch...bless Facebook!

First of the lasts!

I can’t quite believe that this adventure is coming to an end. When we arrived it seemed like we were going to be here forever and now it seems like just a couple of weeks have passed and suddenly we are having to think about packing up and doing all those things we meant to do while we were here!!! We also keep finding ourselves saying this is the last time we are going to be doing something – going to Abdul’s restaurant for his amazing food on a Wednesday night followed by a cold Tusker at Smugglers, heading up to Diani for the weekend with all our friends, spotting a turtle whilst out snorkeling, sitting at the Reef in Shimoni or Paradise in Mkwiro together for a sundowner at the end of a busy day, teaching our adult English classes, going out on the boat on a beautiful day and seeing dolphins, walking through the village being greeted by cheerful cries of ‘Jambo’, sitting typing with a kitten draped around my shoulders, the list goes on and on and all too soon it is going to be our last night on the island and our last night in Shimoni and finally our last night in Kenya in just 10 short days. Some of those lasts I’m not going to miss so much – doing my washing by hand, the mosquitoes and sandflies, using a long drop toilet, showering in cold, salty water, sleeping in a single bunk bed in a room full of snorers, finding monkeys in the kitchen stealing our food, cooking for 30 people on a two ringed gas stove but those things are all part of this incredible experience and we are going to miss it all so much.

Last night we were lucky enough to be part of a wonderful event to mark the end of our time at the Shimoni Base Academy. A few weeks ago we were asked when would be a good time for them to throw us a surprise leaving party and so we were very surprised when we had it last night, the night we had suggested! We were given even more of a clue in the afternoon as we made our way back from our last adult class and someone shouted “see you at your party at 7:30 tonight”!!!! So 7:30 saw nine of us from GVI trooping through the village to join a number of village personages who were gathered in ‘our’ classroom at the Base Academy. What followed was a very special evening as we were treated to some incredible cooking by the teachers – fried fish, coconut rice, soup, bajia and Mr Mwamose’s extra special hot sauce – awesome!! Before we ate I was presented with a gift from the women of a pair of kangas which they showed me how to wear in the proper Swahili style and after the meal we were surprised by even more lovely and thoughtful gifts from the teachers – a beautiful woven floor mat and some woven placemats and our firm favourites, two polo shirts adorned with Shimoni Base Academy on the back! Then finally some words of thanks from Athumani, Mr Adam and Mr Mwamose, all of which made me cry! Luckily Jamie was on hand to offer our own words of thanks as I am pretty sure that I couldn’t have managed it without dissolving into more tears!

And in a night full of lovely moments some highlights were: Mr Mwamose informing me that the community would no longer call me Kate and that my new name would be Nuru meaning Light, and this, one of the best references I have ever had which was sent to our Country Director from the Principal, Mr Mwamose!

Dear Sir/ Madam
RE: APPRECIATION OF GOOD WORKDONE AT SHIMONI BASE ACADEMYOn behalf of Shimoni Community especially Shimoni Base Academy children, Staff and committee members, I’m here to express my deep gratitude to the G.V.I’s gift of insights and support communicated more effectively by:

(i) Providing free English classes to the locals to break the language barrier
(ii) Improving the look of Base academy Classroom by (plastering. fitting doors & windows, painting, decorating and creating various subjects corners like Maths, Music, Art and Science)
(iii) Painting World map and writing alphabetical letters around the Blackboard
God bless you for happy brightening and improving the learning Environment for the pupils

We feel inspired to recognize the way madam Kate and Jamie came out to shower us with their countless personal kindness to enlighten us to be more sensitive and aware about our environment, I hope who will read this may feel invited to join this long circle.

Once again we thank you for your valuable co-operation.

So here we sit…

Chilling outside the cottage on the mainland. We’re off out to dinner tonight to Abdul’s restaurant, named ‘4 Tables’, why?...because it has 4 tables of course. So, now, restaurants here don’t quite work in the same way as they do back home. They may have a menu, sometimes, and they may offer a number of different dishes, but don’t for a moment expect to actually be able to get what you want.

I’ll have the rice, fish and cabbage please

No!

Oh, ok, which one don’t you have?

None of them

What no rice?

No

No fish?

No

No cabbage?

No!

Err, ok, what have you got

Restaurant person points to the menu…!...in clear contradiction of the previous conversation

OK…. can I have chapatti, spinach and beans please?

No

Riiiight, which ones don’t you have of those?

No beans

Right so it’s chapatti and spinach then?

Yes, but the spinach needs to be cooked so it’ll be 5 minutes.

5 minutes, oh that’s ok, I’ll have those then.

OK

20 minutes later, after the chapatti was brought straight out, has gone cold and you’ve nibbled have of it cos you’re so hungry…

So, is the spinach coming?

Yes

When?

5 minutes

Anyway, you can see where this is going. So the answer is, you phone ahead about 2 hours, let them know what you want and keep your fingers crossed. 8 times out of 10 this works.

TIA restaurant style so to speak.

But anyway, I digress, which is most unlike me. Not much to report this week in terms of what we’ve been doing really. We’ve been on the mainland for the week, we’ve done our adult classes with the help of one of the new interns. And, we’ve delivered a lesson on pollution, it’s consequences and ways of preventing it. Now, Africa is a very dirty place and the people here litter (in our sense of the word) everywhere. It’s a raft of rubbish all over the place which takes hundreds of years or more to decompose in the case of plastics. When I first got here it really did my head in because I hate littering. There really is rubbish scattered about everywhere you go. On the sides of roads, right outside peoples’ houses, in plies here and there on any unoccupied land. And at the time it really bothered me. It looks messy, it’s untidy, it makes the whole place look like a dump!

I wondered why in this world of need where people really have so little why they couldn’t do something about the rubbish, re-use it in some way, or even recycle it. The answer didn’t come to me straight away, but over time I realised that the reason it is everywhere and looks so messy is that there is simply nonwhere else for it to go. They don’t have any refuse collections here. No binmen to take it away, no recycling facilities and given that they don’t it’s amazing that they aren’t drowning in it. And then I realised that actually they must be, and indeed are, reusing whatever they possibly can. If someone can get some use out of anything then they most certainly will and believe me they have more ingenious ways of using old rubbish they we could dream of.

If we had no collection facilities then imagine the mountains of rubbish that would rapidly pile up, the rotting stinking stacks of it that we throw away every single day. How many binbags of rubbish do you reckon you produce in a week? Have a think about it. I did and then I looked at what I saw scattered around here and really they throw away so little it makes the mind boggle. In fact the few bits here and there are really nothing in comparison to what we produce every single day. And don’t think for a second that we are nice and neat and clean. We’re not, because all we do is brush it under the carpet. We might call it a landfill, we might call them dumps, but really all we are doing is brushing all of our stinking rotting crap under one big carpet in a big hole and pretending it’s not there. I read an article a few months ago that reckoned within 10 years Britain will have run out of landfill sites. What do we do then? For sure we recycle more and more. And also, I heard that by 2010 the Government want to ban the disposal of organic waste so that every household has to compost it. Which is all admirable stuff, but we still have the problem of producing waaaaay to much waste.

