Blog #14

I miss sausage rolls dipped in brown sauce but thats about it. Its funny how over the last couple of weeks, because I haven’t had many of the things I usually eat back home, I am beginning to get cravings for them and just imagining them makes me want them more. I have particularly grown fond of Kuku and Chapatti too and you should have seen the way both Matthew and I acted when confronted with this particular meal just the other night. We were like little kids in a sweet shop and guzzled it down that fast that if you were watching us eat it, you would have thought we hadn’t eaten in weeks.

The week started off tough once again with the house building to complete which required lots of energy and effort as we were mudding, and just as it sounds, we were basically pulling mud from the ground, making it into a clay and using it to make walls.

It was fun. Monday morning we woke up, ate, went to the office and after a short delay all jumped into the Landrover and took off to finish the construction work that had taken up most of last week. We arrived at the site where an area had already been marked out where we would get our mud from, and they had already begun soaking it with water to make it muddier and easier to break up. Today’s help consisted most of the local women in the community. There were around 8 of them with some of them quite old and at least one of them pregnant. They were carrying water in containers on their heads and pouring it in the required areas to aid with the mudding. The few guys that were around did their part by using tools to break down and shift the mud slightly, where the women and children would continuously tread in it to get the consistency right so it could be moulded.

We got our uniforms on as obviously today was going to be a messy day. Opening the box Matthew painted yesterday, he pulled out our gum boots and overalls, and then realised he had forgotten our most important equipment, the gloves. It wasn’t a big deal though, infact it made the whole process more fun and I think getting your hands extremely dirty was the whole point and excitement in mudding a house.


We were stood around at first watching the people as they had their skirts and trousers pulled up above their knees, stamping and jumping around in the muddy pit. I was hesitant at first whether to stamp around in the mud, as the boots I was wearing were a couple of sizes too big for me and I struggled to walk and keep my feet in them when just walking on a normal surface. Matthew took one for the team and made his way into the pit, carefully standing in the mud to test his ability to move. He struggled, but at the same time had a lot of fun prancing around, occasionally using his hands to stop himself from falling face first into the gooey dark mud. I had a few stamps in the mud but must admit left most of it to Matthew and took up the role of doing the mudding inside the house, creating the walls.

Matthew continued to stamp the mud and then create balls of mud about the size of a house brick, maybe slightly larger, along with others and pass them to the children who then threw them inside the house for a few of us to begin the mudding of the walls. The house soon became full with piles of sloppy mud and I began to dig out a guttering which I then filled with mud, stacked up to the roof of the house. Finger nails caked in mud and clay all the way up to my wrist, I was having so much fun and felt like I was playing a big part in getting this lady’s life more comfortable again.

We continued this until all the marked out area in which would collect mud from was completely empty. We then called it lunch time and had a little break to regain some energy because believe me its hard work bending down, picking up and stacking mud most of the morning. After lunch we all came together and began mudding the whole house. I had completed almost three walls by myself, but as soon as the rest of the community came to help, the time in which it took to create a wall increased dramatically, with more hands helping do the work. Matthew got out his video camera for the final day of recording and got some great footage of all of us doing our part on the construction of the house. Again we had children climbing up the side of the house, helping to stack mud on the top of the walls. We had elderly women stood on ladders contributing and also some of us on the ground rolling and passing up the mud.

This was a huge social event for these people and it was awesome to be involved in such a lively and productive activity. Towards 4pm we were almost complete and as planned, and luckily because the weather was starting to turn, we prepared to leave and gave the Landrover a call. Unfortunately the Landrover was unable to come collect us and with a large metal box filled with tools and equipment, it was going to be a bit of a farce getting home. We used both the Buda-Buda and Matatu for the last time to make it home and arrived in Kimilili at around 5.45pm. Trying to avoid the drunken Buda-Buda’s who desperately wanted our custom we made it back to the offices to pack away. At the office was Mike, the brother of Edgar who I met on the first day of my arrival here in Kenya. Mike had returned home from Nairobi where he is studying Law, and is now around for four months. He is a cool guy and a nice character and I’m sure he will be a good laugh and great company of the next couple of months.


We made it home for dinner absolutely shattered from working and walking, and basically just living the tiring days over the past week. I spent most of the evening hanging out in the Simba with Mike, listening to some of the Kenyan radio stations and hearing some new songs and versions I had never heard before. Most of the evening was spent sitting and talking until it was time for a rest in bed.



Tuesday became our wind down day. I spent most of it in the office writing out my blog’s and catching up with emails that I had got behind on as I had been very busy over the last week. There isn’t much to report really for today, however I did manage to get a lot of little things completed and had some time to sit and do my own thing. Both Matthew and I come home to an awesome meal made by Helen, that we felt like we hadn’t had in weeks and acted like little children. Watching another few episodes of Only Fools & Horses on DVD with Jane, we finished off the day nicely.

I started off Wednesday by giving my place a once over and collected my huge pile of washing into a bag ready to be cleaned for the weekend. I gave the room a sweep, gave the bathroom and sink a wipe down, stripped my bed and aired the room. I even gave the room a quick squirt with Mosquito repellent that I was using as an air freshener to give my room a nicer smell. I finished this around 10.30am then headed to the office leaving Matthew to finish his cleaning and Rose with a few T shirts and trousers of mine to wash.

At lunch time I came back to the guesthouse for an unexpected large meal, something we don’t usually get during the day with sandwiches being our normal lunch. In the afternoon I spent some of my time knocking together a letter for work about the things I had done and seen over my time here in Kenya.

We dedicated our evening to ripping the footage we had taken from the house construction, creating a copy onto my laptop. This took most of the evening and a lot of my hard drive memory also.

I was in the office Thursday morning and had a visit from Mary and Joy asking for the key to the Yellow room. Today we were expecting two new visitors, Raul and Marianne, and they were going to be staying in the room I had been using for my shower for over the last couple of days. After heading back to the guesthouse to give them the key and also have my shower looked at and fixed, I met up with Dennis and Edgar and we made our way to the market for the morning. On our way we stopped off at Edgar’s house to pick up Mike and then made our way to the market walking what seemed like the long way there. At the market we met with another guy, who unfortunately I didn’t catch his name, but we spent most of our time looking round the stalls at T shirts and other items in which the lads fancied the look of.

Throughout my time at the market I managed to witness a domestic, where a husband and wife were getting slightly violent and no one was doing anything to stop it, and also purchased a T shirt and hat for myself. The T shirt cost me 60 Kenyan shillings (40p?) and the hat, which I will probably never wear and only purchased because of the humorous situation we were having, cost me 40 Kenya shillings (30p?). We then took a long stroll back and arrived just in time for me to not be late for lunch.
Lunch was set out for five people although there was only Jane, Matthew and myself, with the guests not having arrived yet. Matthew told us about the DVD he had of the launching we attended at Misikhu a couple of weeks ago and how it was really poor quality. We spent some of the afternoon checking out this DVD that looked like a pirate copy it was that poor quality, and then brushed over the Transformation Kenya project before dinner.

Back at the guesthouse we met with Roel and Marianne who were sat on the veranda relaxing. They had arrived around 3.30pm and had already been to have a look at the house they are having built here, just round the corner almost from where we are staying. We had a chat and found out a little about each other and my first impressions of them were very positive. I think the time we will spend interacting with them over the next couple of weeks will be very pleasurable as they seem like such nice people. They also have their son and his friend arriving next week and I'm sure their company will be just as good. They are from Holland and have been coming here for years. Roel used to work here as a teacher at Kimilili Boys School.

After a rather large dinner from having the opportunity of extra helpings and also sharing some of Marianne’s potatoes, Matthew and I watched a Christmas special episode of our new favourite TV series.

Back in my room I realised I must have caught a lot of sun on my neck from being stood around in the market. There is no pain or irritation but ill have a pretty wicked tan in the next couple of days.




God Bless x

Blog #13

I would just like to start by making it clear that we are now calling Matayo Matthew again as the other one has now left and I’m pretty sure he prefers the original and English alternative anyway.

We had arranged for breakfast to be earlier this Saturday as we needed to be at Buko Primary school for 9am as we were travelling on their coach to the district competition in Webuye. We set off after breakfast at 8.15am and caught the Matatu from town and got off just outside the path entrance to Buko School. We arrived in the school yard where there were not many members of staff around. Most importantly there wasn’t the Head Teacher around who had invited us to come on this trip, so Matthew have him a call to see where he was. He was arranging the Bus. It was now past 9am and he was only just arranging the Bus that the students needed to visit the competition. So we waited around for about an hour and the bus arrived where we jumped on and got a seat before the students all piled in. The condition of the bus was not very good in comparison to the buses and coaches used back home but nether the less it would still seat all the students coming on the journey, even if it did mean them sitting on very torn seats.

