Continued....

The rooms were spread out half in the surrounding jungle then opening out to a big clearing which was filled with monkeys at all times of day, who were more than happy to entertain the guests. As we settled into the sofas over looking the Nile we decided we could be quite happy here for a week or two... That is until we started talking to other travellers who told us tales of the beautiful Sesse Islands in Lake Victoria.
Over 70,000sq km Lake Victoria is big, very big, and in the middle of it all there are a group of islands known as the Sesse Islands. The travellers we were talking to had just got back from one of the biggest islands and had stayed in the port of Kalangala. A cute little village with lots of hotels and restaurants on the beach. A few minutes after they started telling us about this place we were sold, it was simply a matter of figuring out how to get there.
We had one day until we were scheduled to go white water rafting on the Nile, realizing we might need a bit more time we decided to push back rafting a day (more about this later) and head off to the islands for the night. Having just endured a very long bus journey the boys we were travelling with had decided to stay in Jinga and 'pass on this adventure' claiming they thought we were crazy to travel 5 or so hours to get somewhere only to leave the next day. Well as far as i am concerned the journey is half the fun! So myself and fours other girls set out the next morning at 6am.
We took a motor bike to the bus station, a Dalla Dalla to the city then another bus to Entebbe, missed our stop, so a taxi back to where we needed to be to catch our next bus, then motorbikes again down to the port where the boats left from. 3 hours in and it was just a case of catching a boat to the islands (which we were told was a 3 hour sail) and we were feeling pretty pleased with our progress so far.
The word 'port' is used very loosely in Africa. We were at the end of a dirt road and where it met the lakes edge there were about 15 wooden Dhow style boats with engines attached to them. Bobbing up and down in the filthy water as they were loading them with everything you can imagine, people, livestock, beer, bananas, televisions, you name it. Now it was just a case of hiring a boat to take the 5 of us to Kalangala, easier said then done. It turned out no-one was willing to hire their boat out to us as they could make a lot more money filling the boat to the point of sinking and going to other closer islands. However they assured us we were in luck as there was a boat going to Kalangala, but not for another three hours!. After the three hour sail this would leave us arriving at night time (a big no anywhere in Africa) and only having the following morning before having to head back. Not good. We asked if there were any other options and they said there was another island called Banda and if we went there we could get a boat from there to Kalangala. The boat to Banda left in 20 mins and it meant that we would get to kalangala before dark. We had a group meeting (away from the touts) and tried to figure out what to do. Having had experience in the past with being given the wrong information i was worried that we wouldn't be able to get from banda to Kalangala. It is very hard out here as most people are genuinely trying to help you ( while making some money for their friend who owns the boat) but they are so keen to tell you what you want to hear sometimes that you get the wrong information. We were half and half on what to do, cut our loses and go to Kalangala late or risk that there would be a way to the island from Banda. I went to ask one of the guys a question about the boats and he heard the word Kalangala and the next thing i know i have been picked up thrown over his shoulder and he is wading out into the water with me, naturally i tried to get down claiming i can walk by myself thankyou ,but he muttered something about how i will get diseases if i go in the water (bilharzia is very common here)and i gave up my fight. 'what about you' i ask him 'it's ok, i am paid to carry people to the boats' before i have time to digest the fact that people (like me) pay him to put his body in disease filled water so they don't have to i was thrown into a boat and he collected his 15 cents for the trouble!
I turned around expecting the girls to be thrown in behind me, then realized i was alone. I could see them on the beach arguing with the men as to why someone had just kidnapped me. Afraid to go back in the water for the diseases and not wanting to be alone i yelled at them to come join me in the boat.
20 minutes later we were on our way, but to where...... I motioned to the captain while pointing at the boat 'kalangala?' he simply nodded his head, not quite satisfied i asked the two guys sitting next to me if this boat went to kalangala, simultaneously one said yes the other said no. Hummmmm, don't panic we still had 3 hours to go, so i put my worries to the back of my mind and decided to enjoy the lake (it was beautiful) and the boat ride.
The islands finally came into view and the boats engine slowed. I thought i should try this again 'Kalangala?' i said this time actually having an island to point to as opposed to the boat itself. Apparently i had said something funny as everyone in the boat started to laugh, not a good sign.
The girls and i exchanged worried looks as the boat slowed right down and started to head directly to one of the islands. We could see there wasn't much on the island it just looked like jungle with a few mud huts poking out the top and defiantly no other boats. Many things crossed my mind at this point, maybe we are just dropping someone off? maybe we are just getting more fuel? Maybe this is all a bad dream.
The boat ran itself up onto the beach, the girls and i sat there waiting for someone to get off, no one moved, then the captain told us to 'hurry up', realizing we were blocking the way and that no one else could get off until we moved we clamoured our way to the front and jumped onto the sand (trying to avoid the water at all costs). At this point a small group of people had come from the village to see what was going on, not a friendly bunch and my attempts at Swahili were returned with glares. Turning back to the boat i tried once again 'what island is this' i heard someone mutter Banda. Oh well, i thought at least we can go back with the boat tomorrow. Then it dawned on me that we were the only ones who had gotten out of the boat and they had started the engine back up. Panic started to set in and the girls and i started yelling at the boat all at once 'where are you going' 'why is no one else getting off' 'where are we?' 'can we come with you?' 'when will there be another boat to take us back?'. As it pulled away someone on the boat said 'there is a muzungu (white person) on this island ask for Dominic'. And just like that it was gone.
While staring at the empty spot that until 30 seconds ago was occupied by what seemed to be the only means of transport on or off this island i did a mental assessment of our situation.
We were in the middle of one of the biggest lakes in the world, on the wrong island so no one knew where we were, there were no boats on or off this island, the inhabitants were down right scary, we had no food water or shelter and it was getting dark. Hummmmm, not good, however always the optimist, i reminded myself and the girls that apparently there was a white man on this island, maybe he could tell us how we could get back to civilization, all we had to do was find him.
The humor of our situation was not entirely lost on us and after some comments about the pickle we had gotten ourselves into we set off into the village. The island wasn't very big about 1/2km across and 2km long. The locals that had met us off the boat had obviously informed the whole island of our arrival. As we were walking through the village everyone had come outside to watch what must have been a very strange site. 5 white girls walking in a line being followed by a trail of all the village children and dogs.. If i wasn't fearing for our lives at that point i would have liked to have taken a picture. To say we had a frosty reception was an understatement, through clenched teeth i told the girls to just keep smiling and walking. Every few minutes i would ask 'Dominic?' and they would just point down to the far end of the village. I considered it a very good sign that they seemed to know who i was talking about. My hopes were dashed as soon as we got to the end of the village and were met by a thick wall of jungle. Thinking we must have missed him we went back and asked somebody again, they just pointed in the jungle. Seeing our confused faces two local guys, one of whom spoke a little English said he could show us the way. We couldn't thank him enough as he led us into the jungle. It wasn't long before my relief turned to worry, what if him and his friend were psycho's just trying to lead us away from the village? I got my Swiss army knife out of my bag and decided that the 5 of us could handle the 2 of them and that we were better off away from the village. Now when i say jungle, i mean jungle. It was soo thick and overgrown you couldn't see what was behind the next leaf until you moved it and the ground was covered with logs and rocks that we were stumbling our way through. Those of you that know me well can imagine the first thing that came into my head when we went into the jungle, snakes. I asked our new friend if there were any snakes and he replied 'no, we don't have any snakes' Thank god i thought to myself, maybe things are looking up! However there were many insects that were making our trek that bit harder, we discovered that the jungle had meat eating ants, every few minutes you would feel one take a bite out of you and you would have to pull it's head out of your legs, also the air was teaming with flying insects and more then one went in my mouth and up my nose. The jungle seemed like it was never ending and we kept asking how much further, to the reply of not long now. We had been in the jungle for over half an hour when our two guides informed us that they had to turn back as it was getting dark now and it isn't safe to be in the jungle at night!!!! Now they tell us! They pointed us in the general direction that we were to head in and told us we should carry on for another 10 minutes then we should hit a beach.
And just like that they were gone. We kept walking while discussing our options. At least we knew there was a beach that we could spend the night on away from the village, we just had to get there before it was too dark otherwise we would be spending the night in the jungle, then in the morning maybe we could flag down a fishing boat or something and pay them to take us back. I'm not saying it was a good plan but it was all we could think of at that point!
It was at about this point that we spotted an old shack in the jungle, it was bizarre, so out of place and all overgrown. I didn't know if this was a good thing or not, so we just kept on walking wondering what the hell we had gotten ourselves into. After a few more minutes the jungle started to thin out and we came across a cobblestone house. So relieved to see signs of civilization we started yelling out hello, hello. Then this guy came out of the jungle "yes how may i help you?". "well i was wondering if you had any rooms available for this evening?" i said realizing how utterly ridiculous i sounded considering the circumstances. "Yes we have dormitory's, with full board for 30, 000 shillings"( very reasonable). It was like we were in the twilight zone ,a very normal conversation in the furthest from normal circumstances i can imagine. He lead us into the building and on closer inspection we could see that it completely run down but at this point we felt so lucky to have a roof over our heads that no one said a word. After a few high fives at making it through the last few hours we took ourselves down to the beach and finally met our muzungu Dominic.
I don't know what i was expecting but it wasn't the drunk old man that greeted us with a "where the hell did you girls just come from". After explaining the whole story he looked at us in awe and declared that he had "mad respect" for anyone who made it not only past the hostile locals but then through the deadly jungle. 'Excuse me but what do you mean by deadly?' i asked. He then proceeded to list off all the deadly snakes and creatures that lived in the jungle, black mambas, cobras, just to name a few!!!!!!!! Oh my god i was torn between tears and relief, if i had any idea of what was in there i still would have been hanging out in the village wondering how the girls were getting on. Ignorance truly is bliss. After breaking the ice with some moonshine that Dominic was kindly sharing, i asked the question that i knew all of us were trying to avoid. "so how do we get off the island", he answered with no hint of sarcasm that quite simply we don't. "But you will love it here in July" he told us!!!!. He then told us " The first few weeks are the hardest but after that you really get used to the island". Hummmm, not for the first time that day i was a bit lost for words.
Eventually we did get off the island. A supply boat came by (it comes every few months) and we managed to make it back to Jinja in time for white water rafting. The things that i saw and experience on that island would take me hours to write and i have already gone on far too long, but needless to say it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. To give you some idea, The next day Dominic showed us a castle that he was building, complete with tower and secret rooms, walking through the jungle to the beach i came into a clearing and there was a giant ship in the jungle!!! the thing was huge, it could have held hundreds of people. He told us he built it in Tanzania and sailed it here many years ago and that a tornado had put it in the jungle. He showed us his old house (where he lived before the castle) that was now occupied by a 24 ft python, he walked in one day saw it and never went back in, instead deciding just to build a new house. Believe me when i say that that was just a few of the things we saw on that island, let alone the stories that he would tell us from a lifetime in Africa. I left the Sesse islands feeling very previlaged to have see them and in such a unique way, but next time i think we will try and be a bit more organized with our travel plans.