As we planned our environmental lesson for the kids at the local school the facts were overwhelmingly against the Western world in terms of what we are doing to the rest of the planet. Yes, India and China are fast catching us up in terms of the amount of pollution they create, but America alone consumes a vastly disproportionate amount of the oil the world produces amongst other things and don’t feel too smug because we are not far behind, and that’s with just 70ish million of us.

Anyway, enough ranting for now, but what I learnt is not to look at their rubbish and think less of these people, because the nearest and only landfill in the entire district (equivalent in size to about 3 counties) is in Ukunda almost 1.5 hours away from where I live.

Anyway, onto more exciting stuff. You will have seen the pictures of Tinga I posted in the last week or so. And you may be wondering what we have planned. As most of you know we’ll be back in the UK on the 12th September, for about a month. After that we’ll fly back to Nairobi to pick up the monster truck and we’ll head to Northern Kenya and then swing west into Uganda. After some pottling about there we’ll head south into Rwanda to check out the gorillas and also visit the genocide memorial. I’ve spoken to people who’ve been there and it is truly mind-boggling what happened in such a short space of time.

From Rwanda we were planning on moving on down through Burundi then on into Tanzania. From a brief perusal of the Foreign Office website this doesn’t seem like such a good idea at present so we’ll skip Burundi for now. Straight to Tanzania and we’ll meander slowly down until we hit Mozambique, via Malawi of course (well why not). After some time weaving our way further south we’ll hit the border with South Africa, but the trip doesn’t quite end there. Hopefully we’ll have time to visit the kingdoms of both Swaziland and Lesotho on our journey through South Africa. We’re aiming to arrive in Cape Town in mid December at which point we’ll switch transport and fly back to the UK for Christmas. This will be my first real experience of travelling in the true sense. We’ll have nothing more than the car, ourselves, some good maps and a great deal of time to explore some places new to both of us. I’ve heard some amazing things about all the places we want to visit (well apart from Burundi obviously) and we are both really excited about the journey that lies ahead of us. I’ll be blogging all the way and I’m particularly looking forward to hitting some new terrain and seeing so many new sights, so I hope you will all enjoy following us in our travels as we bounce along in Tinga from one spot to another.

I hope to get a chance to post again next weekend as we enter the last week of the expedition here and I will most certainly be posting before we leave. So until next time…keep your bins empty and your imagination full of what you can do with it instead.

Vroom Vroom!!!

So here she is in all her glory. Tinga Tinga, our new little addition. We'll be posting about our plans shortly but after giving her a it of a clean and a shine I thought I'd get some pics posted before all the dust gets blwon over her once again.

She's a bit of a beast and rides the road with a snarl for sure. She'll be getting some conversion work done to her but mechanically she's sound and is good to go. Further posts with more news in due course.

Stay tuned!

Water Water Everywhere...errrr except here!

Part 1 – Sunrise in Tsavo

So we arrived last night just before sunset after a 6 hour drive from Mombassa. We’re back in Tsavo West National Park where we spent time on Sat Camp back in our first month here. My first time driving off road, after we left the main road from Voi. From the main tarmac road it’s about 100ks to Taveta, the main town near to where we’re based. That 100ks takes about 2 hours. At first we were bumping and rattling along at about 20kph with Tinga (*) shaking and clattering along the road. But then, after been passed by a tin-can Rav4 and a couple of boneshaker matatus we got to thinking, “Hang on a minute, how the hell do they manage that! Perhaps we’d better give it a try.” As we accelerated to 40kph the bumping and shaking got worse, but as we hit 60kph we started to skate over the bumps and potholes quite nicely. Like a 4x4 version of aquaplaning in a boat! The sandier bits can be quite hairy as you slide about but all in all it’s hilarious! A good laugh, but bloody hard work as you have to constantly wrestle the wheel and concentrate hard on the road ahead watching for potholes, rocks and the best route through. If you have read my earlier post when we came out here last time you may remember my account of the white knuckle bus ride. Apart from still being convinced that the bus drivers are insane, I now have a renewed admiration for the way they can handle a bus on these roads, although I don’t think I’ll ever be tempted to emulate their speeds or their bravado.

Our return to Tsavo is something we’ve been really looking forward to for the last few weeks. The people here are amazingly friendly and so welcoming. As we drove down the dirt road we had waves and smiles from so many people, kids and adults alike. We’re here to work on a construction project for the week, building a water pipeline into a village called Kasaani. The villagers currently travel about 3 kms each way to fetch water. By bicycle that takes about an hour and they can carry 60 litres in one go. By foot it takes about 2 hours and they can only carry 20 litres. After talking to Isaac, one of the villagers, by the fire with our morning chai and coffee to warm us, he said 60 litres is enough for 2 days, for a family, unless you have small children in which case you need about 80 litres for 2 days. Isaac has 4 children, his eldest is 17, but after suffering cerebral malaria she has been left mentally handicapped and will have to live with them for the rest of their lives. His other 3 children are healthy and well but 2 of them are very young so his family needs the extra water. On average he spends 1-2 hours a day getting water. That’s assuming he has the 2 shillings (2 pence) it costs per 20 litre jerry can. At times when he hasn’t, he has to travel 5 ks to get free water, but it isn’t as clean as it comes straight from the river. He’s lost 2 children, I didn’t ask how, but this whole tale is recounted in such a matter of fact way that shows these peoples’ stoic acceptance of how hard their life is. The people here are hard to anger and very quick to smile. Laughter easily plays around their eyes and in their voices. It’s humbling to look at our lives and how we deal with things and see how these people cope with their day to day lives with an easy smile that comes right from the heart. It’s something recently though I have known and learnt about my own family as well. Something perhaps that we have in all of us when time and circumstances demand.

Spending time here, is something Kate and I have been really looking forward to for ages, principally because we love the area and the people. But talking to Isaac this morning and listening to his excitement about the new pipeline brought a realisation of how important this project is to the community. The way he describes that with this pipeline everyone in the village and the surrounding community will save 1 to 2 hours of hard labour a day fetching water is an astonishing eye opener. That time saved will give them more time each day to get food or simply rest in these tough conditions with their physically demanding lives.

