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