Uganda

It's quite strange to be in Africa as a tourist now as opposed to a volunteer. I really really miss the kids. There are a few in particular that i find myself thinking about everyday. I wish there was some way that i could check up on them from time to time to see how they are doing, but all i have is a name. I only have one week left, i can't believe how quickly it has flown by. In the last few weeks i have done so many things and been to so many places, where to begin...
After Zanzibar, which was amazing, i got on a 36 hour bus ride to Uganda. Even saying it "36 hours" sounds wrong. It is unnatural to be in a bus that long, oh and did i mention that it had no toilet or air-con! One time i was so desperate for the toilet i had to ask the driver to stop, he obliged and pulled the bus to the side of the road. Not wanting to put on a show for the other passengers i tried to walk a few minutes into this field for some privacy. However the mud was so thick and goopy that after a few steps i was stuck, i had lost one flip flop, broken the other and was knee deep in what turned out to be fresh manure. People were trying to help by yelling help full suggestions such as "just try to walk" well i did and that resulted in me falling into the mud/manure and becoming stuck. Great entertainment that this was one lovely man came to my aid, he even found my other flip flop! He took my into his garden and cleaned me up, fixed and washed my shoes and sent me on my way. Thank god for people like him otherwise i would have spent the next 25 hours caked in poo sitting on a bus. When we finally arrived in Uganda it was such a breath of fresh air, literally. It was so clean compared to Kenya, the people were so nice we didn't get called "muzungu" every few seconds and no-one was trying to rip us off. It was quite a shock actually. I don't know what i was expecting but i wasn't the green lush oasis that we stumbled upon. The town Jinja was gorgeous, after a short boda boda (motorbike taxi) ride we were dropped off at our hostel which was in the jungle perched over the nile!!! the views were stunning it really was one of the nicest places i've ever been, oh my time is going to run out again, i will update this asap,