Despite our efforts to get a place on the bus before the students made their choices, we were already allocated some seats at the front near the driver. I had a window seat and was able to look out at the people and views we passed while the students on board beat drums and sang songs in excitement. The drive took around 30 minutes and we arrived outside the grounds where the competition was being held. We joined in for a group photo with the school and at this time Matthew began to get multiple phone calls on his mobile from some of the Mission staff.
There was a problem, because of the power issues the previous day, the server which networks and supplies the Internet to the multiple computers in the Cyber Centre was down. The Operating System had become corrupt and Matthew had spent most of the afternoon and evening on Friday trying to see and fix the problem. When he realised he couldn’t, he arranged for Ken, the previous IT Technician for the Mission, to come up from Nairobi with the software needed to reinstall the server to a stable and suitable state. Matthew had the key to the server room which is also his office where he runs the Gap Programme, and does other jobs for the Mission via the Communications Department. Having the key restricted the new IT Technician, Robert, from being able to access the room and the server however, Matthew was fully aware that despite Robert’s best efforts, without having the software he was unable to resolve the problem.

So after the raised awareness of the problems in the Cyber Centre, even knowing nothing could be done Matthew and I decided to cut our journey and time spent at the competition short and head back using public transport, after only seeing the many schools at the competition in their colourful costumes and catching only a few performances. We arrived back at the compound at around 2pm. Matthew gave it five minutes before Robert would realise he couldn’t do anything to improve the conditions of the server. He was right. In all fairness though, I do think there was a mix up in communications and even though the Cyber Centre was not fully functional the problem was blown out of proportion.

We left the offices and come back home where we had to find alternative things to do for the afternoon. The weather wasn’t so appealing so we decided not to do any washing, but instead decided to watch a DVD in the guesthouse lounge. After dinner I decided to see if it was possible for me to have a shower in one of the other room’s available, one with warm shower as the one I have is still freezing. I was given some keys and first tried the room next to mine but unfortunately that shower was also cold so I went to try another. The next key I had been given was to the Green Room in the main guesthouse and with the rooms being named after the colour of the walls inside, it’s quite hard to distinguish which room is which when the doors don’t exactly have signs on the outside. So I tried the key in a couple of doors but they didn’t seem to want to open, so I moved onto the next ones to see if I had any luck. I tried one door and this time the key seemed to fit but not turn. I decided I would try the handle because sometimes doors are left open, and as I tried the handle the door began to move. I had opened the door to Richard’s room, one of the regular guests who had come for the weekend, and I'm pretty sure I woke him from sleeping. I apologised several times closing the door and leaving and in slight embarrassment and in a bit of a huff because I couldn’t get a warm shower, I went back to my room and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Sunday arrived and I knew that Ken was visiting from Nairobi today and was due to get into Kimilili at around 6.30am. Matthew had already left early without breakfast and I was going to go and catch up with then after I had eaten mine to meet him. So this morning instead of going to St James Church I head off to the offices to see how much progress Ken, Robert and Matthew had made on fixing the server problems from the past couple of days. When I arrived Matthew was outside painting a metal box he had bought that he is using to store his Gap Programme equipment when he is out and about doing things in the community. Quite creatively and professionally, using a fine paint brush and the black paint used to coat his bike frame, he artistically painted “IcFEM MISSION GAP PROGRAMME” onto the blue container.

Ken still hadn’t arrived as he had somehow got on a bogus bus in the morning delaying his journey. I watched Matthew paint a little until Ken did arrive, equipt with the software and skills to get the centre up and running again. He began by talking both Robert and I through installing the Operating System onto the server. I had never seen RedHat functioning before so it was interesting to see this working. We worked through this until it got to the stage where you have to wait and cannot do anything but let the software install. We sat around discussing things and I found out a little about Ken and what he did with the Mission and what he is now doing in Nairobi.

Once the problem was fixed and lots of little technical adjustments I had never seen before and probably will never remember were done, Ken made his way back home just after lunchtime, as the trip back was long and he had work the next day. We left him and thanked him for his time and help and then made our way back to the guesthouse for lunch. After lunch we were invited to take a trip with a local and often used mini bus driver to Bungoma as he was going and I was interested in seeing more of the country I was living in.

So we spend about an hour and a half taking the trip there and back and it was nice to see the difference between the towns around Kenya. I didn’t exactly see a lot of it as we quite basically just passed through and around Bungoma. It was interesting to see the differences with this place being slightly more upbeat and popular. On our journey both there and back we were stopped by Police guards who regularly check up on larger vehicles passing up and down the main roads incase they are smuggling or carrying too many passengers.

Back home after Ughali for dinner, I managed to get into the Yellow room which occupied a hot shower and when I say hot shower I mean the complete opposite to mine. It didn’t take seconds to get warm and soon after a couple of minutes began to extremely warm as Matthew mentioned to me at the beginning of my stay. Don’t get me wrong, I'm definitely not complaining, it was nice to have a refreshing shower and not come out sneezing and shivering. After the shower I decided to have a shave and trim my hair a little. Not realising how much sun I had caught over the past couple of day, I was now left with small white areas where the sun had not seen for years. I then sat down and watched an episode of Only Fools and Horses with Matthew until I was called up by my parents for their weekly chat.

After our chat I decided to retire to bed and get a good night sleep for the mudding I would be doing on the house on Monday. Luckily last week as I was wearing overalls and my Gap T Shirts, I didn’t get many items of clothing dirty so not doing any washing this weekend was not a major problem.

Until next time, Take Care x

Blog #12

Eye spy with my little eye, something beginning with PITCH BLACK! Yeah that’s right, the power has gone again so I’m sat here typing out my blog with the laptop running on its battery with only the light from the screen lighting up the whole room. The electricity has been on and off all day and the lights have been flickering a little this evening so hopefully the power will be back on soon so I can continue this blog which is definitely going to be a long one for this week.

So Monday morning I woke up after having what was a better sleep for me after I had been previously getting up about 4 or 5 times during the nights over the weekend. I made my way to the office and sat down for a little while before we were due to go out into the community and take a look at the current conditions of a very needy lady’s house in Kamukuywe. I sat down at my desk and put in the new batteries I had purchased for my camera. I switched on the camera and the screen which displays the picture you have captured or are about to take was completely white. This should have had the image of whatever I was pointing the lens at, but it didn’t appear to be showing anything. Immediately I was beginning to think it was broken and that I would have to add it to the list along with the other important things that have broken on me during my stay here. In anger and frustration I slammed the camera on the desk and to my amazement the white cleared and a picture formed, so I now know how to fix my camera if this ever happens again.


So long overdue at 11.15am we set off to have a look at the house the lady we were going to build a new one for was living in. We all crammed into the Mission Landrover where there were 3 in the front and about 6 in the back and I’m pretty sure I was coping with cramp for most of the duration of the journey. We arrived to where Joyce, the lady, was previously living and saw that her home, if you can call it that, was a mud hut not much bigger than a standard size garden shed. It had holes in both the walls and roof, which you could comfortably place your head through and clearly see what was happening outside. Recently she had moved into her neighbour’s kitchen where she was now sleeping on the floor with just a bag used to carry maze as her blanket. Even in this kitchen there were gaps for the rain to get in. It wasn’t much of an upgrade to her living conditions and she certainly desperately needed somewhere new to stay. So after we had a look around her current living arrangements and had a small talk to some of the community, we took a walk down to her son’s house where beside it we were going to build the new house. We were followed by all the local school children who trailed closely behind us between the maze in their matching green school uniforms. We arrived and spent a couple of minutes looking around at the area in which would soon occupy a new mud house.


Before we made our way back to the offices we stopped off at the leader of this local fellowships’ house. We were treated with a delicious meal of Kuku, rice, which I am beginning to love by the way, and soup to give the rice more flavour. We also had some small finger bananas and some peanuts to finish off with before we said our thank yous and goodbyes and left for a quick visit of another local fellowship on the way back. We stopped here for a short time while we were introduced, but soon after me Matayo and Matthew were taken back to the office while some of the others stayed to give a longer talk.

When we returned to the guesthouse in the evening, for dinner we had Ughali prepared for us. There were 5 of us eating and with Matthew and Simon leaving in a couple of days they didn’t want to be able to say they left Africa without having Ughali. Kenyans don’t class it as having eaten if they haven’t had Ughali and it is what every true Kenyan eats when meal times arrive. We all had a nice healthy amount of Ughali along with meat and soup so we could all say we had a traditional African meal sometime along our stay here in Kenya. After our meal Edward kindly came around to sit with us a while and discuss our days. He spent around an hour with us then left where me Matayo and Matthew began playing cards and attempted to play Dominos.


Tuesday was just another standard day in the office for me where I stayed at my desk and tried to get through as much work as possible and amend and print any documents we had produced for Simon to take a look at later in the evening. Whilst I stayed in and worked on the project Matayo and Matthew had a few trips around some of the schools I had seen on my orientation, using both Buda-Buda’s and Matatu’s to complete their journeys. I had an attempt at printing towards the end of the day, when Matayo had returned and showed me where he had kept the CD we were using to save and transfer documents. I felt like I had never seen a computer so slow in my life. I placed the CD in the drive and it took what felt like hours to load. Then when the CD actually did load, the documents I wanted to print crashed. It was frustrating and by this time I wanted to make my way home and have some time to relax before dinner.

