Desks and books

We have bought 5 desks and 5 chairs for a new classroom.  "You never pay the price they ask", Rose was persuasive and convincing on her negotiation; "I only have this amount of money from the sponsers (us!) so to pay the extra I'll need to use the cabbage money". Needless to say Rose got them for the price she wanted and they will be delivered tomorrow.  We then went onto buy 2 boxes of exercise books and several boxes of chalk.

Maasai Rafiki child project

Rose and Muhoro have a partnership woth a local Maasai tribe to promote and develop education for children in that tribe.  Yesterday we met the children and their homes.  The Maasai men may have many wives and each will build a separate house for her and her children.  Males aged 18 to 28 are the protectors of the community after this time they are allowed to marry.  Men also draw and paint original art to sell to raise money for the project.  All the women and men wore traditional clothes - they certainly like bright colours and jewellery.

Happy Birthday Esther and Wangari

Birthdays yesterday and today and both are 20.  Wangari is Rose's daughter and Esther is her adopted daughter from the orphanage.  The typical African gathering of 20 plus people filled the sitting room as we all shared vegetable cassarole, samosas, cabbage salad and roast potatoes!

Kangaita

Kangaita - Visiting the children at home.  Many of the children live in a slum called Kangaita next to the quarry where many of their parents work (and the children when they are not at school).  A pretty setting by the river, a series of mud and stick homes reminds you of the middle ages in England.  We talked to the families, visited homes, climbed the muddy paths alongside sheep and cows.  Although in poverty and naturally would like 'something more', they are grateful for "two rooms in the house instead of one".

Kitting out for school

The funds we have raised will provide school uniforms for all 70 children.  For this we visited the materials shop to measure out the fabric for the shirts, trousers (this includes zips, buttons and elastic), we will then pay a local tailor to make these.  Next is school jumpers in red from a store that sells everything from mattresses to thermos flasks to clocks to potties!
The bag of jumpers was the size of a person and a perfect fit for the boot...except where is the key?!  A car full of people, a boot full of air we strapped our bundle somewhere!  We had to stop several times on the way home to retrieve escapee jumpers from the road!

Tuesday - The Lion King

The children turned up nice and early again. Natasha attempted to teach the recorder and lots of recorders and similar things to blow were handed out to the children - so lots of noise rang around the garden. Lorraine and Alex did a hair and make-up session with the girls and Cameron helped the children with origami whilst Harry did some drawing.
Kevin taught some karate and managed to teach Simba, a kata. Abi and I went to the bank and then started to spend some of the the fundraising money - 50kg maize, 50kg rice, sugar, salt and oil. Vegetables we brought from a market - 20 cabbages cost 200 shillings (approx £1.60). Back at Rose's lunch was prepared.

Abi decided to roll out paper across the garden and allowed the children to put their hands and feet into paint and then onto the paper - what a mess! But what fun! I continued with the letter writing once I had cleaned the children. We made chapatis for dinner while Harry and Cameron chopped wood for the fire.

We ended the evening watching The Lion King :)

Monday - Garden party

Monday's blog. Yesterday was our day of rest so we decided to take the opportunity to see Africa's animals and went on a safari. We had a brilliant day seeing lions, cheetahs, elephants, zebras and giraffes. When we arrived home, Harry was there having completed his Mount Kenya climb in 4 days - what an amazing achievement.
Today Rose's garden was turned into a school as the Kenyan Government have

put a ban on schools running in holiday time. The usual activities took place and then all but Kevin and I went to visit a local charity run pottery place and made some pots. Kevin carried on entertaining the children while I picked, washed and prepared vegetable for their lunch. Unfortunately another storm arrived and so all the children had to shelter in the greenhouse (not glass and very large). After lunch I had 10 of the children write letters to their penfriends. Lorraine, Alex, Cameron and Natasha went to get some shopping. Cameron even managed to continue his love of afternoon naps in the supermarket when he found a sofa! The first car arrived to take some of the younger children home and after a while I went to check the greenhouse and discovered 26 children still there as the driver had not returned!

We had a blocked toilet in the evening caused by the children (some of whom had never used a western toilet) all wanting to use it during the day - even if they didn't need it! With the toilet blocked we had to use the garden; Natasha shrieked when she found out but her and Lorraine went off to go only to find on returning that the toilet had been fixed and nobody had told them!

