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!