All done

I am now in Zanzibar wondering where the last two months have gone! My time volunteering went by so fast. I haven't really had time to stop and think about all the things i have done as i have been so busy trying to arrange travel plans for the next few weeks. The painting went really well, it really is amazing what aesthetic changes can do to an environment. What was a depressing dark space is now so bright and cheerful. It was hard work and i am still covered in oil paint, but it was well worth it to see the children's faces, they were so shocked at first then they were just really happy. I had painted this little mural of flowers and stuff in the girls dorm on top of the green we had already done as a base and a group of them just sat on the bed staring at it and smiling telling me how happy i had made them it was soo cute. Oh my time is about to run out and i want to post this, i will write soon

Schools out

So i got a bit of a surprise last week when i found out that we only had one week left of school as there was a holiday coming up that we weren't told about. Kristen told us with only a few days notice that this would be our last week with the kids. I was so disappointed, you get attached so quickly and you really feel like you are making a difference in their day, then all of a sudden you have to leave. It was an amazing but sad last day. We threw a big party for the kids and brought in loads of food for them and we played games and sang songs with them. It was a really good day. Normally there are children in the neighbourhood who stand at the windows and watch us play each day. It is the saddest thing as they can't afford the $1 Canadian a month to come to school so they just watch through the bars but on Friday they came in with us and we fed them and they were playing games and doing the limbo it was soo cute. At the end of the day when we were taking class photos, we took one of all our students, then our teacher lined them all up and they had a class photo too. Yacini (the teacher) is such a nice guy he made them all feel like part of the school that day and they were so happy. I wish i could post pictures then i could put them both up but i don't think i will be able to till England so you will have to look back then! The last week went by so quickly as Krystina and i had so much we wanted to do with the kids, we managed to cram in lots of crafts, new games and tooth brushing! We also took one of our students to the hospital as she has these painful sores all over her body inparticular her hands and they were all open and weeping. The hospital was a little scary, definatly not somewhere i want to go while i am here, i was shocked at the conditions. After a lot of confusion and only 50 cents to see a doctor! she was seen and got the treatment she desperately needed but no one could afford to give her. It amazes me still how much can be done over here with so little money. For only $25 Canadian we had a class of 50 students see a doctor and get a medical, including blood tests for HIV, its nothing and yet all i hear are stories of people donating money and it falling in the wrong hands and by the time it reaches the people it needs to there is a fraction left of what was originally donated. Anyway i won't get started on that now, otherwise i will be here all day.
Since we no longer have to teach we have taken on a new project for our last week. Dollah, the little boy i wrote about before is doing great and he has settled into his new school really well. It is just the most amazing group of people that run that place and we wanted to do something there to help out. 60 kids live at the school and they sleep in very dark horrible dorms and we have decided to paint them this week home improvement style. So we will be very busy this next week giving it a facelift, i'm quite looking forward to getting creative with all that space to work with, right now i am thinking an ocean theme..... we will see

Chaos in Dar

On Tuesday we went into Dar Es Salaam, to run some errands. What is normally a few hours excursion there and back turned into a very wet and crazy scramble out of the city that took about 8 hours!!
When it rains here it really rains, you can be outside for less than a minute and you couldn't be any wetter than if you jumped in a swimming pool with all your clothes on. This was the type of rain that we were greeted with when we stepped off the Dalla Dalla (little minivan that they cram as many people as humanly possible into) into the city. In any city rain like this would cause problems, however in Dar there are no drains to speak of and in a matter of minutes the streets started to flood. People were taking shelter under anything they could find, not wanting to waste anytime we decided to brave the wet and just go about our business. Big mistake. Within a matter of minutes we were soaked, now being wet i don't mind but add to that the fact that we were wading through water up to our calves, wearing flip flops and trying to dodge any floating objects of questionable nature that were coming our way, Gross doesn't cut it. The narrow streets were wall to wall water, you couldn't see pavement just a river with shops on either side. Not wanting to have a totally wasted trip we decided to still have some lunch and do some e-mailing until it became painfully obvious that we needed to get out of the city asap. By obvious i mean the fact the the police we now escorting us across the street as the water was so high that cars were now out of control boats. For some reason we decided it would be a good idea to buy umbrellas at this point (i know, a bit late for that) as we had seen some really tacky ones that we thought would be funny. After 20 minutes of deciding if a built in whistle was really necessary we left the store with the ugliest umbrellas we could find to be greeted by what can only be described as chaos. The city seemed to have come to a unanimous decision while we were buying umbrellas that it was time to leave. The streets were filled with people all wading out of the city, they were looking for buses, dalla dallas, basically anything that could get them out of there. As the cars could no longer come down the roads everyone was walking to the outskirts with hopes of finding transportation. Not wanting to be left behind we followed the crowds. Any bus that passed us was so full there were people hanging out of the doors holding on the person in front of them, it was madness. After about 30mins we found a bus that had about one square foot of space left so the three of us piled in counting ourselves very lucky to be getting out of there. However 1 hour later we had only moved about 10 feet, it was traffic as far as we could see, which i would be okay with if we had a seat but there wasn't even room for both of our feet to be on the ground we all had one foot down and were only balanced as we were sandwiched between so many people, i think i could have picked up my other foot and still been upright! Three hours later (it normally takes 20 mins) and in the dark now we arrived at the big station where we change buses . If we thought it would be any calmer here we were very wrong, everyone seemed to be in a state of panic, it was chaos. You would have thought it was the end of the world the way people were behaving. They were jumping in front of cars and buses trying to make them stop, jumping into the back of trucks as they were trying to drive away, some people were even climbing through windows of buses while they were moving. It was madness. I looked at Krystyna and Sarah and we just held hands and ran to the side where the bagamoyo dalla dallas normally are. We knew we were going to have to be aggressive if we wanted on the bus, so the second we heard someone shout 'Bagamoyo' we ran for the bus and elbowed our way on, we couldn't believe we had made it. The bus filled up in seconds and we had made it not only on the bus but we had seats!! feeling rather proud of ourselves and only a little wet, we then made the three hour journey home in relative comfort. We arrived home very tired and many hours later than planned but we made it and that's all that matters. Needless to say i won't be heading into Dar again if i can help it, especially if it is raining.