Isaac digging deep Our small part in this is to bring ourselves, some volunteers, planning and some impetus to get the project off the ground and for the next 4 days…backbreaking pain as we dig a 3.5 km trench 2 feet deep and 1 foot wide from the nearest borehole into the village, through thick bush and scrub that has to be pangaed (panga = machete) out of the way. 5 volunteers and 2 staff have already spent a week out here so far and have amazingly dug about 1.5 km already, together with a team of about 10-20 locals each day. The stories we have heard are of blistered hands, aching backs, sore muscles and burning hot sun (it’s currently +32 in the shade). Boy, are we in for a week, but incredibly their spirits are high and they’re enjoying the hell out of it. These volunteers have taken time off work and travelled thousands of miles to spend a holiday living in dust and dirt; sleep in a mud hut, use a long drop toilet with a piece of sack for a door and dig all day long with just a shovel and a hoe. Crazy you say? Only as crazy as us and we don’t do it for the dirt or the blisters that’s for sure, but everyone has spoken of their joy of physical work, of doing something so completely different which has such a tangible result at the end of it and is of a lasting benefit to so many people. Sounds like a pretty good holiday to me after all!

The tools of our trade.

Kate showing us how it's done! By next weekend, when I actually get to post this, I’ll also hopefully be posting about our success at completing the water pipe, perhaps even a picture of our new tap with water flowing. I really hope so. I also hope that my hands are capable of writing by then and that my back isn’t so sore and bent that I can still sit up to scribble a line or two…wish me luck!

P.s. You may have noticed reference to ‘Tinga’ (tinga tinga means tractor in Kiswahili) and here’s a picture of our little tinga tinga, loaded up with pipe sections ready to be laid. She’s a 2.5 litre behemoth that’s integral to our plans for the next few months. More details will be revealed in due course but suffice to say we won’t be using her as a ‘Chelsea Tractor’ around the streets of London that’s for sure. She’s a bit dusty and needs a bit of TLC and a good service which she’ll get when we’re back in Mombasa, but she bashes over the bumps and potholes as if they were nothing more than pebbles and puddles in our path. So we’re pretty pleased with her all in all.

Well until next week “Kwaheri ya kuonana”

Tinga playing her part with a full load of pipes. Part 2 – It’s all about the pain!

We’ve reached the end of the week and, as anticipated, we can both count our blisters in double figures. We’re covered in scratches and scrapes and everything we have including ourselves is covered a thick layer of red dust that is everywhere here. I’m tired, even after a night’s sleep, tired quite literally to my bones which ache all over adding to the symphony of groans, pains and twinges that my body is currently suffering. But we’ve only been here 1 week. For Sara, the staff member who’s orchestrated the whole project, and the 5 volunteers this is the end of this 2 week bootcamp. As testament to these guys, no one has ever taken a day off, there’ve been no sullen strops and albeit some quiet times when people are tired, the sun is hot and there is still more work to do, they have all kept going and at most times managed the energy to joke and laugh together and keep their spirits high.

I don’t often write about individuals but Sara does deserve a special mention here. Prior to her involvement with this project it was nothing more than a vague notion by the district council to get water out to the village at some point. From a borehole on Salita Hill, she has personally been responsible for hassling and haranging the people that matter to run a pipeline from the borehole to Kasaani. She has raised money, has fought for 100m sections of pipe when the proposed 5m sections just weren’t good enough and found money to pay for them. When the pump in the borehole was discovered to be too small for the job it was installed for (!), the fault of the dodgy contractor who’d originally installed it, Sara managed to convince the local council to cough up for a brand new one. And then the generator that runs it broke down…of course…and Sara got it fixed in less than 24 hours. All of these are just some of the issues that have arisen just in the last 2 weeks since the volunteers arrived 2 weeks ago and started digging. In the land of TIA, not only to resolve these issues, get them paid for and get the equipment delivered, but to do so within 2 weeks is quite simply unbelievable. I’ve seen the pump being fitted, I’ve laid the pipes myself and I still can’t quite believe it’s still happened. So the question you’ll be asking is, have we got water from our tap? Well, it was never going to be a straightforward yes was it! The pump is pumping this morning as I write (but it’s the old one as the new one still needs a part welding to it). Unfortunately there are a few connections leaking. Thankfully we only have 30 or so to worry about rather than the 600 there would have been on the 5m pipe sections. Also, unfortunately, the leaking water from the uncovered joins has attracted some of the local wildlife who’ve sniffed it out…elephants!!! A herd of about 100 bloody elephants are right now stomping and sniffing around the very spots we need to get to to fix the leaks. Only in bloody Africa! In the UK, it’d be some muppet cutting through the pipe…here it’s ELEPHANTS FFS!

Since writing the above, we finally got water to within 300 metres of the end of the pipeline. The use of the old pump meant it wouldn’t reach the last section uphill, but once the new pump is installed (this weekend) it’ll be all go and the tap will be running. We had to leave to take the volunteers back to Mombasa in the end which was a real shame that the symbolic tap turning on didn’t happen. But knowing that the job is done, the pipe is laid and it’ll be running this weekend has really made it all worthwhile.

For us it’s an extra sweet result as we used £1000 of the money we raised with the help of all of you to part fund this project. That money gave Sara the leverage she needed to get things moving when the project almost fell apart this week over the pump and the better pipe. So not only did the money help buy stuff but it also gave one final push at the end to ensure the project got done…on time and in full. So THANK YOU, thank you everyone who came to the things we organised and who stumped up some money. We really have been able to use it on something very close to our hearts and which has left us with some wonderful memories and some memorable scars (ouch). We only have 3 weeks left on the expedition then we’ll be flying back on the 12th. We are really really looking forward to catching up with you all and sharing a few beers ETC!

So until next week, stay happy, have fun and enjoy your worthwhile buzz of do-goodedness for your important contribution in helping change people’s lives…see easy wasn’t it.

The team with water as near as it got by Friday.



BLOODY ELEPHANTS!!!

A job well done!

Well, the end of the week is here and with it a HUGE sense of satisfaction at a job incredibly well done. The painting is “very nearly, quite, almost there finished” (a loose quote from a book we are both reading called Shantaram) and the volunteers are claiming it is one of the best weeks they have had on the expedition. I can’t think of a better endorsement than that other than the enormous smiles of excitement and joy from the kids as they sat welcoming us to the first lesson to be taught in the classroom and the same smiles mirrored on the faces of the teachers who sat and watched while we gave our environmental education lesson on Friday morning.

We are so very grateful to have had the opportunity to do something so tangible to help the local community and it is such a good feeling when that help is so warmly, genuinely and gratefully received. Thanks must go to the generous donators and of course to the volunteers who so tirelessly and artistically aided us. Believe me, without them it would have been a much less impressive effort – had it just been up to The Litts I think the kids would probably have been better off doing it themselves!