Without any success I left the office and went back to the compound where I gave my self a hair cut and had a cold shower. Half way through shaving my hair I got a phone call from Matayo asking if I still had the key to the office as he wanted to lock up and come home. I had, but I was covered in hair, so I told him to wait 5 minutes while I finished up what I was doing. I jumped on the bike and flew onto the office to give Matthew the key. I threw him a key and jumped straight back on the bike to come home as he was going to be a few more minutes putting things away and locking up. I arrived back at home to lock up my bike and make my way in to be seated for dinner when I realised I still had the keys for the office but no longer had my room keys and the key for my lock. Feeling a bit stupid and probably being cursed at by Matayo, I hopped back on the bike and again flew back onto the office to finally supply him with the correct key so he could return.

After dinner we were again visited by Edward for a short time and Matayo and I ran through some of the Transformation Kenya documents with Simon. We had some positive feedback and also suggestions how we could improve certain areas of the project.

Today was Wednesday and we were due to begin our experience of assisting the building of a traditional African mud house for the elderly lady we visited earlier in the week. We met in the office where we were kitted out with all our safety equipment needed for the project. Gum Boots, Blue overalls that resembled prison uniforms and gloves to protect our hands while we were mudding, carrying and moving things throughout the whole experience. Matayo had stocked up well with a large carrier bag and box containing water, food and other materials needed. All this along with ourselves was slung into the back of the Landrover and we made our way to the building site.

Just before we left the office, Matthew and I were called into the Tailoring workshop as they had some material in and they wondered if we would like some traditional African dress making. We both got measured up and left the tailor to make us our tops while we went out to do our days work.

On arrival we were greeted by the children of the son who was supplying the land for building and also some other people from the community. The family had already begun digging the holes in which would later be filled with wooden poles to support the overall building. Matayo left Matthew and me to get stuck in and left with the Mission Landrover to go purchase some other supplies such as timber, nails, hammers and corrugated iron. It was hands on from the word go, where Matthew and I each paired up with the two members of the family already planning out the building area and digging holes. I teamed up with the oldest son, Ando whilst Matthew worked with the Father, Elliot on the ground. We were a little worried at first as Matayo had left us alone with the pair and we were not sure if there was going to be a language barrier. Soon we realised that the Father spoke good enough English to communicate with the both of us, Ando understood most things and I could speak a little Swahili to move things on and tell him when he was doing a good job.


Ando started by using a metal pole to dig a hole and break up the soil which I then shifted using my hands with the gloves on that had been provided. I did the job of shifting the mud creating a deeper hole for about three holes while Ando beat the ground forcefully. We then swapped and it was my turn to do the beating. I didn’t realise how much hard work it was especially in the heat and having to apply so much force to break up enough mud to be moved. Eventually after a lot of force we had dug enough holes on a rectangle shape in which poles could be planted to make the two rooms and the frame of the house.

By this time we could do no more until Matayo and Khafwafwa (Pronounced Ah-fwa-fwa) had arrived back with the supplies we needed. We had already dug and placed the poles in place and had even collected sticks and branches together to make a home made ladder.

Around lunchtime the guys arrived on Buda-Buda’s with their supplies not far behind. The three of us stepped into the shade for a couple of minutes and ate our packed lunches and drank our juice. As soon as the wood and roofing arrived we got straight back to work helping the other members of the community who were taking part saw wood and make roof frames. The children from the local school had all come to see what we were up to and sat on the grass watching us doing our jobs. The fact that the hand saw we were using was blunt didn’t do us any favours as we had to cut timber to make frames. These frames needed to be nailed in place and I now remember why I never took Woodwork Technology for GCSE at school. I did my best and helped out, learned and got better at the joinery work I was involved in. By the end of it I could actually hit a nail on my first swing and it actually stayed in the wood I had intended it to.


We spent all afternoon making the frames and packing the poles into the mud to make them secure until the sun began to go down and the Landrover arrived. Simon had arrived to see the progression of the building and took some photos of what we had accomplished in the first day. We then made our way back to the offices to pack our equipment away and go home for dinner.

Back at the offices they were beginning to lock up and most of the Mission staff had gone home. We had the African tops we had created during the day handed to us in a black carrier bag which we separated when we got back to the guesthouse. We had been told that dinner was going to be over at the house tonight as it was Simon and Matthews last evening with us and the family had prepared a meal for us instead. So we showered and Matthew, Simon and I were dressed in our matching newly sewn traditional dress, looking pretty cool I must add. We made our way over to the house at around 7 where we sat talking then began eating. We shared some lovely food as always and one of the meats I was able to eat was Gizzard. It is tradition here in Kenya, so I’m told by Matayo, that visitors get the gizzard and I was told afterwards that gizzard was actually the heart, lungs, kidneys, all the chickens’ organs joined together by ligaments. During the evening I also got to have a little tinkle on the Piano. Dennis taught me a little bit of Shine Jesus Shine, a song I remember from Primary School that is in the Hymn books here and I had fun trying to learn the keys. We had to be up early the next day as we were setting off to continue with the building and were getting picked up at 7. I gave the family some sweets I had brought from back home as a thank you gift to share out which they did, and then we all went to our rooms to bed.

I was woken by my alarm at 6am and got up quickly to get ready as I wanted to try cram a bit of breakfast in over at the house before the Landrover came to get us at 7. I made sure I grabbed a Malaria tablet as I had forgotten to take my weekly Wednesday evening dose and I wasn’t up for delaying taking it. Before Matayo and I went into the family house to have some morning Chi and toast they had prepared for us and we said our goodbyes to Matthew and Simon as they were up early to see us off. We were soon picked up on time, where we set off picking Khafwafwa on the way.

We arrived at the house where there were 9 of us ready to help. Matayo and Khafwafwa left the site and headed into town to get some more supplies for today’s work. I was left to assist and watch as the other male members of the community levelled up the posts, nailed them in place and erected the roofing frames onto the top of the house. There were five frames which were placed on the top of the house each measured and positioned an equal distant apart. The guys and I had all helped and lifted the roof frames into place whilst 2 members clung to the top of the house and nailed them. This lasted most of the morning and as the sun began to get stronger, lifting and carrying began to get tiring.


Matayo and Khafwafwa had returned, however there was a slight delay for the supplies they had purchased to arrive. Bearing in mind if wood or iron is purchased there are no Transit vans or Lorries to transport the equipment, they are all carried on the back of Buda-Buda’s which must be hard work. The arrival of the supplies were two hours late but luckily we were able to be getting on with the constructing of the frames for the in and outside of the house. This involved cutting and placing thick tree branches along the walls of the house and nailing them all the way round with a distance of around a foot / 30 centimetres in height between each one. The branches were not always long enough to roach the whole way down one wall of the house, so sometimes it required two branches to fill the whole distance. These had to be held in place and nailed into the wooden poles that had already been placed the day previously. If you are beginning to get confused about exactly what I mean, take a look at the photos I have taken and posted and hopefully this will be clearer than my explanations.


So I had to hammer the nails into the tree branches then all the way into the wooden poles holding up the house. I'm not a hammering kind of guy so it took my a few attempts to once again hit the nail and keep it in the wood. I eventually got the hang of it and gave the nails a right beating. It was fun and we had a joke and a laugh as we worked around the house trying to complete it before the end of the day. We got quite a good way through working on the whole house when a few children from the local schools, who must have been friends of the family, began to nail and help saw wood. One advantage of having the children around was that they could climb onto the branches and hold and hammer them in the high places. I'm sure these children had done this before and it was really rewarding to see their enthusiasm as them helped.

After I broke a hammer trying to pull a nail out of some wood, we continued completing the inside and outside of the house with the branch frames. It was coming together and looked pretty neat and I was looking forward to seeing the end result. You would never build a house like this in England so just having the experience of seeing the house form was very satisfying in itself.

Towards the end of the working day it was time to begin fixing the iron to the roof of the house. This only required a few hands to help so Matayo and I sat back and watched as two guys helped lift the iron onto the roof and Khafwafwa nailed the iron to it. The children flocked around us and all wanted their pictures taken when they saw our cameras. I took a few and so did Matayo and we continued to make a few new friends as children arrived who we hadn’t seen before. Navie and Rego were two children who had been helping us for the past couple of days and were top little lads with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Between the three of us we mastered the routine of high five-ing each other and they also showed us how they can pose quite professionally for the camera. After the roofing had been finished the local Fellowship arrived for a prayer session on the land beside the building area and then later came around and prayed for the house. Once all was finished for the day we made our way home on Buda-Buda’s and a Matatu as all the Mission Landrover’s were in use.


In the evening we were very tired from the long and hard couple of days we had just had so we sat down and relaxed and watched a few episodes of Only Fools & Horses before we called it a night.