Doolah Update

Sorry i haven't written in a while but the Internet in Bagamoyo has been down so today i made the big trip into Dar Es Salaam to e-mail and get supplies for the school. First of all Dollah is doing great. After i last wrote he was taken to the police station where his mother signed over custody of him which allowed us to start the ball rolling with finding him care and a school. It was actually very easy considering things like that normally take weeks to do over here because of "Africa Time", but Dollah has already had his first week at his new boarding school and is loving it. Amy and Vicky took him around to schools to see what they were like and they found this amazing school that already has lots of orphans ( even though Doolah technically isn't) so when all the other children go home for holidays there is still a big group of them left to hang out and play for the summer. It is a full time boarding school, he will receive all his schooling, food and care in one place so he won't be going back and forth from place to place and best of all it is a five minute walk from our house. Doolah obviously has a connection with Bagamoyo because every time he would run away from his dad he would walk for several hours to get back there to sleep rough so it is nice he doesn't have to leave. It turned out he has been on the streets a lot longer than we first thought and he is older then he realized as well, he didn't know his birthday. Dollah is 9 years old and he was born in June. We sent him for a full medical and amazingly he got the all clear, which was a big relief. It was shocking to me how easy it was to change someones life. Dollah now has a bed, food, education and people to care for him and all it took was three days of running around and $800 (all inclusive yearly boarding school fees), Thats it, and now he has a future. When i first came to Africa, the whole idea of making a difference seemed impossible as there is so much need out here for everything, money, education, food, care, just to name a few, that it seemed like a mammoth task that no one person could even make a dent in no matter how long you are here. Doolah has taught me that you don't have to do big things over here to make a difference, it can be as small as giving one child a future. Seeing Doolah playing with other children in a playground and just being a child is so rewarding.
The children at my school are happy just to see Krystina and i everyday. When we bring out puzzles and games or colouring pencils or do a craft with them they are so happy to be doing anything other then reciting words on a board you can see it on their faces. I leave each day feeling like i have made a small difference in that childs day and it feels so good. Yacini and Mohammade (the teachers) are great and they have given us free reign of all teaching so we have been coming up with lots of ideas for lessons. Tomorrow we want to discuss the importance of cleaning out your cuts as lots of the children have nasty infections from little scratches, so we decided to do a play for them in Swahili. I have no idea if it will work but i will let you know how it goes!!

Doolah

On my second night here i was invited to a wedding. One of the volunteers, a lady from the US who had been volunteering here for a month, met a local, fell in love and was getting married! So on Friday night i found myself at a wedding reception. It was held outside in the open air theatre of the music college in town. Loads of people were there and lots of the locals did amazing drum and dance performances, everyone had an amazing time. The other volunteers and i we sitting together throughout and we were accompanyed by locals aswell, but one boy in particular caught our attention as he didn't seem to be with an adult, we didn't think too much as it is quite common for children to move about an event like that without a parent as it is a community atmosphere. When it came time to go we were the last ones to leave and we noticed that he was still with us, we asked around everyone that was left but nobody knew who's he was. After we got someone to translate for us it turned out he was a street kid and had been homeless for a month! Now this boy was no older than 8 and he was all by himself for 4 weeks fending for himself and sleeping outside. It broke my heart, he was such a sweet kid aswell he was just standing there blowing bubbles (left over from the wedding) and playing with balloons. He explained to us that he was there as he has learned it is safest to be where there are lots of people and he knew there would be food for him there. Some of the men said they have seen him at a few beach party's as he likes to be around people, but they didn't know he was homeless. We started asking him questions and he said his mum was on Zanzibar and his dad is in Dar Es Salaam but neither of them want him and he was supposed to be living with his uncle but he lost him. He gave a few different stories to people about his mum and dad all slightly different, but it all came down to the fact that he had no where to stay. It was the saddest thing, i knew we couldn't leave him so we tried to figure out what we could do, we needed a place for him to stay then we had to try and locate, his mum, dad or uncle. We tried to bring him back to the house but when we asked we were told we couldn't, so we were going to pay for a room for the night, but in the end one of the local guys said he could stay at his and we would go to the police station in the morning. We all talked that night and decided only 2 people should go with him to the police station and Amy (from PEI) and a lady called Vicky(from the US) went with him. After two days of police stations and visits to his mum and dads, Doolah's story goes like this. His mum kicked him out when she got re-married, he went to his dads, his dad beats him so severely he has permanent scars on his face, so he ran away. Doolah is 8 years old and his own mother put him on the street. His story is so heartbreaking and he is just the sweetest child. Apparently when they located the mother she wouldn't even look at him or acknowledge he was there, when they went to the fathers house he was so scared, when they got back in the car with him to leave(after he thought they would just drop him off and leave)he said "if you left me there he would have killed me". This boy has done nothing to deserve this kind of life and you think he would be lucky as he has a mum and dad, which so many children here don't, but the two people that are supposed to protect him from the world have abandoned him. Thanks to Amy and Vicky the ball is now rolling to get Dollah into a home and into school. The parents have happily given up their rights and now it is a slow process but we are all helping any way we can. You should have seen his face when he got given some clothes by some of the volunteers, it was so heartbreaking as you could tell he is not used to kindness and he doesn't no how to react. He is living in Amy and Vickys room for now and we are feeding him, but we are not allowed to have him there. so it is a strange vibe at the house, as if the program coordinators come we will get in trouble. Amy feels that it is fate and Dollah is the reason she came here so she is happy to leave the program if need be and get a room where thay both can stay till it is sorted so i will keep you posted! Again