So, below a few photos of the finished article and the lesson we gave which was about the effects of pollution. But first, a composition on the project written by one of the students in our adult English classes:

Composition on the Shimoni Base Academy Project

– By Harold Ouma Amolo (Kindergarten teacher in Shimoni Primary School)

I feel a connection to Kate and Jamie’s project work in Shimoni Base Academy. I am so much moved by it for they have learned how to accept challenges and have been compelled to undertake their conservation education in another angle. The couple have realised that their work may not materialise due to the language barrier.
They know language plays a vitally important role in learning. It is a tool to be used to interpret, communicate, work through and make sense of our experiences. Learning never takes unless verbal communication is initiated between the learners and the experts. This made them choose Base Academy to pilot their plan to see if it can become workable. The targeted groups are the energetic ones especially youths and school going ones who may take over the initiated activities of conservation in the area.

During the course of teaching English language, Kate and Jamie noticed the kind of hospitality of the Base staff and their pupils. They then became emotionally carried and they decided to appreciate the school by compensating them with those resources they thought would enhance and increase morale for learning in the school. The activities they have decided to undertake are as follows: plastering of the walls of the main classroom, fitting windows and doors which will provide a secure place for some of their resources, painting various pictures on the walls which they hope will motivate and call for longer retention of the experience exchanged during their learning session besides brightening up of their learning environment, thus the classrooms.

They hope to draw a world map which may act as a reference material so as to make them become aware of other nations or continents of the world. This will make them become internationally conscious with other people of the nations. Learning becomes more meaningful to the learners when they can have reference corners where they can co-operate with other learners, especially peer groups, to exchange their ideas. This can enhance retention and recall for the materials learned. The work I hope will make them become interested and excited in doing references for themselves without the aid of the teachers. Some who may have been weak in a particular subject may develop interest in the subject too. This may leave a picture in their memory to recall where he/she begins to love the subject.

The kids welcoming us to the classroom on Friday morning. Jamie and I are desperate for one of those red t-shirts the kids are wearing and which say SHIMONI BASE ACADEMY on the back. Is it wrong to steal from children?!?!

Swamped by the kids but with music in the background!

A short explanation of the game…

A bit of rivalry between the team captains (don’t they all look scary with those balloons?!)…

And……I think it might have been a success!! Still not sure who won though – there was an awful lot of cheating going on from the captains!

The Art corner - although strictly speaking probably more the Art wall.

A map of the world in case you weren’t sure! And I did that butterfly by the way – although strictly speaking I only coloured it in rather than actually drawing it! The eagle has properly landed now by the way.

And finally, a well deserved beer by the pool – this working lark is tough eh?

Work begins in earnest - hooray

Tuesday 28th July 2009

Hello again happy campers!!

Today has been an absolutely cracking day, completely surpassing our expectations of what we thought we would achieve. After breakfast we gathered our tools – sticks for stirring, lime for mixing whitewash, a jerrycan of water, brushes and lots of differing opinions on how whitewash should be mixed – and set off for the school.



We were greeted by lots of excited kids and an even more excited Mr Mwamose who led us to the room that he wants to be his new house – no-one can get over the transformation of the classroom in such a short time. After much manly debate we finally got some whitewash mixed – it is VERY complicated as you can see!!



Then it was time for the first brushstrokes from Mr Mwamose and myself.



Hilariously, he threw himself into the painting and in a very short space of time he and his smart shirt, trousers and shoes were covered in splashes of whitewash, his hair was adorned with a white strip a la a badger and his nose was daubed with a splash of white paint!! He wasn’t the only one – after the first drops landed on clothes and faces everyone threw caution to the wind and soon we were all covered in a variety of whitewashed decoration. The looks we got as we headed back to the cottage for lunch were priceless.

A couple of hours and various discussions about consistencies and technique later the classroom had undergone yet another transformation after just a couple of layers of whitewash. Amazingly we were now ready to get creative and start drawing designs on the wall. Even more amazingly just an hour later we were ready to start with the first of the painting proper as we started work filling in the map of the world that Nick and Aaron had drawn with incredible precision – these arty types never cease to amaze me!! But how many people does it take to paint the world?!



Updates again tomorrow – power and internet permitting!!!

Jambo from Mrs L!

Monday 27th July, 2009

Jambos (that is more than one jambo for those in the know!!), Mrs Litt here, your friendly blogger this week which sees us very excited as we start work on our very own project in Shimoni. As many of you who came to our fundraiser and those who didn’t but contributed so generously are aware, we raised a not insubstantial amount of money to finance projects during our time here in Kenya. Having spent much of my life in Africa and having worked and lived amongst the community here in Kenya, the projects I feel are incredibly important are those relating to education, water and food security – basic things which are generally taken for granted at home but which are sometimes in scarce supply over here where people have so little. The pounds go a very long way in Kenya and so we have been lucky enough to divide our funds between some great projects relating to the above. More on the others in later blog entries but the first is up and running as we speak and relates to education.

We have been doing a lot of work here in Shimoni (as opposed to our other home in Mkwiro on Wasini Island) with a school called Shimoni Base Academy, the brainchild of a fascinating and energetic man called Mr Abdallah Mwamose. The school is run as a private school but this is by virtue of the school not having students in each standard of the primary school system and it is hoped that in time as recruitment increases the school will become a government registered school. The term private school has a very different meaning here to that at home and whilst the school receives some income from parents in the form of fees it is only what they can afford which is not very much and the teachers work on a voluntary basis the majority of the time. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the school is a wonderful place to work and clearly to study as well as the intake has gone from 20 in its first year last year to 85 this year with 20 students enrolled to start next term – mid way through the year. Facilities, however, are basic and the school is housed in a building built of lumps of coral rag set in a bare dirt yard and reached by a small track from the main road. The windows and doors are simply holes in the walls and I am informed that before the school moved in to the building it was sometimes used as a toilet by the locals. Classes for kindergarten 1, 2 and 3 as well as standards 1, 4 and 5 are all held here in classrooms with bare coral rag walls. We have spent a lot of time with Mr Mwamose discussing his dreams for the school one of which is to plaster and paint the walls of the classrooms and to secure the school by adding external doors and bars on the windows. We have therefore decided to spend some of our money doing exactly this for the kindergarten 1 classroom and everyone from Mr Mwamose to the children who will benefit from it via the GVI volunteers whose help we have enlisted is incredibly excited about it.