Day 7 - A quick update

Tragically 8 children died in a fire at a school in Kenya today and as a result the Government have banned children from attending school during the school holidays.  So tomorrow all the children at Rose's school will be coming to her garden instead as it is important they are fed.

Harry is back after his mountain climb and he made it in 4 days instead of the usual 5 - what an achievement.  People can still sponser him, any money raised will help so much.

Saturday - Flintstones!

After cooking Rose and family a full English breakfast, with most of us in the kitchen - talk about too many cooks...! We all set off to the quarry.  As it is Saturday the children also work in the quarry.  We came across quite a few of the school children - Daniel, Beatrice, Rebecca, Nancy (the children start here young as Rebecca and Nancy are only 5!) and the whole family are involved.  They get paid for what they sell so it's a matter of all hands on deck.  1 tonne fetches 700 shillings (approx £6) and probably takes a week to get.  Women on their own have a hard job as they can't get to the lorries as quick; the men often buy it from them cheaper and sell it on for more, unfortunately the women don't have much of a choice but to do this.

Lorraine, Natasha and Alex all had a go at bashing the rocks.  Cameron got stuck in with actually extracting the rock from the quarry wall.  All this work is done by hand and they work all day and every day.  One old lady sitting breaking the rocks was over 70 years old!  We met a penfriend for Alex - Mary who is Nancy's sister and they had a chat as they strolled through the quarry.

After this we went to CEDC (orphanage) and on arrival we found some of them making chapatis.  Lorraine, Natasha and Abi ran a makeup session with the girls and Cameron played football.  Another raging storm arrived late afternoon - we had torrential rain which lasted a couple of minutes but the thunder remained.  Harry has texted to let us know he is still going strong and he will reach the top tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise.

Friday - Monkey antics

No kids today - just monkeys!

With the school closed we took a trip to the local animal orphanage.  It's a wonderful place for housing orphan, sick, injured and rare animals.  The animals are not here permanently , they are re-introduced to their natural habitat when fit and healthy.  Residents include cheetahs, crested crane, bongo, warthog, ostrich, pygmy hippos and different species of monkeys.

 A few special guests, the first is a 150 year old tortoise with whom we all took turns to clamber on his back and ride him - I don't think he even noticed us on him!  The other is a rare 35 year old Zebroid which is a half Zebra, half horse.  The monkeys, of course, are always entertaining and this was no exception.  We had to impersonate a tree with arms outstretched holding corn, the monkeys then leapt on us.  One climbed onto my rucksack and managed to eat the feet off my camel hanging on the back.  Hysterical screaming came from the girls, though Alex, not keen on monkeys made friends with a baby buffalo.  The colobus monkey which sat on Lorraine's head matched her hair - we weren't sure where the monkey's hair ended and Lorraine's began!

The late afternoon bought yet another storm this time with torrential rain.  No news from Harry, we were warned that he would have no signal - if he's lucky he might get some on his third day of climbing.

We have all been enjoying Rose's cooking - she works wonders with a cabbage and the avocado salad is exceptional!

Day 4 - Beginning the mountain challenge

Rucksack packed and Harry is ready to climb Mount Kenya.  We then walked to school and Nicholas, Harry's guide, arrived.  He had a great send off as all the children gathered round and clapped.  We all waved as he disappeared down the road.

Activities continued in the school - lunch preparation, games including making friendship bracelets, badmington, ball games and drawing.  I recieved a text from Harry just as a storm arrived bringing lots of rain, it said 'We've reached Camp Moses which is where we shall be staying the night, bit lonely tho, writing and taking pics of the wildlife around'.  A later text read, 'wet and freezing! wish I had gloves.  Tomorrow is set to be a long walk although we will be seeing some rare plants and some valleys and the river that goes past Rose's house starts here'.

Unfortunately most of our phones are not working and internet is very touch and go so if any parents are wondering why they haven't heard from their offspring that's the reason and they are still all alive and kicking!

Day 3 - Cows to kids

Everyone was up bright and breezy this morning despite Lorraine falling out of her top bunk!  Rose had been teasing us about milking cows so Lorraine and Natasha disappeared in the direction of the cows followed closely by Alex.  Great entertainment was had by all as they proceeded to milk and proved that all are great milk maids.  Natasha is a complete natural, and Alex and Lorraine did a great job; Abi decided she didn't like cows udders as they are soft and squishy and the boys (other than Kevin who had a go) kept their distance preferring to spectate from outside the pen.