Bagamoyo

Bagamoyo is a very cool town. It couldn't be any more different from Saikeri if it tried. Instead of Maasai warriors i am surrounded by rastas, artist, musicians and poets. It is a town of teaming with creativity and a very lively history. I live in a very small house with 8 volunteers, i share a room with a girl from Toronto called Krystina. We have a lady who cooks all our meals for us her name is Happy but she lives in town. Our house is down a dirt road about 5 mins walk from the beach. I had my first day at school and it was really good. There are 50 children all pre-school age and we are with them from 8am till 12pm. It is very basic, a small room about 15ft by 30ft with a blackboard painted on the wall, no table or chairs but it does have a concrete floor which is nice as the kids can sit and not get filthy. There are two teachers both male and they are open to all and any suggestions that we give them. The children only speak Swahili which makes it very hard so the two teachers give the lesson and Krystina and i assist (as opposed to Kenya where i was teaching classes of 46 science and English by myself!!)the children. We have already approached them about having an hour of structured play for the children each day, where we will set up 3 stations of Art and Crafts, Reading and Games using supplies we have brought. As all they seem to do is fight during their play time. We are also going to start a hygiene session each day where we will provide the children with toothbrushes and paste and soap, in the hopes that they will carry on the good hygiene even when they leave the school. It is small steps right now but i have only been there one day and i am sure there is a lot more i can do in one month! So i will keep you posted.

Rain Rain Rain

It has been raining hard for about 9hrs, i guess that is why they call this the rainy season! I am absolutely soaked to my skin but i have been indoors all day and i was starting to get cabin fever so i braved the wet to come and e-mail. I just read what i wrote last time and i was in such a hurry i forgot to write the date of Dominics big race, the Mombassa marathon is on the 26th of March. I am trying to find somewhere that will have a TV in town so i can watch it, he is defiantly my favourite Kenyan by far, such a lovely sweet guy, it was soo hard to say goodbye to him, he was running with the pickup as i was driving out of Saikeri and i was balling my eyes out like a baby. Saying goodbye at school was awful, it was a two day ordeal of speeches gift giving and crying, even the teachers were crying i was soo touched, they really were the nicest most welcoming group of people, one teacher David was so upset on my last day he was sobbing and couldn't even speak to say anything to me, it was heartbreaking and made be cry even more! You should see the gifts they gave me. I have a shopping bag full of traditional Maasai jewelery and 2 kangas, which are the sarongs that they carry their children in. I wish i could download pictures but i can't do it here and this is the only place to e-mail for the next month. When i do you will be amazed at the places i have been and the people i have met!

Missing Maasailand

So it is my second day in Tanzania and it is sooooooooo very different here. I miss the gazillion stars that came out everynight, i miss my students, i miss the people i even miss mama Nashipai a little bit.... well maybe not that much, i was telling the volunteers about the time that my roof was leaking in my room and she put animal fat in the holes and i lay in bed while animal fat rained down on me all night, i was laughing so hard telling the story i was crying. I absolutly do not miss the food, it was amazing to get here and eat somthing other than Ugali, rice or potatoes, i nearly cried when i saw all the fresh fruits, salad and veggies that i was served on my first night here. Oh and for those of you interested, my marathon runner Dominic is going to be running in the mombassa marathon, under the name Dominic Maasai he can't afford the entry fees to run under the Kenya group but he is doing by himself. I miss soo many things about Maasailand but i really really like Bagamoyo.

Leaving Maasailand

So i am in Nairobi after saying goodbye to everyone in Saikeri, it was incredibly sad, i was a blubbering mess as were the teachers. i can't write much as i have way too much to say and i have to get to bed as i fly to Tanzania in the morning, so many stories...... i can't even begin to tell you how much i love africa, i could fill this whole page with stories of amazing people, sunsets, night skies, and the feeling i get every single day when i go outside. I could honestly go on and on forever, but i wont as it is nearly 1am and i have a flight to catch in the morning for a new adventure, i will miss Kenya soooo much but i know i will be back and now that i am out of maasailand i can look forward to Tanzania with excitement. i think i will be able to use the Internet more often there so i will fill you in on the last few weeks when i arrive, thanks to all of you who are writing i really appreciate it!!

Travel plans

For those of you interested i have come up with a vauge travel plan for the next two months and if anyone knows anyone who has been to these places please let me know. I go to Tanzania on the 14th to volunteer for one month then i go to Zanzibar for a few days to chill and soak up the sun maybe do some diving, then i travel back up to Nairobi to meet up with Rob (canadian guy) and Ricci (lovely girl from US). We met at orientaion and all get along like a house on fire. We then plan to go to Uganda ( don't freak mum it is very safe or i would not go) to White water raft the Nile then to see lake Victoria, back to Nairobi to climb mt Kenya (we are taking a week and the easy route) then to the coast to the beaches of Kenya for some much needed RandR, thinking mombassa and the island of Lamu. If anyone has any info or tips would be much appreciated!

SAFARI

I got back from safari a week ago and it was sooooo amazing i won't write much as only the pics can do it justice and i can't post them yet. I saw soo many Lions close enough to touch ( i didn't) ,leopards (one of the hardest things to see), elephants, giraffes, Zebras, buffalo, warthogs (pumba!),wildebeest, monkeys, hippos, white rhinos and the very rare and nearly extinct black rhino ( which was actually fighting the white one). It was amazing i have pictures of lions literally inches away from me!! Anywho i will post pictures as soon as humanly possible as i know you are all waiting with baited breath to see them!