TIA – “This is Africa” is a common refrain when things don’t quite work out the way we planned in Kenya but contrary to this experience of the way things often work we managed to have the classroom plastered (albeit with a cement finish as opposed to the traditional understanding of plastering) and the doors and windows fitted over the weekend. We have coerced some ‘willing’ volunteers to come over from the island to help and work starts in earnest tomorrow after the cement has dried. In the meantime we are all kept gainfully employed planning English lessons for standards 1, 4 and 5 and making plans for the images that will adorn the newly transformed walls. In addition, we have started an environmental education programme for the school to supplement the syllabus as the children do not have any formal science teaching. The first class to be taught in the newly decorated classroom will be an environmental class planned and delivered by the volunteers who will have worked hard all week to make this all possible.

As Mr Mwamose is fond of saying “the future is not a place, it has to be made” and that is what we feel we are contributing to here as we hope generations of children in Shimoni will have the benefit of starting their education in a school staffed with enthusiastic teachers in a healthy and inspiring environment.

The work on the school is going to come out of money that was generously donated by my parents and brother and Jamie’s parents so a massive thanks to both Highams and Litts from all at Base Academy. Mr Mwamose has asked whether we would mind if they put up a plaque to commemorate the fact that we have helped with the project and my answer was of course not, so any visitors to Kenya be sure to pop in and have a look for it!!!! For all the rest of you generous donators, keep an eye on the blog for details of the other projects we are going to be helping to fund. In the meantime, some photos below for your viewing pleasure and more tomorrow on our progress!!!

Kwaherini!

An environmental education lesson - before.
The bare coral rag walls - before.

The happy workers over the weekend.

Lesson planning Kenya style.














Heads, shoulders, knees and toes with the happy kids we are doing this all for.

So what’s news this week? I’ve been on the island for the week and Kate has been on the mainland. The last 4 weeks has been pretty tough at times not really seeing each other all week and then at weekends either one or other of us having to work so we’ve had very little time together. But thankfully, from this week onwards we’ll be on the mainland together all the time. In fact, this next week we’ll be starting our first project with the money we’ve raised which is working on a local school, to plaster walls, fit doors and windows to the main classroom and then whitewash it and have a team of volunteers paint it with all kinds of murals. This is all being done to the Base Academy which is the school we work in on the mainland. We’re really excited about this as it’s our project and something we’ve wanted to do for some time. That said we’re not as excited as the school principal who is absolutely over the moon about it and cannot keep thanking us enough. He’s even said he wants to put up a plaque with our names on it (dead famous we are!)

I’ve attached a picture of a lesson we gave in the classroom , the children engrossed in Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes and you can see how rough and ready the walls were and with no windows or doors they could never leave anything in the school on a day to day basis, but now they’ll have a secure room so will be able to do so. It’ll make a huge difference to the place not only for that reason but also for the children to have a painted classroom. A nice environment to work in will hopefully motivate them even more. I’ll be sure to post some pictures of the finished product as well.



On the subject of projects for the school, we’re are trying to look into 2 projects for them going forward which is setting up a reading club for the kids and trying to get them a computer. I have a vague idea that there may be charities that offer old library books or something similar and others that might provide a computer (old ones that are unused and have been replaced back home but would still be of huge use over here to help them learn how to use them), if anyone has a few spare minutes of internet time and could help research this with us we’d be really grateful. Mail me if you think you can help.

OK, so what else did the week hold for us?

Thursday was the last day for about 10 of our volunteers so we arranged a little party. I spent the entire day cooking mango chutney, spiced rice, chapatis (I’m becoming quite the dab hand at those), three bean chilli, lentil dahl and hummus for 25 of us. No mean feat when all you’ve got are three usuable pans and two gas burners. We all had to dress up as well so staff utilized bedsheets and we went in togas.

Here’s me with Kez, both of us cutting quick a dashing look!

The party was a huge success and everyone had a cracking time with quizzes, games and competitions. The guys that were leaving really put in a great effort and it was the best party we’ve had yet. A little effort makes for a lot of fun and with limited resources, it was hilarious some of the costumes that people managed to create, observe Captain Kenya in action!

I had a pick up of new volunteers in Mombasa on Friday/Saturday. Myself and Sergi drove 8 of the guys that were leaving back to Mombasa on Friday and then we had a hectic day shopping for stuff, although we did manage to squeeze in lunch at a Chinese restaurant which was awesome, the one we went to for Kate’s birthday. In the evening we then went out to an Italian restaurant with some of the staff from the Mombasa project so it wasn’t all work work work ;)
Unfortunately, our meal turned into a bit of a late one and ended with a few beers in a bar nearby (oh dear). It was great to have some proper music playing on a big sound system as all we have here are iPods and laptop speakers so I really miss music played loudly with a good bit of bass! We turned in at about 2.30am and then up we sprang (ahem) at 6.45 for the 7.30 am pick up of the new volunteers. Forcing the breezy smiles and bouncing enthusiasm was a bit of hard work to say the least. And what with various little logistical hiccups to deal with throughout the day, lost baggage, late arrivals, hotel bills unpaid…the list goes on, it’s funny being on the staff side and knowing all that goes on in the background when to the new people (hopefully) they simply see a seamless and flowing progression…well something like that anyway.
Its amazing the amount of organising that goes into running one of these projects and I can say that I now realize now much hard work the staff put in. We are really enjoying being staff and getting some great experience, but it is certainly not a cruise…well not always anyway.
I can’t quite believe how fast time is going though. Already we’re coming into week 5 of the 10 week expo and it’s racing by. We still seem to want to do so much but the time is ticking fast. After this next week on the school project we’ll be heading back to Sat Camp in Tsavo West for a week, which we’re really excited about. We’ll be working on a project to construct a water pipeline for the village which means they’ll have their own fresh water for the first time ever. Prior to the pipeline their only supply of water was a similar borehole about 4kms away. This involved people walking or cycling all that way to fill 20 litre jerry cans and then carrying them all the way back…just for 20 litres of water! It never ceases to amaze me just how much people can carry on their heads or balanced on bikes. I passed a guy yesterday who had an entire bed frame and mattress strapped to the back of his bike. We’ll hopefully try and do a daily blog of progress on the pipeline if my hands aren’t too blistered and sore and I’m not falling asleep into my dinner at the end of each day.

Well I think that’s about all for now. No little homily today or lesson given you’ll no doubt be relieved to hear. Next weekend is our first weekend off together since we started the expo and we’re heading to Tiwi which is a quiet little beach resort up the coast. 5 of us are off together so we’ll get a cottage, stock up with cheese and wine and various other goodies and have a well deserved relax…I’m looking forward to it already.

Stay well, keep healthy, have fun and be happy!

A Short Story

No blog this week...instead a short story I penned, enjoy!