Friday I woke to bacon, chips and tomato that Jane had quite kindly requested the day previously. It was a good start and prepared for a little for more building which would start later today was we were setting off at 9.30am. Today there was no transport to take us to Kamukuywe so we had to make our way there carrying our equipment on a Matatu and Buda-Buda. We weren’t stopping for long today as there were only 2 doors and 2 windows to fit in place. I watched and assisted, helping hold and nail the windows and doors in place and this task was completed fairly quickly as we left and arrived back at the offices around 2pm.


One thing that Matayo and I both agree was very cool about the short few hours we spent with the doors and windows was the fact we had a radio playing and something very touching happened because of it. Matayo had his video camera and was taking footage of the nailing of the windows. As he was recording a song came on the radio and it was perfect for background music to the whole situation and just had the perfect sound and feel for our involvement. Maybe its one of those instances where you have to be there to experience the feeling we got from it, but as the song Fix You by Coldplay played and as we watched the construction taking place, it really sent a shiver down our spines and made us feel good.

We arrived back and there was no power. Matayo had to stay at the office for a while to write up some notes but as there was nothing I could do he suggested I went back and got some rest while there was no electricity to run my laptop. Back at home I had a little nap however was woken a couple of times by the singing of Rose, one of the assistants at the guesthouse. She was loud but I wasn’t having a great sleep anyway so I got up and lounged around for a while until dinner. After dinner we sat around in the dark with the power flickering on and off occasionally which leads me to where I began this blog.

Hopefully the power will come on soon but if not I’m pretty sure I can find alternative things to do with my time such as sleeping, because again I’ve got to be up early in the morning as I am travelling with Buko school to watch their entry in the district choir/dance competition.

Take Care x

Blog #11

So the weekend got off to a bad start with the pedal of my bike falling off. Just around the corner from town as I put pressure on my left pedal, it decided to slide itself off, leaving my foot propped on a both oily and greasy piece of metal in place of where the pedal used to be. Luckily we were on our way to town to the Post Office to post some items such as letters and postcards for Simon, and on the way was the Fundi we often use. On the way past we dropped in the bike. We left the bike with him and headed to the Post Office, posting the items and Matayo purchased some stamps. Matthew had gone to the Weekend Challenge for the day so it was just me and Matayo chilling for the weekend.

After the Post Office we went back to the Fundi where we had to wait about half an hour for him to return with the bike. Apparently he had just “nipped out” for a test ride on the bike but personally I reckon that he had the urge to pull some wheelies and decided to take the bike for a spin after it had been fixed. So once we got the bike back we came home with some paint and I sat and watched Matthew as he painted the bike rack he previously bought with red undercoat preparing it for a soon to be professional finish.

We hung around painting and discussing life back at home waiting for lunch time. It soon came round and we went to the guesthouse to see what we were having. At this time there was a meeting taking place across in the conference room where Solomon, Simon, Ruth, Jane, Anne and some other people I didn’t really recognise, were discussing medical issues for most of the day. So lunch was slightly later but because of the meeting we had upgraded our meal and had Kuku, Chapatti, mashed Banana and cabbage. I had never seen the guesthouse dining room so full. I was used to eating with usually the 3 or 5 of us but with a much bigger party today, the room was differently set out in a T shape with extra special napkins and a much livelier atmosphere.

In the afternoon around 4.30pm, we jumped on our bikes and head on to the junction by Dreamland to meet Jonah where he was going to show us where Matayo could purchase some trees in the future for the Gap Programme. We went to three nurseries in which families grew a variety of fruit trees with some examples being Avocado and Eucalyptus. The houses in which occupied these nurseries were very far out in the rural interior, where we had to travel quite far on snicket type roads to get to there. The third nursery we visited the man showed us around his Shamba. He then introduced us to some of his children, his first born and third born, and also showed us his hutches where he bread both rabbits and ducks. This was how he made his living and he was really proud that two Mazungu’s had visited his house and were interested in what he had to offer, infact he was so proud that he offered us five small avocado trees as a thank you gesture. Its amazing really, these people have hardly anything but are so generous and willing to show their appreciation and give things to you when they really need everything they have for themselves.

After the cycle ride through the out backs of Kimilili we came home to dinner. In the evening, Jane showed us a DVD she had brought from home, it’s called “A Born Again Christian” and had some interesting ways in expressing what exactly a Christian is.

Sunday came and we took Matthew to St James Church to see what it was all about as this was his only Sunday here in Kimilili. Matayo and I cycled along side Matthew as he rode on a Buda-Buda on the less messy route to the church.

After church we came home and I did my washing which I had postponed until today whilst Matayo laid a second coat on the bike rack. Half way through my washing session, Matayo joined in and began washing his extremely large collection of boxer shorts and other items of clothing.

In the afternoon Matayo went to the office so I stayed back at the compound and sat and read a book that Anne had lent the guesthouse. I read a chapter until Dennis showed up with the intention to go check on his tomatoes at his plot. The sun was beginning to go down for the day and we took a nice walk over to his tomatoes which at this time hadn’t yet started coming through.

In the evening we all sat around and discussed the weekends we had and what lay ahead for us this week. With the construction of a mud house coming up, this week was going to be busy and exciting so we made our way to bed with this in mind and got some rest.

Blog #10

So we told a guy today that we thought he must have a PHD in Rushing. He said he could only speak English and Swahili and that we better keep up on our bikes if we wanted to make it home in time for dinner.

One down, two to go, and it doesn’t seem like two minutes since I arrived here in Kimilili. I've experienced so much, and this has been reinforced this week with the arrival of new visitors with some starting here at the stage I was just four weeks ago. The days have been significant however it has been the evenings that have been full of the excitement.

Monday was John’s final day with us and we began the day with breakfast. I then continued the rest of the day working on the website. Today John had borrowed my bike, he was going for a final look around Dreamland and needed some transport to get there, as David, from Stocks and Supplies, had the Mission bike and was making his way there on that. Unfortunately on his travels he had a slight accident but luckily he wasn’t hurt and it was the bike that felt the most pain. He returned the bike to the compound at lunchtime so when evening came and it was time to make my way home, I had to take a stroll in the thunderstorm rather than a quick getaway on my “Hummer” as Dennis likes to call it. So we had a special meal prepared for Johns last supper. Kuku (the correct spelling) and Chapatti and some nice sweet Oranges freshly cut for desert. In the evening Matthew was preparing for his trip to Kisumu to collect the new visitors as well as pick up some supplies, and we said our goodbyes to John before going to bed relatively early.

Tuesday I woke up to breakfast alone. Today I was going to be working completely on my own as Matthew had set off to Kisumu at 6.30am and John had left for Nairobi at 7am. I took this opportunity to crack on with things and work through the project without any distractions as I was in the office on my own and could concentrate and allow my ideas to flow. After working at the office I came home where I found Dennis and Edgar hanging out at the Simba so after dropping my things off in my room, I went round to sit with them for a while. The clock hit 6pm and I knew it would be time for my evening meal, but to my surprise the guesthouse was locked up to which later I found out I would have the enjoyment of eating over at the house with the family for the evening.

Dennis had to go and get some milk for the family and this involved us taking a walk along the road to Edgar’s house. By this time it was beginning to get dark and the weather wasn’t looking as if it was going to be on its best behaviour either, but as there was a need for the milk we took the walk on, aiming to be back before it was too dark to see our hands in front of our faces. As we walked along the streets, which began to occasionally light up by lightening, the atmosphere began to get slightly less attractive however I did feel quite safe on my travels.

Late into the evening we began to eat where we all sat around the large table in the family area of the house to a very nice and well prepared meal by the girls. We all shared the food placed amongst the table and both Dennis and Ruth taught me a little more Swahili. I was on my own and it was great to be invited to eat and share my evening with the family.

Still on my own Wednesday morning, I woke up and continued my life and work as I normally would any other day here. I was expecting the visitors and Matthew to arrive back at the compound today but towards the middle of the morning I received a phone call and message telling me the visitor’s morning flight from Nairobi had been cancelled. Matthew had arrived safely in Kisumu the day previously and because there was no need to collect his visitors today, he could come home earlier in which he did and made it back for lunch.

After lunch and a discussion with Matthew about what he had purchased and the mishaps that happened along his travels, we head to the office and continued on with our work. I was creating a box template that could be printed onto card and folded to make a money box for one of the Transformation Kenya campaign’s and it was coming together very well looking very appealing.

Back in the evening, both Matthew and I had the pleasure of having our evening meal again over at the family’s house. We shared another delicious and well prepared meal in which I slightly helped clear away after, and finished off the evening with Dennis playing some Hymns on the Piano and some late night prayers.

Thursday began with me desperately trying to get the correct measurements and sizes for this box template, so that it could be completed and printed off to test the folding. While I did this, amongst with other things, Matthew tried to get the television at the guesthouse fixed using a local Fundi, but unfortunately didn’t seem to have any luck. I arrived at lunch time to find a television with its back removed and a Fundi fiddling with wires and knobs aiming the TV at a mirror perched on one of the chairs, as a guide and vision for doing his repairs.