Jambo Kenya

Jambo! or i guess i should say Sopa now i am Maasai, i tell you it is very confusing so many different languages are spoken and they chop and change between them all!! It is Saturday and i decided to make the trip into Karen (named after karen blixen of "out of Africa" fame) to update this blog as i realized alot of what had been written is quite negative and i am having the most amazing time and i wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression! Yes there is corruption here and i arrived to a lot of drama but this is africa and that seems to be the way it is, the amazing with the nasty all together so you don't know what has hit you!
This morning i woke up at 5am to get the matatu here, and imagine my surprise when i went to the toilet and had to fight off a bat that seemed intent on nesting in my hair! My toilet i should explain is a small tin shack a few feet square at the end of the garden with a very small hole in the ground, there is no window or any form of ventilation so it isn't my favourite place at the best of times (i've had a nightmare about falling in) let alone when a bat is trying to nest in my hair. However i emerged unscathed and caught the matatu to town, which is an adventure in itself. It is a truck with a frame over the back that peole can stand/sit on. Today i counted 26 ppl just in the back, not the most i've had but squished is an understatement, there are literally people hanging from every corner of the truck. Which is fine for the first 20 mins but with my boney bum i am in agony by the time we pull into town an hour and a half later. The worst is if you catch one on market day, you really don't know what you are going to be sitting with, goats, chickens, sacks full of machetes, i once travelled with an old maasai mama sitting on my lap the whole way home, i couldn't feel my legs at all when i arrived and had to wait for the feeling to come back before i could get out the truck.
This last week has been great (except on the home front, but more about that later) school is amazing i really love teaching and the kids are soo funny. I teach 3 classes. Class 4 English, class 5 and 7 Science which i really love. I forgot how much i loved science when i was a kid and getting to teach it now is awesome. My students love me, i am like a celebrity at school (well the whole village for that matter) when i arrive in the morning i have a crowd of children around me all wanting to carry my stuff and touch me or my hair, they all shout Namunyak (my maasai name) ow r u? and they have taught me all these crazy handshakes (think Cher and Dion in clueless) that they line up for me to do with them. They are soooo great, whenever i give them assignments and i let them use coloured pencils or stickers or anything they can't believe how lucky they are, yesterday we were studying plants and i made then do leaf rubbings with crayons and they were so happy at doing anything other than copying the board. When i was marking their books later they had written god bless you Namunyak, and we love you , inside their school books, how cute is that!!! i wish i brought out more supplies though, there are children who have no pens or pencils and they have to supply their own so if they don't have one they don't do any work that day. It is amazing just how poor everyone is out here, the school does what it can but there is practically no funding from the government, and i know the teachers end up paying for a lot. At lunch time the kids eat Maize, it looks just like the corn on the cob we have for bbqs but tastes awfull the maize is soo hard it is like chewing rubber, thats what the kids eat every single day all year!!It makes you think about how we complained about school lunch! Last week while it was being cooked i heard a huge BANG, what had happened was a child had found a bullett in the field and had thrown it in the fire and it had exploded, luckily no-one was hurt, and luckily no one saw who did it as he would have been badly beaten. I have a really hard time with the discipline here, the teachers think i am the biggest softie but i cannot and will not beat a child (thats not mine anywho!) . They laugh at me when i tell them how we discipline children in school, writing lines, detention......they think i am joking, when i say they would be arrested for beating a child!
Okay so now the update on my living situation, where to begin..... The rains have started here in the evenings, not just outside but in my bedroom too! I was none too happy when my roof started leaking soaking me in my bed, the kittens ( i have one cat and 4 kittens living in my room with me)were freaking out, as when the rain hits the tin roof it is so loud you have to yell to hear someone right next to you. I mentioned to Mama Nashipae in the morning that she might want to fix it, she said no problem, however the cooking fat that she shoved in the holes only lasted about 5 mins in the next downpour and needless to say i wasn't impressed to be soaked again and covered in animal fat!! The roof problems started when i came back from safari to discover i had no roof, i thought it had blown off in one of the wind storms that we get all the time in the rift valley, but soon found out that they were building an extension to hold more volunteers!!!! I couldn't believe it when they told me, they are being soo greedy, they already have 2 that shouldn't be there, they are soo corrupt but what goes around comes around. After the whoha when i arrived, i told VICDA just what i thought of them and told them that if they wished to keep sending volunteers to Saikeri they had to patch things over with the school and sort out where the volunteers would be living. so when the new teacher arrived the other day she went to live with one of the teachers!! not in our house ooohhhhh you should have seen mamas face when i told her, she is sooooo pissed she just spent money building this extension thinking that it would be paid off as soon as the next Vol arrived as they get so much money but now they are sending them elsewhere! She got straight on the phone to the guy at VICDA who has been doing this dodgy deal with her and i heard my name mentioned, whoops... She has been a right old bat to me and Adrian since, we have nicknamed her the wicked stepmother! We call ourselves cinderella as she trys to make us do all the cooking and cleaning! Adrian came home the other day and she threw a cabbage at her and said DO IT ( as in cook it 4 dinner) Adrian just said no, and we went next door to her rivals house and ate the forbidden (she has told us we cannot eat there)food, it was soooo good. Mama nashipae is a really terrible cook, one of the reasons i came to town was to eat somthing other than Ugali (flour and water) and potato's. Since we ate at mama marys she won't talk to us. It is actually quite hilarious, sometimes i feel like i am on a reality show and that this isn't really happening. i brought home onions they other day so we could add some flavour to our meals, but when it came time to cook there were no onions as she had sold them in her shop! It is so funny we are in this constant back and forth of pretending we all love each other then doing things behind each others back. It sounds awful but it is more funny than anything else. She says she will miss us when we go and i think she means it, we have certainly made things interesting, and secretly i think she likes the drama, people in town have told us she is crazy and i am starting to believe it.

Now just a quick update on the good stuff! Teaching has been amazing the kids are sooo cute they all want to touch me and they love my hair, they will happily sit there and pet me like a dog for hours, most of them have never seen a Mzungo (white person) and anything i say they giggle and they make soo much fun of me wheni try to spaek Maasai. Home life is great we were all dancing up a starm last night was mama was making dinner over the fire. Yesterday i went to this guys Dominics hout with Adrian he is oo lovely he is training to run marathons and he runs45K a day!! it is kinda sad though coz i don't think he will ever have the money to race in the places where he will be seen. He lives in a traditional maasai boma, just sticks and cow poo very dark with lots of flies and a fire inside so it is incredibly smoky, his sister dressed me up in traditional maasai i look soo rediculous i will post the pics asap so you can all laugh at me! Anywh i am heading out on Safari so i must go, please don't worry about me i am incredibly happy and having the time of my life , even though it was a bad start i would still do it all again as it makes me appreciate everything so much more, talk to you all soon xx

Trying to leave!