The music thumped in his ears, throbbing in the middle of his head, check volume, check tunes, check sorted! And ready to go. Sam reveled in his runs around the island. A battle against the heat which pressed down like a weight making his lungs burn and the sweat flow. A battle against the coral rag, the rugged twisted stones underfoot which threatened a spill or a twisted ankle for any carelessly placed foot.

Every step was plotted, every stride mapped out before him. Like a computer game he planned his moves, dipping his body, twisting his weight around. Constantly playing the game that kept his mind alert. This was no mindless plod in the park like a Sunday jogger back home. This was his challenge, his fight, his adventure. He toured the island on his runs exploring every track , every path, dead ends turned him away as the island seemed to laugh at him. Bushes whipped at his arms making his dodges more reactive and the game underfoot more intense.

He loved seeking out new corners, new places. None of the others knew anything of this. They stayed cooped up on Base, occasionally wandering into the village for some halfcakes or a chai. But otherwise these further parts were his, like a lone explorer in a new land. His runs gave him the game and the game gave him space. Here he was alone, lost in a world of paths and bushes, trails and trees. He reclaimed his sanity here, getting away from the other basers, restoring his headspace and his equanimity. Of course, the locals knew the paths, he knew that. It was their home, their place, their island. But it felt like his when he ran, the game was his claim over it. Him vs the island and he always won. When he came across someone working or walking on his path he felt like they were the interloper, not him. What were they doing here? In his game? What right did they have to intrude? The game was his and his alone and he didn’t want their presence reminding him it was theirs, breaking the game and his flow.

He knew they watched him, that they saw him even when he didn’t see them. Feredi, the Base ascari had teased him before, “Aaai, Sammy, you’ve been running again today huh? Many people they ask me “Why he runs, where is that crazy mzungu going in such a hurry in this heat? He only runs in circles, anyway, he goes nowhere! What is he doing?”, they laugh. They think you are crazy!” Feredi taps his head as he smiles widely, showing his gapped teeth. Sam enjoys these little exchanges, a bit of banter with a friendly smiling face. Feredi always has a smile and a easy laugh which seems to burst through the gaps in his teeth from deep down underground and is always there ready to erupt.

Sam smiles to himself as he skips and runs over the ragged stones. ‘Push the button’, a nice little bit of Chemical Brothers keeps pushing him on, beating out the drums in his ears. The more the music bangs in his head against the sunshine and the space around him as he runs, the freer he feels. He cuts down his favourite trail which has a short stretch of sandy path which offers a brief respite from the rag and he eases off the pace to catch his breath, sucking in lungfuls of the hot dusty air that seethes around him. He cuts left down a trail that runs to the shore. Crowded by mangrove trees where the crabs flee in sideways terror from his pumping feet. The ghost crabs are the funniest, barely a whisper of white on the sand but in such dense numbers it looks like the beach itself is moving and shifting at his approach. Like it might just open up and swallow him at any moment, plunging him into another level of the game. Sam quickens his pace, imagining the beach behind him falling away into nothing. A huge void opening into nowhere, no darkness, no light, no time. The shoreline offers another challenge again, the thick seaweed heaped high and covering the rocky outcrops, hidden holes and sharp spikes of the stone which lays covered with weeds complicating his feet into a tango of short steps.

As he passes a fallen tree laying rotting on it’s side he spots a path heading back inland. Sam’s run the beach any number of times but must’ve missed this little turn off before. He stops for a second, heart pounding, eardrums thumping. It’s getting hotter and lunch should be ready pretty soon. He should get back, not that he’d be missed, people have their noses deep in their bowls at mealtimes, but if he doesn’t get back in time they’ll be nothing left for him. The troughs’ll be empty and he’ll be left with nothing but a banana if he’s lucky to keep him going until dinnertime. Ahhh, fuck it! He’s enjoying the game too much today. Sam kicks off down the path, excited about some new terrain he hasn’t covered before. A new pocket of the island revealing a new adventure. He knows it’ll only lead out onto the same routes he’s run before, but there’s always that little buzz of excitement when he hits a new path. A new level to the game, like finding a secret room in a section you’ve played many times before.

Sam heads further down the path, scanning his mental map, wondering where he’ll pop out. This must come out on that downward slope to the Rich Man’s House, it feels in about that direction. As he cuts through a small clearing dotted with tall palms that sway gently in the breeze, a nice bit of Mr Scruff tickles his ears, some blissful beats to ease his steps. The song drifts him along, he sinks into his head, barely aware of the path below his feet, firm packed sand, easy going. Thoughtless tracking as he crosses the clearing, the path leads him back into the bushes once more.

The sandy track below his feet matched only by the blue ribbon of sky above him, punctuated by the throbbing sun pouring heat onto his head. Mr Scruff gives way to the soft tones and liquid melodies of Quantick as he runs on down the channel path. Walled by green, the bushes brush him on his way, no catching, no scratching, the plants play ball and the sand beneath his shoes makes his soft stepping loping run a pleasure. Quantick oozes to an end and with a click a blast of Blur, ‘Song No. 2’ springs him to his senses. He realizes he’s been running this path for what must be a quarter of an hour and he’s crossed nothing else. No other paths or tracks, in fact, it’s been nothing but the green walls on his sides and the slowly winding path beneath him. He slows to a halt and checks his watch. Shit! It’s 1.30 and he really should be back by now. Puzzled that he could’ve run so far without coming across another trail, or even the edge of the island for that matter, after all it’s only 1.5 kms across at this end, does he carry on and hope he comes across something familiar or head back the way he came? Sam pulls his earphones out and is immediately aware of the still silence around him. There’s not a hint of breeze to stir the bushes, he can’t even hear the distant thump of the waves hitting the coral shelf around the island, which is a constant backing track to life here.

The walls of green press in on each side and the roof of heat above creates claustrophobia inside. He feels a nameless fear welling up inside him. His stomach churns and the gripping feeling of evil increases making his head buzz and swim. Before he knows it, he’s bolting back the way he came. His feet pounding a panicked tattoo faster and faster as his pace increases, the bushes now seem to close even tighter around him and the sandy path sprouts roots from underground, making him trip and stumble in his haste to escape. He bursts out into the clearing once more and barrels across it as fast as his tiring legs will allow. His breathing stutters and rasps, the hot air searing his lungs and stinging his eyes. As he flashes back into the enclosing pathway his fear mounts once more, forcing his aching legs and burning lungs to struggle faster, to find some scrap of speed to get him out of here. To get him out NOW!

Sam rockets back out onto the beach and stumbles across the sand. He stops and gags for breath, trying to suck in enough air to ease his swimming head. What was it? What was there that caused such panic inside him, the mortal deep dread he felt. As his panting subsides and his heart slows he feels the fear leaking away, shadows of it dissolve like mist or a dream half remembered. He laughs at himself, what a fool for getting spooked like that. He can’t believe he got scared of some bloody bushes. Scared of being alone when, let’s face it, he’s more than used to that. He heads back towards Base for his overdue lunch. ‘Next time’, he thinks to himself’, ‘next time I’ll beat that bloody path. This island ain’t the winner in my game’.