We had some visitors taking a look around both the IcFEM compound and the guesthouse and had the pleasure of meeting and having a little chat with them. We arrived back home after a day of work and soon met the new arrivals that were going to be staying with us all for different lengths of time.

We first met Jane and Matthew, Grandmother and Grandson that had been due to arrived the day before but had the unfortunate case of a cancelled flight. They pulled up using Hosea, the taxi driver I arrived with, with quite a few bags in which we helped them carry along to their rooms they were to be staying in. Leaving the new arrivals to settle in and have a little rest, we made our way over for what was my third consecutive meal at the house and awaited the arrival of Solomon and another new arrival, Simon Daniels, from Nairobi.

We ate without the arrival of both Solomon and Simon, scoffing Chapatti’s and meat quickly into our mouths and chatting amongst ourselves, not at the same time though. Jane had been here previously, but it was Matthews’ first visit to the IcFEM Mission but not to Africa as a whole. So Jane had a bit of a catch up with things that had gone on over the time and we all continued eating and making our way through dinner. We finished and Ann had kindly prepared some Pineapple crumble and ice cream in which we shared between us.

During this desert Solomon and Simon arrived back from their long and tiring journey, and seemed very eager to greet everyone and eat. They sat at the table while we sat around in the living area and ate our crumble and ice cream. By this time Jane and Matthew had had a long day and we getting tired. With prayers not looking to be for a while, they excused themselves and head off to bed for the evening. It wasn’t long before I made a move myself as I was sleepy and was looking forward to a nice sleep in a newly cleaned and prepared bed. Along with Matthew and a few others, I made my way over to my room to hit the sack.

It was nice to start Friday morning with the new visitors. We ate together with the exception of Jane then made our way over to the offices for morning devotion and our days work.

At 9.45am we hopped on our bikes while Matthew (the new visitor, we are calling the old one Matayo, the Kenyan alternative) road a Buda-Buda along to Dreamland where I had the enjoyment of pretending I was on Ground Force. I was Alan Titchmarsh and I was planting trees, Avocado trees to be precise. I have pictures that I am going to post of me “getting my hands dirty”, which is something that I don’t normally do. I've never done any gardening or tree planting in my life, but it was an experience and something I probably wouldn’t mind doing back at home which I’m surprised with. We planted 10 trees altogether in which I planted 3, inserting the trees into a newly dug hole, removing the plastic bag holding the roots and using my hands, covered the lower part of the tree with the surrounding dirt. I made a great job of the trees I planted but after washing my hands I made my way back to meet Anthony at the office, leaving the two Matthews to take their trip around the Dreamland school and Medical Centre.

I made it back to the office with only 2 flys managing to enter my body, one through my eye and the other in my mouth. I wouldn’t exactly call it a pleasant ride back, but it certainly allowed me to sweat out some toxins and my fitness level is certainly beginning to increase.

So after lunch Matayo and I began to print out our documentation for my Transformation Kenya project, filing it all together so we can assess it and also show certain people for their opinions on the printing of it. We continued to do this while the new Matthew began his blog section for the Gap programme. He used the cyber café machines to fill in his online journal then came to our office towards the end of the day.

There wasn’t long to go before evening dinner, but back in the office Matthew had told us about some of our plans for the week ahead. We are possibly going to be working on the construction of a house and for this we were going to require some tools and overalls to keep of efficient and clean when building. Matayo had previously purchased gloves, boots and overalls for his Gap programme students and today I volunteered to try on one of the uniforms as an example as we would need to wear them in the next coming week. So I decided I’m more of a medium kind of guy so I reached for the medium sized blue overall and unpacked it from its plastic wrapper. Pulling it over my trousers I quickly realised that this uniform may be slightly small on me and that wasn’t just because I had trousers on. I got it to my crotch area and didn’t have the confidence to pull it up any further, so I removed the blue material from my body. The next size to try was extra large as Matayo had only purchased these two sizes for some reason. Extra large was still small on me surprisingly but too big to just wear as trousers, fastening it at the waste, so I think I’m going to settle for a medium and just wear it as a half outfit with my Gap team T shirt on top.

In the evening we spent our time hanging out in the guesthouse after a very large meal for dinner. Matayo began some more platting while the rest of us sat around talking. We were considering whether to watch a DVD, but we thought it would be much better to give it a miss allowing the visitors to talk and bond a little more.

God Bless x

Blog #9

It’s Sunday evening and Matthew is almost ready to purchase his second batch of the three colours of cotton we use to make wrist bands. I have still got plenty left as I have only made about 7 so far, but when Saturday morning came he was eager to buy himself some cotton and crack on with the whole process where he is now only about 100 in front of me.
No Joke.

Saturday morning and we woke up slightly later as breakfast on Saturday starts at 8 rather than 7.30. So I got an extra 30 minutes snooze and then after we went into town to buy a pole to hold the TV aerial in place to hopefully receive a reception for the TV we have but cannot yet use. Originally we were going to go on a bike ride but the weather wasn’t so great plus we really wanted to get this TV working so we had a little more to do when we weren’t getting on with our project. We bought a pole that was 20 foot long. It was half an inch thick and it cost 1000 Kenyan Shillings. That’s just short of a tenner and is a bit expensive but never the less we still made the purchase. There were three of us, Me, Matthew and Dennis but we sent the pole back home on a Buda-Buda, which made its way home very safely and dropped off the pole at the compound. We went round a few more places until finally making our way back home.

Even though the weather wasn’t so great, it was still warm so we decided to do some washing. I didn’t have much this week, just some socks and underwear and a couple of T shirts and trousers, so I threw them in a bucket and got them washed. Matthew and I were discussing the whole process of “making wrist bands” and we came up with a brilliant idea in conjunction with the Transformation Kenya programme. Originally with the Children of IcFEM section, at the end of the year, children who had made a donation would receive several things such as certificates but would also receive a key ring as a thank you gift. We had a great idea which would help use our funding for the programme wisely and we thought instead of sending key rings, why not send wrist bands. If you were a child who had donated to a charity would you prefer to have a key ring sent or a wrist band? Better yet a wrist band made by one of the children you had been donating towards. Well anyways we were thinking of using these wrist bands as thank you gifts and even though its still early days, we are thinking of getting some of the school children involved if they would like to.

After lunch Matthew and I nipped into town to purchase some cotton balls, this time for Matthews’ purposes. Matthew began “batch processing”, cutting strips of each colour resulting in piles of about hundred being placed on the table in the lounge. I sat and watched and had a go at cutting and platting some cotton myself but didn’t do so much. He was determined to have 50 done by the time the evening meal was ready and he was certainly having a good go. I spent some time in my room relaxing and listening to some music and by the time dinner was ready, we had almost completed his 50.

Back in the lounge Matthew continued to cut cotton. A bit of alliteration for you there, not something I tend to use too often. I stuck around for a while and watched him continue to give himself a RSI, then left for my room as I was feeling a bit down for an unknown reason so I spend some time to myself reading then went to sleep.

This morning I had arranged with Anthony to go with him to Moi Kamusinga Girls boarding school and accompany him while he gave a talk on “Integrity”. Matthew and I met Anthony at the gates of the school at 8.30 where soon after his friend and band member, Lambert appeared with his guitar, again ready to accompany us with some music. We locked up our bikes outside the small staff area and the 4 of us sat around the table where Lambert played a little music to get us going. He was like one of the dudes from the group Boys to Men. I even told him, I was like “Dude, have you heard of Boys to Men, you remind me of one of them”. He knew the group and he didn’t seem to be offended so that was good. He was a good singer and guitarist too and we asked if he would be up for coming and teaching us sometime which he said he would.

So we made our way to the main hall where today’s talk was to be held. The hall was full of around 700 girls, dressed smartly in their blue uniforms with some of them stood on the stage at the front singing and playing instruments. We were shown to the front where we would sit for the two hour talk. After the students had done their little part of the service, Lambert got up with his guitar and gave a little talk before playing a few songs. He played a couple of gospel songs and even sang You Raise Me Up, which was recently re recorded by Westlife. He got the students and us to sing along with him and he was really great. They treat him a bit like a celebrity and he was really modest about his talent which was cool to see. After he finished his set, he passed over the microphone to Anthony to begin his talk.

Anthony began his talk by congratulating the girls on their achievements. They had just recently won the national athletics competition and first place was a big deal for them. They gave the loudest screams ever and my ears began to ring. He then introduced me where I came to the centre of the stage to say a few words. I spoke in a little Swahili, just asking how everyone was and said Thank you for allowing me to be here. I began to then continue in my usual approach of using my hands a lot and talking really fast, but it turned out good and the rest of Anthony’s talk went successfully also.