On my home from school i called Michelle ( the GVN rep here working with VICDA) and told her i wasn't happy, the school didn't need me and a little about all the corruption that was going on and i asked to be moved. She said she would call the vicda lady Irene (also Kukuyu) and try and sort it out and get back to me that evening. i didn't hear back but that night mama Nasshipaes phone kept ringing and all the village elders and lots of other peple start coming by the house to see what is going on, as they hear there is someone complaing about the village and someone said they was fighting. I can honestly say it was the most uncomforable night of my life, they all knew it was me and they were asking me what i knew and what was happening and mama was translating for me, knowing full well it was me who had called!!1AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhh at this point i was so over it i just wanted to leave and be done with it. Then my phone rings and it is Irene calling ( it turns out her and mama Nasshipae are freinds) and i cannot move as the money had already been given to the family, unless i pay another 15 000 shillings! to live else where. As you can tell the whole thing is corrupt as are many things here and it was a nightmare, i went to bed that night and thought about just leaving the whole thing i was so angrey and upset. However this is Africa and a lot can change in 24 hours. The next morning i woke up a woman on a mission i decided enough was enough and i went to school and we all had a two hour meeting, it turns out they really do need me, they were just thrown off wheni arrived, as soon as we started talking about the corruption and how much we all hate VICDA openly it was like the biggest weight off my shoulders and by the end we were all laughing and i had a full timetable of teaching and they are just the nicest gruop of people. So theni go home and i decide the same needs to be done, so we talk, but not as freely (obviously as they are recieving all the money and in on the whole thing) but still it is amazing jsut sitting down and communcating has changed everything. The whole village is happy now and it is just the most beautiful place.
So i know a lot of you probably didn't want or need to know any of that but there you go, i know mum wanted to know what had been going on.

Shaky start

So for those of you not being updated daily from mama p i have a lot of explaining to do. First and foremost i am having an amazing time i love Kenya it it sooo beautiful and the people are the most welcoming nicest people i have ever met in my travels. Okay so now that that is said let me tell you about the nightmare that unfolded when i got to my placement!
The drive out was beautful there were two other volunteers in the van but they were going to another town called Oolayshaboor, which is where i was going to go but decided to go to Saikeri instead as they really needed a teacher, but as it was a new placement and they hadn't had volunteers b4 i asked if i could b moved to Oolayshaboor if it didn't work out (more about this later). I was told yes no problem, i can move if need be.
The family came out to greet us and everyone was sooo nice my maasai papa is one of the most respected men in the village, he has killed a lion!!! and my maasai mama, mama Nasshipae was lovely too they have three children, Joeseph (sick with maleria right now) who is never at home as he is a teenager, Julliette (Nasshipae) 13, and Pheobe (Shen) 7 who is incredibly cute. Everyone has christian names and Maasai names and within about two minutes of being there one of the old maasai mamas came over to name me, and now i can only answer to Namunyak it means blessing. It took me a few days to get used to being called something completley different! and people thought it was hilarious that i didn't respond to my name.
Anywho i had a really good first few days and i drank about a million cups of chai at different peoples shacks to be welcomed into the community while i waited the three days to start at the school.
So this is where things start to go a bit funny, the more i talk to the locals and they start to trust ne a bit i start hearing stories about corruption and allsorts and i have a feeling it is to do with me (no-matter the language you always know when people are talking about you) and i started to listen to what people were saying, and as it turned out i wasn't actually staying in the right house. Then agency i am out here with VICDA came out the week before to check out where i would be staying and they looked at this lady Maggies house, she is a really lovely lady and a nurse at the clinic she is also Maasai (this becomes important later), when they were looking at her house the headmaster at the school sent someone to speak to them to see if they wanted to meet with him, they said no, so he assumed it was a HIV volunteer coming. Now i know this is complicated but try to follow, one month earlier a volunteer called Adrian had arrived and she was supposed to stay at maggies house also as she is a HIV volunteer, but the driver of the VICDA van that day was a Kukuyu (differnt tribe) and he had friends in Saikeri, which was ,you guessed it, the house that i was dropped off at, now mama Nasshipae is also a Kukuyu and was friens with this guy, so when Adrien stepped out and the VICDA coordinator handed over the money for her two month stay no-one (except the driver) knew it was the wrong house so they left her there. As you can imagine the people involved were very angry and VICDA promised that the next volunteer would go to Maggies house, cut to one month later when i roll up at the same house you can imagine the anger of the people in Saikeri. The host family is paid 500 shillings a day per volunteer, about $20 can so that is a lot of money to them. So imagine the outrage that not only is all that money going to one family but the wrong one aswell.
Then it turned into a whole Maasai/Kukuyu thing and it was awfull, i just didn't want any part of it so i just tried to ignore it and was looking forward to teaching. Now bear in mind that everyone is still being really nice and they are not making the volunteers feel bad it was just awkward.
So monday morning arrives and i decide depending on how the day goes i am going to decide weather to stay or transfer to Oolaysharboor. Well the fact that they had no idea i was coming started my day off on a downward slope! It was ridiculous VICDA hadn't contacted them so they had no idea what to do with me and were angry about the living situation aswell!! Oh my, at this point i just wanted to leave, but i sat and marked books for two hours while everyone yelled and tried to figure out what to do with me, uncomfortable is an understatment! In the end i taught one 30 min class which was really good but left wnodering what the hell was i doing here!

Maasailand here i come

So yesterday we got to pick our placements and i am going to a place called Saikeri it is deep in the maasai land , i will be living with a Maasai family and teaching at a school that is about an hours walk from where i will be living. I am the only volunteer going and it is a new placment so they have never had volunteers out there, and i don't know if any of them has ever left so i may be one of the first white person some of them have seen.
I am really excited, i am hoping to get into Nairobi on the weekend to e-mail but feel free to call me untill then. I am going on a four day safari through the maasai mara national park, ooo and today i got to pet a cheetah!!!!!! very cool, any way love to you all and i hope to write soon. By the way mum i have been told it is the safest place in Kenya as there are no people out there but i have to watch out for the monkeys and apparantly the girraffes are everywhere

Phone Number

Hello i have got a phone over here, the number is 254 (kenya code) 0728 509 595 sometimes you drop the 0 @ the front, i am 8hrs ahead of england and 11hrs ahead of Canada, feel free to text or call anythime, it wouls be greatly appreciated xoxo

