FREAKING WEEK 10!!!

So I have now been in Kenya for 2 and a half months and it’s been a busy but amazing time! So I have decided that the best thing to do to keep people updated is this blog thing people talk about!

So in very quick summary, the past 9 weeks have consisted of 2 weeks on the Marine project with GVI getting data on dolphins and the like and saw a great big humpback whale and it’s baby – uber cool! Then 2 weeks trekking through the forest sweating my arse off and getting numerous bruises, but did get to see lotsa monkeys! And finally I got put onto the community projects! YEY!!

So the start of my community work was in Tsavo West at a small village called Kasaani.  One of the most amazing places I have been in my life!  Granted we were living in a chicken coop (no joke it was actually a house for chickens), but we got to wake up every morning to see Mt Kilimanjaro staring down at us.  The people were amazing in particular 2 old mamas called Pricilla and Veronica – didn’t speak a word of English but were two of the funniest people ever! Every day Pricilla tried to get me dancing and did teach a few of the girls traditional dance. Brilliant brilliant people who made us feel incredibly welcome. So we spent the week teaching about stock takes which can be a task when 1 its completely foreign to them, and 2 there was only a couple of people who understood English! We also did lots of trekking around to sights like seleta hill and lake chella, and on Wednesday it was washing day at the spring!  Bit awkward trying to wash yourself from a bucket, with about 20 school kids watching on! So onto the next village for our second week in the dust…. Mahandakini was incredible, and had the most adorable little kid in the world living there! We spent our week teaching about cotton products and accounting, though my student didn’t turn up, and we found that in fact he was in Mombasa for the week! The 2 weeks were incredible and I had a lot of fun, even though I was filthy dirty and so freaking hot! It was like the Africa you see on TV, oh and on the bus ride back we got held up by Elephants in the road! Pretty awesome.

Just quickly an apology for moving so fast through what I have been doing, but its been 9 weeks and don’t want to write a novel! Will do these more often so I can actually get all my stories in, a lot more has happened, but writing it all down now would take an age!!!

Anyway back to what I have been doing.  SO I then moved to Shimoni to work on the community projects there.  I was able to get involved with the womens group and designed their new cookbook, I sat in on some of the counselling training and got involved in the waste management outreach as much as I could.  I also taught about 6 advanced adult English classes and realized I really need to improve on my grammar because Abdul my student knew a bit more than me on some things!!  There is so much going on in that village its crazy – everyone is really enthusiastic and pro-active which is awesome to see.

So to now I am on the beautiful island of Wasini in Mkwiro village working on community projects her.  I have basically been swamped with work which is good, but very tiring! So far I have been looking at the infrastructure of the primary school & how it can be improved, teacher development – made lots of workshop teaching classroom skills, working on designing a new boutique and trying to design a tourist information board.  And on top of that I am studying for my TEFL qualification.

So its been a very interesting 10 weeks filled with mossie bites, interesting people, lots of fun and too may freaking weetabix, carbs and veggies for any human to handle!!

As I said will try and do these more often so I can put slightly more interesting things about whats going on!!  But that’s about it for the basics of the last 10 weeks. Will update soon when I find out where I am gonna be for the next 4 months of my life!!