This week in the News...

In the 4 months we’ve been here, I’ve managed to read 2 Guardians, 3 Telegraphs, watch 1 Grand Prix (Go Jensen!) and watch one stage of the Tour de France (Get in!). Other than that I have absolutely no idea what is going on in the world. I have heard about 2 plane crashes (in fact the one in the Indian Ocean resulted in us getting 2 days of ‘black rain’ contaminated with a black oily scum which floated on the surface of the water). But as for the news: I have no idea if credit is still crunchy: is Barack Obama still the darling of the ‘Good Ole US of A’: or have all MPs been asked to resign for claiming on 3 homes, a designer duckhouse, blue movies and a cab ride from one side of Parliament Square to the other. And do you know what…I really don’t care! I don’t miss it at all. I felt really out of touch for a few weeks when we first got here and trying to find out the news was a way of staying in contact with life in the UK. But the longer I’m here, the less it’s relevant and it makes me wonder really how relevant and ‘newsworthy’ it is anyway. When I have managed to get some news, or lay my hands of a newspaper, all I can usually muster is a ‘So what’, so what if someone fiddles their expenses? Come to sunny Kenya where the ex-president’s son is now the Minister for Finance (cosy) who recently blamed a 9,000,000,000 shilling (approx. 9,000,000GBP) ‘budget discrepancy’ on a “printer error” (cough/bullsh*t). Now THAT’s proper corruption for you ladies and gentlemen.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all preachy for the rest of this post about how tough life is for people here, nor will I rant at length about taking things for granted (although I reserve the right to do so at some point in the future), but in past posts I have highlighted some of the smaller more personal shortcomings of life here compared to back home. On the macro level, our MPs are a bit bent, are hospitals are a bit crowded and our schools could do with a few more quid and a few more teachers. But please take a moment just to compare some of that to somewhere else in the world: where fishermen paddle dugout canoes for 9 hours a day against the current just to earn 1GBP (and then spend 1/3 of that on fresh water alone): or adults who couldn’t afford to pay the fees for their secondary education when they were younger who come to free lessons, day after day to try and improve their English and learn a bit more about one of the most puzzling and impenetrable languages on the planet. (Sorry rant over).

But turning to the adult classes, which I’ve been busy on for the last week, I plan and run 3 x 2 hour lessons per week from 4pm to 6pm. I have between 5 and 9 students per lesson who come after they’ve finished their day jobs. I have a café owner (where a full meal with all the trimming costs 80 pence), a waitress from another café, a carpenter and a washerwoman amongst others. They all have one thing in common, they’re so keen they’d happily do 5 lessons a week if I could provide them. They always want homework and they all looked equally baffled when I gave them a 2 hour grammar introduction to ‘passive sentence construction’, no I didn’t know what it was until I started planning the lesson either. My classroom craft is coming along nicely and I enjoy both planning and giving lessons much more than when I started. Doing the intensive kiswhahili course a couple of weeks ago has really helped me appreciate how difficult foreign language learning is. English in particular is so full of irregular verbs, weird grammar rules that apply here, but not there (“Please Teacher why is that”, “Just because ok”) and a plethora of idioms (don’t worry I don’t use words like that in my lessons), that watching these guys puzzled faces crumple in frustration and confusion is a not uncommon experience. At least I have much more patience than I did before as I appreciate how difficult it is for them. I may have managed to get a photo of my class here [internet permitting]. The school we work in is also hopefully pictured. Kate and I are currently working on a project to get it plastered and fitted with windows and doors, using some of the money that we raised before we left. This will make the building secure and a much more welcoming place for the staff and students. Once plastered we’ll be arranging for some volunteers to help decorate the walls as we’ve done in some of the classrooms in Mkwiro (see pictures from previous posts). We’ll have further news about this and other projects were planning to use all the money we raised with the help of all of you in due course. Just in case you thought we’d gone completely ‘local’ and ‘printer-errorred’ the money into an offshore account.

Also, last weekend we spent the evening in one of the houses in Mkwiro learning some Swahili cooking. We cooked potato curry, coconut rice, samosas and chapattis. It’s amazing what these guys can create with just a washing up bowl for mixing and preparing and a small pan on an open fire. The 5 of us who’d attended the cooking lesson then enjoyed the fruits of our newly learnt labours with the 3 women who’d taught us. We sat cross-legged on the floor, without a knife or fork in sight. Eating chapattis with your fingers (easy), coconut rice (moderate difficulty level), potato curry (with a beard adding a distinct handicap) is not a pretty sight at all but it still tasted bloody good. For those of you’ll we’ll catch up with when we get back, we’ll be hosting a Swahili cooking night at some point so you’ll have the chance to enjoy some of the skills we’ve ‘mastered’ then.

This weekend just gone I, of course, got to see my lovely wife after we’d been apart for the week, which was lovely (seeing her I mean, not being apart!). We had loads to catch up on and gossip to swap so we spent some quality time sitting in the bar at Paradise, enjoying a cold beer (or two) and watching the sun go down. For the rest of the weekend I was on duty (sober driver…aaaarrrgghhh!), so I spent most of the weekend cooking and cleaning for more newly arrived volunteers which gave me a chance to try out my new chapatti making skills which were a resounding success (he notes modestly). Although, I did have enough time out to watch Saturday’s stage of the Tour de France which was great fun but did make me miss my cycling a lot. The only bike I’ve ridden since I’ve been here has been a local boneshaker hired for an afternoon. All the form I’ve worked so hard on for the last 2 years (stop laughing Alex) has all but disappeared along with about 5 or 6 kilos in weight as well, which I attribute to the high carb/low protein diet we have here. The only protein powder I’ve managed to find so far costs 60GBP per kilo so I’m still looking for an alternative to try and claw-back some meat onto my boney frame.

So, if anyone feels like sending a wee care package, bacon, chocolate etc to the Save the Jamie Benevolent Fund then the address is Global Vision International, PO Box 10, Shimoni, 80409, Kenya.

Until next week, take care and have fun and if anyone discovers how to email a Macdonalds you know where to send it.

