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?