Arriving at the school we were set to work with the children, each disappeared into a classroom except Cameron who remained outside to organise a game of rounders.  Alex had all of her children drawing pictures of 'Queen Rose' as we have renamed her and the children managed to convince her to dress up in a school uniform.

Lorraine and Natasha had their group doing some colouring, Harry was teaching magic and Kevin was teaching them how not to play cards!
There was a lot of laughter coming from Abi's classroom and on investigation we discovered they all had their arms covered in wet slimy cornflour!

I was on cooking duty and admired the new cooker that we bought last year with some of the money raised.  The children had ugi mid morning and rice and cabbage for lunch.

We walked to an orphanage I hadn't been to before - this one had babies.  Some of them had been abandoned at birth and we all found this a very emotional experience.  I held a 4 month old baby in my arms who had been abandoned and found it very hard to put her in her cot especially as she began to cry and hold onto my top, I found this very hard and Alex became very upset and tearful leaving one of the babies as well.

The orphanage also has a farm and is fairly self sufficient but does need the water tank fixing as it leaks.  Harry is very keen to use money from his Mount Kenya climb fund to do this.

We then visited the orphanage I am familiar with and it was great that the children were pleased to see me a third time.  We spent a pleasant couple of hours getting to know the children.  Harry was soon weight training with the homemade weights.  A long trip home ensured everyone was tired especially Cameron as he once again fell asleep in the armchair.  It's strange because despite being very hot during the day we have an open fire in the evening.

Day 2: to the centre of the earth

We spent the morning at the school and as soon as we walked through the gates the children came rushing over to greet us with hugs and high fives.  They entertained us with singing before Harry and Cameron played football until they were too hot and exhausted to continue.  Abi played clapping games whilst Alex organised skipping and Natasha had her hair dismantled and then rearranged.

Lorraines bubbles casued great excitment for the children with them squeeling in delight.  Kevin spent most of the time taking photos of the children which they immediately wanted to see.  Rose and I disappeared to the shop to get food for the children and after they had been fed they attempted to teach Harry Swahili (he is now practically fluent!).

The younger children were then collected and taken to their slum...24 children in one car! 

We then all took a walk along a very hot and dusty road to the equator where we were shown the water going clockwise or anti clockwise depending on which hemisphere we were standing in!  On our return route we stopped in to see Rose's daughter Watare having her hair braided.  Lorraine now on home territory in hair salons joined in - Watch out Apollo she might get a job here!

In the evening Rose needed to go and pick Aloe Vera from the garden to soothe the burnt skin of the gang (I did warn them to use lotion), Cameron's arms, neck and face needed attention, poor Alex had to use Aloe Vera everywhere and Abi said Harry looked like a shiny tomato!

Karibu - Kenya!

Rose met us at the airport and it was so wonderful to see her again.  I introduced her to everyone and then we made our way to the waiting matatu.  Loading up the 17 suitcases we have got between us was no easy task but we eventually got on our way.  The journey from Nairobi to Nanyuki took nearly 5 hours due to several fruit stops on the way.  One of the stops caused Abi to screech from the back as the matatu became surrounded by hopeful vendors trying to sell us bananas as arms thrust through the windows waving their bunches at us!

Then the heavens opened meaning another stop to purchase a large amount of plastic to cover the roof where most of our luggage was.

Finally we arrived and once unloaded, Rose led Harry and Cameron to a shed at the bottom of the garden convincing them that this was their accommodation  - their faces were a picture but they took it very well!

On our way

Everyone is all accounted for in their Club Rafiki t-shirts at the airport and waiting to board our plane to Nairobi.  Rose and the van are already waiting for us to arrive and whisk us (200km down bumpy roads) to Nanyuki and our home for the next two weeks.

Nanyuki is situated on the equator and is in the shadow of Mount Kenya which Harry is planning to climb to raise additional money for the school and the orphanage we are visiting.

Please check back regularly to see updates of what we are getting up to.

Thanks for all of the support so far. :)

Getting ready

We are taking an enormous amount of luggage with us this year, although nearly all of it is stuff that people have so kindly donated to take to the children.  We have Christmas presents for the Club Rafiki children and clothes, books, school equipment and toys galore!  I have just about managed to squeeze a few clothes in for me as well.

We still have a few days before we head off and so if anyone has any last minute things for us to take please contact me.  We would especially like to take recorders with us this year if anybody has one not being used.

Please keep checking the blog whilst we away for updates on what we are doing.

Returning to Kenya