Gor Blimey We're Staff

So where have we been? In brief running about like a pair of ants near a split sugar bowl. So there you have it. Finish here, read no more…

Nah, it’s not possible for me not to ramble on for at least a page or two so here we go. So since Martin and Stephanie left us the other weekend we returned to Shimoni feeling pretty flat and dispirited. It’d been so nice to have them here and spend time with them that saying Goodbye on the Sunday morning as they headed off for Nairobi was no fun at all. We then had to haul ourselves and a pile of baggage to the Likoni ferry which links Mombasa to the mainland (no I didn’t know it was an island until I got here either). The ferry involves waiting in a crowd of people in a cattle shed affair until the ferry docks then it’s a mad scramble as everyone barges on to every nook and cranny on the ferry. In this instance made worse by the fact that the rain was pouring down and everyone wanted to get under cover as quickly as possible. Within the half a km ferry journey we got absolutely soaked but by the time we’d docked the rain had passed…arrgghh you gotta love the tropics!

At least we were looking forward to seeing everyone when we got back to Shimoni after the week apart doing our own thing and swapping news about what adventures we’d got up to. There was a real sense whilst we travelled back to Shimoni that we were heading back home which was really nice to realise. To feel that a place is familiar and that you can associate it with homely feelings is really important when we are so far away from everyone. It helps build a sense of security, which is particularly important given the constantly changing group composition and dynamics as people come and go.

But moving on, enough of the deep and mawkish, more about the mundane and meaningless. Monday to Thursday we had an intensive kiswahili course scheduled, just 4 hours a day split into morning and afternoon but even after our first session (which overran to 4 ½ hours), my head felt like it was ready to burst . I haven’t studied languages since I was 16 and even then I was no king of linguistics. Motivation ran low as frustration ran high and at times I felt like throwing my notebook against the wall and be damned with it. This was made worse by both Kate and Matt (another of the interns) soaking up words like sponges. Matt is half French and half English and speaks a ‘smattering’ of Italian and Spanish (aka is fluent in both). Kate has her Spanish and also some knowledge of Italian and as they’ve both taught English they had a fearsome grasp of grammar. On the flipside, my grammar would make an English teacher wince and that’s the better half of my language learning. I struggle to find the right words in my native language at times but in kiswahili you’d need the patience of Mother Teresa to hold a conversation with me whilst I ‘Ummm’ and ‘Ahhhh’ and stutter and stumble through such forgettable phrases as “Tuna mke na wangu Kate. Wana sina watoto.” [lit. “We have wife she mine Kate. They have I don’t children.”]…yes, quite!

In between the lessons were frantic sessions of cleaning, setting up, fixing, digging, building and getting things ready for the arrival of the new set of volunteers. By Thursday I was ready to collapse, but instead all the staff piled into a matatu and headed up to Mombasa for a party together at the new house GVI have for the new project at the Olive Children’s Rehabilitation Centre. This was our one chance for all staff to get together for the entire duration of the expedition, what with different weekends off and busy schedules. We made the most of it until the small wee hours which made our early start the next day to get our visas registered at the Dept. of Immigration all the more painful. But we are both now official aliens in Kenya with the right to remain until the 2nd October …I’ve even got a receipt to prove it. Not the actual Alien Card we get issued with, we get that about 2 weeks before it expires. Boy, you gotta love bureaucracy!

The exciting news though is that I am typing this on our brand spanking new laptop. We’re using someone else’s broadband stick at the moment and it’s a bit slow to say the least but it’s still so nice to have our own computer and access to the internet…so Hurrah!

Friday night and into Saturday, after our return from Mombasa, was more frantic scrubbing, sweeping, cleaning and clearing and as Kate and I peeled spuds and made salad for 32 the first few pale-faced and slightly apprehensive new volunteers arrived on the island, hauling rucksacks the size of hay bales and looking bewildered and slightly unbelieving that they were here at last, on the coast of Kenya on a small island in the Indian Ocean. Crikey, it still catches me unawares at times!

So we spent the weekend making these guys feel welcome, doing all the cooking and chores which was bloody hard work after the week we’d already had. In addition to which (exciting news) Kate and I now have our own room…TaDaaaaaah! Which is awesome news but we had to do a fair bit of work, more cleaning and tidying it as it’d been unoccupied and used as the First Aid Room for ages. Hopefully, here’s a photo. But most importantly, this week on Community…Kate and I are the new Community Interns. For the next 4 weeks we’ll alternate between the school in Mkwiro and the Base Academy in Shimoni with one of us on the island and one of us on the mainland each week. So we’ll be split fort the next 4 weeks apart from at weekends which’ll be tough, but will also be nice in a way as we’ll have some different experiences from each other.
This week I’ve been running the Nursery classes. Nursery Comprises 2 elements. Firstly, 2 classes of Kindergarten (ages 3-6), totaling almost 90 children. We take them for 2 outdoor activity lessons (utter chaos) and 2 music and movement lessons (complete bedlam) each week. Then we have the other side of Nursery which is Standards 1, 2 and 3, about 25 in each class and we teach them English (getting them to complete an exercise I like herding cats) and Creative Arts (‘No Omar! The crayon will NOT fit up your nose and it goes on the paper not on Mwanaisha, thank you.’). As we troop into the classroom the kids, especially Kindergarten, go absolutely mental. We timetable 10 minutes of every 1 hour lesson just to say ‘Good Morning’ and get them settled into their tutor groups, all named after either animals or Premiership football teams. The remainder of the lesson is a mixture of crowd control and guarding the coffee tin of pens and pencils which each tutor holds. I reckon these kids would put Ol’ Fagin and the Artful Dodger to shame when it comes to palming pencils and swiping crayons, so next time you are in the work stationery cupboard and you open a pack of pens please pinch a couple of them for me and post them over. M favourite lesson has to be Outdoor Activities and Music and Movement. 90 kids all chorusing ‘5 Little Ducks’ (actions included) is enough to make even the hardest soul smile. In fact as I write this in our kitchen banda on Base I can hear the 3 volunteers on Nursery and the Kindergarten chorusing “wooooOOOOOOooooo, the Hokey Cokey Cokey”, from over 500 metres away. I let them take this one on their own hee hee.
Attached (again hopefully), are some action shots of the kids playing Cat Cat Rat. If anyone has some good games, nursery rhymes or songs (preferably with actions) please feel free to post them in the Comments section of the Blog, I’d be eternally grateful. We’re woefully short of equipment but high on enthusiasm here so all inspiration would be very welcome.
So until next week, take care and enjoy the weather you all seem to be basking in over there. Here it’s been cold, wet and windy would you believe. I even had to wear a jumper on Wednesday; this is supposed to be bloody Africa for Goodness Sake!

Ps. I’m typing this at 4pm our time on Saturday, so many congratulations to Kate and Mackie who are getting married at 2pm UK time. Our thoughts are with you and we really wish we could be there to celebrate with you. We both hope you have an amazing day and wish you both the very best for your future together.

But at least the sunsets are nice and the beer is cold…

CHEERS!