After the talk had finished and the 700 girls occupying the hall had ran in excitement to meet the team that had just come back from the competition they had won, we stopped off again back in the staffroom for come Chi and sandwiches. We didn’t stop long, but had a quick chat and came home for lunch.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I sat using the laptop while Matthew platted and John began to pack. He is leaving us on Tuesday, so right now he is getting his things together and leaving us with his unused medical supplies and insect repellents.

God Bless x

Blog #8

I noticed as I was riding down the street towards home today how comfortable I have become with my surroundings and how I don’t actually think to myself, “WOW, I’m in Africa” anymore. It doesn’t feel as obvious that I’m in a foreign country, but it’s kind of reassuring to know how well I have adapted and how much I feel to have fit in, in such a short period of time.

So it was a new week and they seem to be coming and going so fast, but time flys when you’re having fun right? So we begun in the office working on creating some reward cards for each campaign section associated with the Transformation Kenya programme I am creating. I had to create 15 different cards, 4 fronts and 11 backs, as one of the cards had 7 different colours that associated with 7 different years in the scheme. Now I’ve just thought. Have I even explained to you guys what this Transformation Kenya programme is all about? I don’t think I have so ill just give you a little insight in to what the programmes aim is, just so you have an idea of the part I am playing for this charity.

So the idea of Transformation Kenya is to accelerate community development in Western Kenya, as well as encourage donations and support for child sponsorships. Here in Kenya only recently both Primary and Secondary school education has become free of charge, but parents and guardians still find it difficult to come up with the money to actually get their children to school. The main issues preventing the children from actually being able to attend school is the cost of uniforms, transport to and from school, text books, equipment and their daily dinner money. As only 20% of the over all costs involved in sending a child to school are now free, the number of children now attending school is only beginning to rise slowly. That’s where we come in with this idea of raising awareness for child sponsorships, so that people who can afford to help out these children and give them a better education and a better life, can do their part and contribute making a big difference. The Transformation Kenya programme will promote four campaigns, which each target a difference audience to raise awareness. The four target groups are High Schools, Friends of IcFEM, Children and the community. They each come with their own little catchy slogan but I won’t bore you with the list right now, so here is just one of them. “Give Poverty the Red Card”.

So I worked on these reward cards all up to lunch, trying to get my ipod to work properly but I’ve now come to the conclusion that it’s broken and the apple website is absolutely terrible when it comes to trying to get in contact about my problem. So I went back for lunch which I was really looking forward to and afterwards I went back to The Pink Room for a lie down. At 1.50pm it was time to head back to the office and I got a phone call from Matthew just reminding me on the time. I left my room and head for the guest house doors. I grabbed the handle and gave it a push and that’s when I found out I had been locked in by Mark the guesthouse Chef. Luckily Matthew was able to come to my rescue and collected the key from its safe keeping place in the dining room.

After work I came home and had a nice relaxing but boring evening. Simply because I did a bit of ironing, straightening out the clothes I washed the day before, but then I sat around chatting with the guys.

Tuesday I worked on the certificates I was going to be sending out to people who had donated towards the charity. Yesterday I had finished the reward cards so it was now time to make the templates for the certificates in the same way I did the reward cards. I worked on these most of the day, occasionally getting Matthews opinion as he skipped in and out of the office between being in a meeting and creating some brochures for another project at the mission. Lunch time came and I was to eat alone. I didn’t mind at all because I knew the staff at the guesthouse weren’t aware that Matthew wouldn’t be attending because of his meeting, so they would have prepared enough for us both which meant I got more. Tomato toasties and I mixed it with both chilli sauce and mayonnaise. It was really nice.

Back at the office I finished up the certificates and designed some letter heads. The day before Ken, a guy from the Mission, had spotted me with my ipod plugged into my laptop. He had questioned me about how it worked and how I managed to charge it, so today he brought me in his which he had been given as a gift and he wanted me to charge it for him. I began to charge this for him, but it was so dead that it wouldn’t turn on for at least an hour after it was plugged in. As the evenings are generally boring because of the fact its pitch black and the night life isn’t as lively as back home we sat in and watched the rest of Enemy of the State.

Wednesday morning we woke up and dressed ourselves in our Gap Programme Team T shirts that Matthew had created before I came. One problem with the two he had given me was they were both Extra Large. The black one, which I had chosen to wear wasn’t so big surprisingly and I could just about pull off wearing it. My red one, well that was a lost cause and there was no way I could wear it, it would just have to be memorabilia.

We were going to the launching of the first local fellowship unit and we spent the journey to Misikhu where it was held in the recently imported Mission Landrover. There was over a thousand people there and I had the privilege of sitting at the front with the rest of the IcFEM Mission staff with a video camera occasionally pointed at me, recording the whole conference. We sat there listening to Swahili, tribal languages and translations into English and I had the job, along with several others, of taking photos of the crowds of people that scattered the viewing area. The conference begun at 10am and didn’t finish until about 4pm. We were interrupted slightly by a heavy rainfall at about 3pm where some of the audience ran and took cover underneath shelters while others stood with umbrellas and chairs held above their heads as Solomon, the Director continued to speak. When the conference was over, being part of the IcFEM staff, we were eligible for the meal that had been prepared. Cuckoo, rice, chapati and soup all crammed into one dish and it was delicious.

We then left, getting a ride home again in a Mission Landrover, where this journey we were accompanied by the television crew. For some reason they seemed to think we were American and this wasn’t the first time today someone had confused us with another nationality. Earlier, at the beginning of the conference, we were introduced by the Mission staff to everyone watching at home and all the people in the audience as part of the Gap Programme Team where Matthew was the leader and we were both from England. After the conference whilst we were waiting for a lift home, one of the friendly people from the audience came to find out a little more about Matthew and me. Infact he really needed to find out the basics about us before he could find out more because he was convinced we were both German and had got confused about Matthew being the leader of the Gap Programme and thought he was the Director of the Mission. The funny thing about this little episode, other than the fact that even though we tried to explain we weren’t German and Matthew was only the leader of the Gap Programme and not the Director, was the fact that the Director himself had just given a speech for at least 3 hours and the point that he was the director was stressed numerous times throughout the day.

Back at the guest house I was faced with another meal and I was already really full. I couldn’t let good food go to waste and my plate was absolutely over flowing with spaghetti, carrots, cabbage and aubergines in sauce. I did well. I must admit, I managed to eat at least three quarters of it but was absolutely bursting and ready to explode. I spent the rest of the evening sitting still just to be safe so that the food I had just eaten stayed inside me.

I woke up Thursday morning starving. You eat tons the night before and wake up with your tummy rumbling. How does that work? Anyways, we began the day at the office. I had this idea, which admittedly sounds as if I am either about 90 or an 8 year old girl, but I had the idea of buying some cotton that I could try and make things out of in an evening when not as active. I was thinking of wrist bands or something. Maybe I could put together a little something for the folks and the guys back home, I know my friend Adam likes to wear things on his wrist so I thought at least it could possibly please him. So we went into town and found a shop that sold cotton. I purchased three balls, one green, one red and one black. These are the Kenyan flag colours and I thought it would be best to make something relevant that I could associate to my trip here for three months. I bought all three balls and it cost me 90 Kenyan Shillings. This isn’t even a Pound and you’d be surprised at the amount of cotton I had to work with, I could make loads. I've got enough people in mind though who I could make one for so I can occupy myself for some time.

The rest of the day was pretty straight forward. We had a light snack after lunch and I was able to experience a real African café. It was a small café, something that wasn’t up to the standards of the United Kingdom, but the chips I had were lovely. Kim’s Dishes was the name of the Café and I may just take a trip back there sometime if I’m still feeling a little peckish after or between meals times.

We got back to the compound and the Landrover that Matthew has bought which is being done up, is on its way and today it had been stripped of its paint in areas. It’s well on its way now so over the next couple of weeks we may see a finished product.

Friday morning on the way up the road to work and the pedal of my bike decided to fall off. It had been doing so well too as it hadn’t had any problems since it was taken to the Fundi just after it was first purchased, but right now it had decided to let me down. Fortunately I was just outside the office and there was no falling off my bike involved. After working at the office for a couple of hours, once the laptop decided to crash, we took the bike to the Fundi to be fixed. Now Matthew uses the same Fundi every time he has a problem with his bike, and he has a lot of problems with his. On this occasion because of the large amounts of work in the past Matthew has brought to this guy, he was given a discount, infact no, it was free of charge which was really kind. It was done in a matter of minutes and he even tightened up the brakes and the handle bars for me. We then head straight back to the office as I had my weekly meeting with Tony, however when we got back, he wasn’t available.

Evening came and I decided to start on using my cotton wisely to see what I could come up with. I began cutting lengths of each colours, I then tied them together and began to plat them. I haven’t done this in a long time and even when I did do it, I don’t remember doing it much. I had a go though and it started to look pretty cool. I made a couple of wrist bands and they looked pretty impressive. Matthew was impressed and he thought the idea was kind of girly at first but thought it might be a good idea to buy some and have a go himself. So I did this for the rest of the evening while watching Without a Paddle on DVD. I also got a phone call from home so I spoke to them for a while then resumed back to the sowing board where I continued to plat.