Kibera

Where to begin, Kibera is one of the largest slums/shanty towns in the world. It has over a million people living in tin shacks, some as small as a few feet square and all with dirt floors. Imagine over a million people living in a fairly small area with no electricity, running water, sewage system, basically everything that you and i would consider the basics of life. If you want to see it in a movie The Constant Gardener is filmed there. It is like nothing you can imagine untill you see it, it was so foreign to me in every possible way, i have never been anywhere that can compare to it in any of my travels.
We walked the 30 mins or so in along the train tracks and all of a sudden you are just in kibera there is no fence or entrace it is just there and you go from lush greenery to mud and tin, like that! I was overwhelmed by everything, thank god catherine knew where she was going as it is a maze of allys, dirt roads and shantys. We walked about 20 mins into Kibera itself, you get the feeling that it could go on miles, and at one point when we were on a hill of sorts you could look out and all you could see were tins roofs for forever, all i could say was wow, i was lost for words.

finally we reached this big pile of rubbish and Cathrine said that was where the kids go to the toilet just in the middle of the road and the school was just behind it. The school is communtiy run and this lady Mary runs it if she wasn't there i don't know if these kids would be in school at all. it is a big tin Shack about 15ft by 40ft and there are about 40 students all under 7. Threre are four classes but it is all one room so it is very noisey with 4 teachers trying to keep control of their students. The kids were soooo cute when we arrived they all were saying hi hi ow r u, very cute. Everything is very basic, chalk and a blackboard, Mary had taken old sacks and sewn the alphabet/colours/numbers into them with wool and used them to decorate the walls. I can't really describe it very well so you will just have to wait till i can upload pics to da any of it justice. Anywho i went in the next day aswell to teach and it was amazing the kids are so happy to see you and at playtime they are all over you, as soon as you spin one of them around they all start shouting teacher, teacher, me, me after 10 mins i was exausted but i couldn't stop as you just can't say no. In that moment when i was playing with the kids i was so happy to be there and realized i had absolutly done the right thing in coming here, it was so amzing and bear in mind i was playing in a garbage pile covered with flys and rats!! so that is saying somthing. I am already falling in love with africa.

creature comforts

sorry about how fragmented this has been but i am on a laptop that is battery powered and it keeps dying. Anywho after buying my phone card from the tin shed i ran back to the hostel feeling rather chuffed with my self for being so brave only to find out that the hotel phone was actually out of order. Thank god for the receptionist wendy, she took pity on me and we went on a mega mission to find a phone, i found out later that another volunteer had been robbed where we were walking around looking for a phone so i am very glad she came with me as it was a maze of allys and big iron gates and not only woud i have probably been robbed but i would have been very lost.
After talking to irene, she came and met me at the hotel and whisked me away to her appartment, a mere three blocks (ish as there are nno blocks)away, again i didn't know what to expect so magine my srprise when she opened the door and i see a beautiful appartment just as nice as any western one, hardwood floors, tv, two bathrooms!!! i couldn't belive it. One thing i have already realized in my few days here, is Kenya is a country of contrast.
Not long after i met another volunteer, Cathrine from Australia, who has been amazing these last few days, she has definatly helped ease me into the whole experience, her and another six girls live here on and off ans she is teaching in a school in Kibera and asked me if i wanted to go in with her and i jumped at the chance.

sorry just wanted to check it would post b4 writing too much. Anywho i was told i could use the phone at the hotel if i went and got a calling card, didn't seem like to big a deal she gave me directions, now bear in mind i arrived in the pitch black ( there are no street lights) so i went to the front of the hotel and was faced with a sheer wall of metal, wrapped around the hotel and 20ft high. Ok i thought they are saftey consious thats not a bad thing, then the guard came out of his box to unlock the mini door hidden within the wall, i told him i would be back soon so he would let me back in, i stepped outside and had one of the biggest culture shocks you can imagine, the sound of the door being locked behind me was absolutly terrifying, i suddenly started thinking the the hell am i doing! I have never wanted to go home b4 untill tht moment, i would have paid everylast penny i owned to be at home on my sofa with my mum, but being the optomistic traveller i am(or stupid) i decided i needed to buck up and stop being such a fraidy cat.
It is hard to describe what is was like, frist i should tell you i wasn't in the city at all couldn't even see it from there. there was no road outside but a dirt track, there were lush patches of greenery surrounded by derelict buildings and shanty tin sheds however in the green parts were shells of old cars that had been set on fire, the odd dead dog and people just sitting around staring at me, there is rubbish everywhere there are no toilets so everyone goes otside and well, you can imagine the smell!
I kept my head down tried not to look at anyone and eventually found a tin shack selling cards, oh the battery is about to run out, hang on

Three days in Africa

i don't even know where to begin, to sum up the last few days in writing seems impossible. even images that you recognize from the news or world vision commercials or movies seeing them in real life and stading right there in the middle of it with the smells and the view past what the cmaera picks up is totally surreal.
My first day here was interesting to say the least, there was no one to meet me @ the arport and flying in @ 11pm to Nairobi wasn't exactly fun, especially when withing the first 10 mins of me being on African soil i was ripped off, some guy claiming to help use the phone snatched my money out of my hand and run off!!! I felt like a prize idiot, robbed withing minutes of being there, oh well what can you do!!
Needless to say i didn't sleep at all the first night, after waitng at the airpot till after midnight for some random dude to come and get me, getting in his car and the first thing i hear is Jo Jo"get out right now it's the end of you and me" so loud i had to ask him to turn it down. they love their rap and RnB here.
In he morning at the hotel i decided i needed to find a phone ASAP to figure out what the hell was going on, i hadn't seen a single representative of VICDA (GVN partner org) since arriving, let alone another white face!

Okay so i know none of these pics are of Africa but i had to make sure i could download b4 i got to Africa, so figers crossed i have it now (it only took my 4 trys!)

Think i have it down now.

think i have it now

still trying to figure this upload thingymejig

Just trying to figure out how to download pictures with michelle, this was all i had. Me and the girls in NZ.

still superbowl sunday

So in three days i am going to africa for three months. It is my first time in Africa so i have no idea what to expect. I will be in Kenya & Tanzania most of the time working with children so it is not exactly a holiday more of an eye opener!

superbowl sunday

Three days to go aahhhh