God Bless x

Blog #7

Its not everyday you turn up to church with your suit trousers tucked all the way down to your ankles in your socks is it? Well it isn’t for me that’s for sure, but today was different and it was another one of those Africa experiences I had to get used to if I wanted to survive or at least have some decent clothes to bring home or use for the rest of my trip.

In my previous blog I mentioned that the guesthouse was acting as host for a prayer and fasting weekend for a local church and because of this I was allowed to move rooms for the next few days to allow me to at least get some sleep and be away from what could be another noisy but important night for the guys across the compound. I moved into the Pink Room, which was one that was situated in the main guesthouse. As the name suggests the room is pink, with pink walls, pink pillow cases and even a little pink girly floor mat for when you get in and out of the shower. It’s a lot more comfortable to both sleep in and just be in. I'm going to try and stay in this room as long as I can as it has a more homely feeling and kind of has a smell of my Grans house.

Before Friday evening was over, we had a little incident that was very funny and both Matthew and I would like to share with you. It was around 8pm and I was feeling much better health wise compared to the day before. I decided to grab my things I would need for the night if I was going to be sleeping in the temporary room for the weekend. I went into my initial room, grabbed myself a vest and some shorts, took along my toothpaste and toothbrush but before I left, I thought I would just use the bathroom. As I was stood by the toilet I looked up at the window. There was a small frog. I finished up and gave Matthew a call and was like “Dude, come have a look at this”. So Matthew came in and by this point the frog had attached itself to the window in a poor attempt to get away from me. I took some photos of the creature and then suggested to Matthew he should get rid of it before it made its way around my room and hid itself somewhere ready to jump out at me when I returned. So we tried moving it. It jumped and we made the loudest screams ever. We screamed for a second then paused while we laughed, almost crying. We then screamed a little more and took out the bed and tripped over several items spread across the room, as we made our way out of the path of this, I must emphasise, tiny creature. By this time we had picked up a mop and bucket, desperately trying to catch this frog so we could remove it from the room. Matthew kept pointing out the fact that it has red feet and said it could be poisonous. Eventually, after about 5 minutes of continuous screaming and hyena laughing, we began to make progress. As we were causing a fuss over this frog, the people who were around on their prayer and fasting weekend obviously had heard all the commotion. We turned around after trapping the frog into the corner of my sink area where we found two guys from the session stood there, holding in their hands a metal grate that each room has outside its door for you to wipe and clean your shoes on. It must have sounded like we were wrestling a lion or the most dangerous creature in the world, as soon as the guys saw what were we up against they just broke down in laughter. Luckily they didn’t think we were the biggest girls in the world, but did however come and remove it with their bare hands and let it go free into the wild.

So that was that little episode over, but it made my evening, along side with talking to the folks back home and catching up on what had been going on. I went to bed quite early as I had an early morning as I was going for a trek up Mount Elgon, a local hotspot which has a lot of interesting sights to see.

In the morning I woke up and filled myself with breakfast ready for my walk. Matthew and I were to meet Jonah at 8.30 at the junction before you reach Dreamland. We were slightly late as Matthew had to carry out a little job for someone but we got there for about quarter to nine where we had a soda and began our climb from the bottom of Mount Elgon. About 5 minutes into the walk I saw the need to tuck my trousers into my socks because of the trials of ants that could be found all across the ground, plus the fact that my trousers trailed over and beneath my shoes, so tucking them into my trousers avoided getting them dirtier but also prevented bugs making their way up again. Not long after we begun, I found myself climbing the side of a huge rock, watching very carefully where I put my feet avoiding any chance of falling or having an accident. I made it to the top and took some photos of the incredible views. It was like being on an episode of LOST, where the survivors go on a hunt for the Others’, apart from we weren’t looking for any Others’, we were just walking for the sake of seeing what Mount Elgon had to show us. Luckily I didn’t see any Polar bears or come across many dangerous creatures too closely but I did spot some rock rabbits and some male Gecko’s making their way across the land. The male Gecko’s are so colourful with a red head and a nice blue body making it stand out against the rocks. The males are poisonous, so luckily the ones I saw were far enough away.

We walked for miles and wandered through districts that had recently been under conflict over land. We were assured these were now safe and I’m glad they were, because I was so exhausted that if any trouble did come my way, I wouldn’t have been able to run away fast enough to get to safety. I had almost run out of water and soaked enough tissues to last me a lifetime, wiping the sweat from my forehead and under my eyes. At one point we found ourselves at a waterfall which was really beautiful. You couldn’t get too close as the ground surrounding it was too boggy but I managed to get close enough to remove my shirt and let the mist of water refresh and cool me down from the mid day sun. We seemed to be crawling between bushes and making our way up and down the mountain side and we seemed to be speed walking at paces I was definitely not used to. At one point I remember saying “Here, are you sure you aren’t taking us in circles or at least in a square because I really does feel like we keep walking back on ourselves”. Apparently we weren’t.

So by 1pm we were making our way back down the mountain and I was quite tired but being very patient. I think there should be like a set time you have to wait before you can call it a rest, because I’m pretty sure 25 seconds doesn’t qualify as a long enough time to get rid of a stitch that seems to be getting further and further into your side as you move. As we neared the bottom I could have become a millionaire. If I had a pound for the amount of times Jonah reassured me there wasn’t much further to go, I’m pretty sure him and I have two different interpretations of what is close and what is far. Eventually we made it back to the junction but along with us came 2 sunburnt necks and 4 very exhausted legs and sweaty feet. Not being able to face the further 10 minute walk back, we decided to be lazy and hop on the back of a Buda-Buda for the remaining ground.

Back at the guesthouse I didn’t want to eat, I just wanted to re hydrate myself with water and because I drunk so much of it my stomach became full. I should be been starving but because I was so drained the thought of eating didn’t appeal to me unlike every other time I have sat down at that table. I ate a sandwich or so and also prepared one and tucked it away in a napkin for later. I was supposed to begin my washing after lunch but there was no way I had the energy to sit out in the sun and aggressively clean my clothes. I spent most of the afternoon laying on my bed in the Pink Room and later went to the Office to check some emails and relax. Still recovering we spent the evening watching a movie. We watched The Island then went to bed to have some more crazy dreams courtesy of my Malaria tablets that have entertaining me during past couple of weeks as I have slept.

Sunday we woke up and made our way to church on our bikes. The service starts at 9ish so we were able to set off for around five to, as it is only just round the corner from the main town. I kitted myself up in my more “dressy-up” clothing and I even threw on a light sweater just as an extra layer as the sun was not yet out and there could be the chance of a small shower.
So Matthew and I flew onto church on our bikes, speeding through the town. I got so far and I noticed the road, or the lack of it, in front of me starting to become boggier. I got so far and was really prepared to pedal it out and make it to the church gates without putting down my shoes in the mud. I already saw that Matthew was pushing his, but I really didn’t want to have to stand in the worst puddles ever and become caked in mud. I stuck it out as far as I could but eventually had to give in. My tyre was stacking on the mud and my brakes clogged to the extreme. I pushed the bike to the gates not best pleased at the state of my shoes. I then walked into the service just starting with the tucked in trousers and the now red and black shoes as apposed to just black.

After the service we took an alternative root home where there was less mud but this certainly didn’t mean we avoided any more chance of getting dirty. The excess mud from our tyres was repeatedly thrown up at our backs, around the mud guard. Luckily it wasn’t so bad when I got home. I could easily wipe it off with a cloth.

I started my washing and did this all afternoon. I used my dirty water to rinse the mud off my tyres and left my clothes out to dry. I then decided to shave the hair as it was getting longish now and it was time for a trim.

After washing and collecting in my clothes we began to watch a movie. We watched about an hour of Enemy of the State until around 7.30pm and then were called over for a special meal, to Solomon the Directors house, which is just next to the guesthouse on the compound. I got to eat an awesome meal. Cuckoo, which is chicken, potatoes, spinach and I even had the chance to try some more Ughali, traditional African food. We stopped here late, eating banana cake and banana ice cream for afters and left feeling rather full but exhausted.

So that was the weekend over and there are probably lots of things I have missed out. I might start using bullet points for my days, but that’s not as interesting to read, or write is it.

God Bless x

Blog #6

Its Friday lunch time and today is a Public Holiday. I feel a bit under the weather. I feel as if I have tonsillitis, a headache and the fact that it sounds like I have an army of people on my door step praying, while I’m trying to sleep doesn’t seem to help the situation very much either. Matthew has gone off on a day trip somewhere so I’m using my time wisely to try and recover for the afternoon. After lunch I’m supposed to be meeting Anthony to go with him to see his group perform but I don’t really feel up for it. I'm going to see how I feel after lunch and if I’m still not in the mood I’ll call him and let him know.

The week got off to a slow but productive start. Monday we began our project, working on the Analysis part for the documentation we had to prepare. Using a guideline to make sure we didn’t miss anything we had to account for, we wrote up exactly what the programme was about and in what ways we were going to achieve donations for child sponsorships. We cracked on with this all morning, working right up to lunch, barely stopping to talk to others who wanted our attention. After lunch we were straight back to it again and got a considerable way through, leading to an even more productive afternoon.

Over the weekend Matthew had gone out and bought me a bike. I mentioned the idea to him previously because he has a bike himself, but never expected for him to go out and buy one without telling me. It was cool though, I mean I would have probably put off buying one so the fact he just did it moved things on a little quicker. I got to ride this to and from the Office. He had taken it to the Fundi to get properly checked over before I rode it, because they can often break or become faulty in the first week of using them.

In the evening Julius, one of the guys from the Mission came round for evening devotion. Today we were just going to be sat around talking about ourselves. He is a good man is Julius and it was nice of him to take time out and come round to sit with us. He lives quite close so it didn’t take him long to get to us and he spent about an hour and a half with us. By this time we didn’t know where the evening had gone to. That was another day gone by but luckily for the project side of things, we had a lot to show for it.

Tuesday morning we decided we were going to sit down and blitz the first part of our project, trying to finish the documentation. With a confident start yesterday we knew we could get the basics over and done with quite soon. We made flow diagrams and wrote down a few ideas for promotion and continued this till lunch.

John has been taking packed lunches for a few days now so lunch was now just provided for me and Matthew. The great thing about this was that they still put out the same amount as they would usually serve for three people. We love it. We ate it all up and were still hungry. We even debated putting Peanut butter on the remaining skin from our Mango for desert. After lunch we went into town on our bikes to buy some biscuits. We initially thought bananas, but then we realised they can be hard to carry when riding a bike, so we settled for the less healthy option. Back at the office we munched the biscuits down while we got on with the project. Suddenly the power went so had no Internet access and everything at the offices came to a stand still. Luckily for me, I had my laptop and all my work was saved and the battery was working great. We continued on with things, however having to change things slightly because of there being no Internet. Some Americans who are working for the charity Rescue Steps came to the Cyber Centre but obviously with no power their trip was useless. They hung around for a while spitting out their American slang while we continued to discuss our project.

After a while my battery began to die so we couldn’t go any further with things. We also needed to access something over email so we were kind of backed into a corner with the whole process. We gave up and decided to go for a short bike ride before evening dinner. Just as we unlocked and got on our bikes the power came back on and because it was getting late on anyway, we decided to still go for the ride to Dreamland and back.

We set off back to the guesthouse to drop off my laptop first and then set off to Dreamland for the short ride. On the way students were walking home from school. This was the first proper ride I had been on in a while and not being used to a bike, my bum instantly started hurting from the hard seat and my hands sore from the grips on the handle bars. Not only that but some of the journey was uphill and even though it wasn’t a ridiculous slant, it was still a climb and exhausting. Along the side of that I had flies shooting towards my face and eyes and all these students saying hello to me wanting replies. I couldn’t win. I got to Dreamland school and was shattered. We stayed watching some children prepare a dance routine for an event for about 4 minutes then set off again back for dinner.

I got back in once piece but was slightly tired, however not as bad as I imagined. I guess the down hill stretches on the way back must have been a life saver. After dinner we didn’t have any devotion so we watched a movie. Coach Carter was our choice and even though I have seen this before, it was cool to recap on it.

“Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Wednesday Matthew went to El Doret to get his hair cut. I was originally going to go with him but I knew I would have other opportunities to see the place so I could take a trip out there when I was less tired. I woke for breakfast but then once Id finished it I went back to my room. This morning, rather than going to the office I was going to stay in my room and complete some work there. I laid down and had an hour or so nap before waking up and switching on the laptop.
After lunch I went for a short ride as I still had a little time to spare before I went on to the office. I took the trip to Dreamland almost, turning back before I got the steep section. I went to the office and unlocked it with the keys Matthew had lent me. I worked in there for a while until Matthew arrived back with shorter hair and some new jeans.

Matthew said he fancied watching another DVD so we decided we would finish watching Shawshank Redemption again on the laptop. I knew what was going to be said next as Dean from work knows the script off by heart, so instantly I knew when the “I hear you’re a man who can get things” parts were coming in. We watched this late into the evening and I could feel that I was lacking sleep and needed all the rest I could get.

Thursday had arrived and I didn’t even realise how special this day was. You know the theory about busses back home, the fact that you wait for one and none come, then they all come at once? Well that’s basically what happened this week. We waited all week for things to happen and they decided to all happen at the back end of it.At 8.30am we were at the offices and the power decided to die on us again. I don’t know why but my laptop wasn’t charged so it wouldn’t switch on, and I wonder if I hadn’t turned it off from the night before and it had drained whilst in my bag. So we couldn’t get on with things so we had to find something else to do with our time. Matthews’ bike needed fixing as his chain was bust and his mud guard had snapped. We took it to the Fundi where he used his special skills to somehow repair it and still make it look as good. We left him to it and went to check out the market as today was Thursday and that meant Market Day.

We went to the cattle market, the clothing market and even got to see and smell the fish market with the privilege of walking through it and inhaling all the fishy odours. We scouted round here for an hour just basically getting the feel for a traditional African market and seeing what Kenya had to offer. The Cows and Bulls were in their pens for customers to view and situated by the side of the roads were people selling all kinds of things ranging from vegetables to second hand shoes. I met the second drunk of my trip so far and we exchanged the touching of knuckles as we tried to pass by him as quickly as possible. We went back to claim Matthews bike which was now fixed and went back to the office.

The power still wasn’t back on and there was nothing we could do. We went to the guesthouse hoping for an early lunch. We played some games of Uno, a card game where you have to match the colours or numbers, with Rose and Mark and I think I won about 3 games. So after lunch we sat in the lounge and drew up some designs in my sketch pad. Well that’s what we planned to do but we were real tired so we had a little kip on the couches in the lounge. I went to my room because I wasn’t comfortable, but when I got there I realised I had stripped my bed in the morning ready for the blankets to be cleaned. So I laid on my bed occasionally feeling bit cold. At this time I starting coming down with this headache I’ve now got. I think I fell asleep for maybe an hour on and off, but was woken by the sound of voices. After chilling for a bit I decided to rise from my room and see what was going down with Matthew and Dennis. I went to their Simba, which is the African name for where they stayed, where we listened to some music before dinner. The power still wasn’t back on but luckily the cooker was gas heated so we had a nice meaty dinner to guzzle down.

After 6 it starts getting dark here and soon it was pitch black. We had to use our torches to move round and we had to travel from Matthews’ room all the way over to the guesthouse lounge in the pouring rain. We were then informed the power should be back on in around 35 minutes but as it had now started to rain and was as heavy as always, we found this very doubtful. To our surprise the power did return but only to go out again when the thunder and lightening started.

Now at the guesthouse we had quite a lot of visitors from a local church, who have rented out the conference hall for a three day prayer and fasting session. Bearing in mind because I am staying here for what is interpreted as a long period of time, I have the pleasure of staying in a room that is not in the main building of the guesthouse. So if you like I have my own little crib separate to the main ones in the compound. My room is situated to side of this conference hall and it seems like the group that have rented the building are having a 3 day “as-loud-as-you-can” praying competition.

They all have the greatest intentions at heart and I admire how dedicated and under the influence they are. All I could hear was the sound of repetitive voices and someone using the room next door to go to the bathroom. So this went on to late into Thursday night and stopped at around midnight. I remember waking up to silence and thinking what a relief. Then I remember waking again after around 2.30am to the sound of loud voices and that’s when I began to think they were all camping outside my door.My alarm woke up at 7am this morning, where it is now Friday the 1st of June. I still had my banging headache and was really wishing it would have disappeared during my sleep the night before. I began to get ready for breakfast and started to clean my teeth. The praying outside was still taking place and quite amusingly I then got a knock on my door. It was John knocking to see if I had woken up as he quite regularly likes to do. I found the fact that he even had to ask pretty funny as he even had to raise his voice himself to speak to me.

So after breakfast at 8am I went back my room where I was going to go back to sleep and try and get rid of this nasty feeling inside me. I got under the covers, put my head on my pillow and guess what, they shut up. How convenient. Wanting to sleep so badly, I put my head down and tried to get there as quickly as possible before the chanting started again. 5 minutes into my attempt it unfortunately started up again, but I had my ear plugs in and maybe because it was during the day, it didn’t seem so loud.

So it’s now Friday afternoon and I didn’t end up going out with Tony after all. Not because I wasn’t feeling any better, because I am a bit, but because he wasn’t back in time as he took a journey out in the morning to Bungoma. Instead I spent most of my afternoon chilling with Dennis, on a bike ride, playing Uno and finish this blog off. I'm just waiting for dinner now and I’m going to wait for a phone call off the folks this evening as I haven’t spoken to them over the phone since I left.

God Bless x