31st August

Today was our last day. Over the last week we have received a few goodbye letters from the older children so we decided to write a few of our own to the children we have grown closest to. There were no lessons today so we strolled in a bit later than usual. The children were waiting to pounce and we were surrounded by one group or another for the whole day. Hannah played with two little girls Gami and Faith for most of the morning while Grace sang with the older students to her iPod. They found some of the English songs quite funny. Everyone who we wrote to was very pleased to get a letter and proudly kept them safe in their clothes. It was cute to see the older ones translate the younger ones letters to them.

After lunch the ritual goodbye assembly was held for us. They sang a song and then the Headteacher, Gladys, asked us to say a few words. After holding it together for so long, the tears started to well and our throats choked up. Then Gladys asked if any pupils would like to come forward and say a little something to us. Rachel (5), a favourite from Grace's class, thanked her for playing with her and said she would miss her. Faith (4), Hannah's favourite little girl, followed that asking Hannah to please come back. This was enough for both of us to break down and hysterically cry. Gladys ended the assembly and we were swarmed by students to hug us. It was very touching and emotional at how much we have obviously impacted in the month we've been here. Talking afterwards we agreed that even after catching tuktuks, battling turkeys, adjusting to the culture shock and controlling lessons despite a language barrier, this was without a doubt the hardest thing we have had to do; saying goodbye.

30th August

Dinner last night was eventful. After leaving the house in the morning and witnessing the cook walking round the back of the house with a live chicken and a knife, Nat worried the whole day about which meal it was going to be served. It turned up in a casserole; wings, legs and all. This spurred on a lengthy discussion on the slaughter of animals. Collins proudly explained how he'd killed a cow and his friend Austin continued after him with the eternal line "a cow is easy but a goat...". He seemed to take great pleasure in disgusting Nat with the fact that you need 3 people and the technicalities of the event. Frankly we found it quite interesting and more amusing than gross.

Today we held The Walk Centre Mini Olympics. We split the school into age-defined groups who were dubbed teams and they chose animal names; Elephants (baby class), Giraffes (lower middle), Lions (upper middle) and Zebras (top class). The day started with an opening ceremony in which the 4 teams paraded around the yard mimicking their team animal. Hannah organised the 200m race and Grace organised the long jump. Nat did the shot put and Ariel, due to the lack of doable events, held a dance aerobics session for the team not doing an event. The day was a massive success, we had so much fun and the teachers kept telling us all day how happy the children were as the pupils kept informing them.
Just before lunch we held a prizegiving ceremony. Each team had a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for each event. 3rd place won some stickers, 2nd won some balloons and 1st won a couple of pencils.

Today was also the day we gave them bananas with their lunch as a leaving present as well as a goody bag each to take home after lunch. As before, with Penny, Helen and Chris, it was heartwarming to see the children so excited and grateful for their simple gifts, but this time it was all the more enjoyable knowing that we had provided these gifts with our own money.

The children sang for Nat as she leaves tomorrow, but it really hit home that tomorrow it will be us.

29th August

This week we made flags with our respective classes, it was the first time since coming here that we've seen the kids do anything arts and craftsy. They all loved it because of the many uses they could find for the straws. They were used to consume porridge and as an instrument as well as supporting the flags.

We are worried for the well-being of our American friend Ariel after our departure as she always seems to get taken advantage of at the market. On her first trip she was pressured into buying 5 pairs of earrings, a set of coasters, a wooden elephant and a bowl; we reached her just in time to stop her buying a pair of salad tongs and a wooden zebra. On our most recent visit she bought 11 bracelets, 2 plates and 3 soapstone hearts, luckily she ran out of money!
We were caught in a thunderstorm which provided the opportunity for Ariel to showcase another one of her talents: stopping traffic. Whilst running to the supermarket with Ariel in the lead, she chose to cross the busy road with her American confidence and the bold statement "you just gotta go!". Halfway across she lost her flip-flop and caused a standstill from both directions as she fannied around trying to slide it back on her foot. Thanks to Ariel we could now safely cross the road.

We've spent the evening preparing goody bags for The Walk pupils as a leaving present for our last day on Friday. The little bags each contain 3 biscuits, 3 sweets and a selection of stickers. Fred is also buying a load of bananas to hand out one with each child's lunch.

26th August

Today we were tricked into a very long church service under the pretense that it was Fred's wedding. Fred told us that his wedding was from 11 until 2 so we were surprised when we were dragged out of bed at 8:30. We were expecting a lie-in. We arrived at the church at 9:30 and the grueling 4 and a half hours started. We escaped at the first possible opportunity, followed quickly by another volunteer group who were thinking exactly the same as us. This Sunday we will be helping Ariel with the Sunday School instead of attending the service.

This is a picture of Fred and his now official wife Celine.

25th August

3 weeks into our trip, it's finally safari time! Nat had prepaid for a double trip to Lake Nakuru National Park and Thompson Falls (one of the largest water falls in Africa), but we'd only organised the former with Fred - luckily Alex offered us to join Nat for the latter half of the day for free!
A nasty 7 o'clock start meant we arrived at the park just after sunrise with our driver Francis. The minivan roof opened up to allow standing space which often gave a better view of animals and better photograph opportunities. As Francis left us parked up to pay our entrance fees, we were surrounded by baboons, some of which carried babies on their backs or clinging to their underbelly. Noticing that Francis had left the front windows open, we talked ourselves into the possibility of an attack and decided that the best plan of action was to sit silently still so as not to attract the unwanted attention.
We now believe Francis to be a relative of Fred's, after spotting a three-legged baboon and asking him how that could have occurred. He replied "that baboon is injured". Groundbreaking logic.

Lake Nakuru contains over 1200 species of birds and so is famous for its bird watching; a fact of which Grace's dad would not let her forget. Perhaps we shouldn't have mentioned John's obsession to Francis though as he then stopped the van for every single bird we saw.

At the viewpoint we took some breathtaking pictures of the park which looked like a scene from the Lion King, before being rudely interrupted by a baboon who was casually sat on a nearby bench and chose that moment to relocate causing Nat to run away and Hannah to nearly fall over a rock from fear (it was almost as traumatic as Grace's turkey incident). As we were having a photo taken on Hannah's camera, we became the newest attraction for the Chinese tourist, who lined up with their big-ass cameras to take photo's of us.

We were lucky enough to see every animal that lives in Lake Nakuru National Park, from giraffes to (very rarely spotted) lions at close range. We even got a Beatle-stlye photo of two rhinos crossing the road in front of us.

Towards the end of the trip we were surprised to come across one baboon orally pleasuring another one, just next to our car window. Turns out the trip wasn't as PG-rated as we'd expected.

On our way to Thompson Falls we had a near death experience. Francis chose to ignore the dip in the road and so we went over it at full speed causing us to get some serious air-time (and injuries in Grace's case).
Having brought some chocolate along for the ride, Nat and Grace were both very disappointed to discover that it had melted within 10 minutes due to the extreme heat. Grace later stood on one bar causing a chocolate explosion and apologised to Nat before realising that she had just waste 149 shillings of her own money.

On our way to Thompson Falls we crossed the Equator.

Moving on...
Thompson Falls was as exciting as one could expect. While innocently admiring the view we were pounced on by two women and led to their stalls. All three of us were skint and irritable from the long trip and so were not in the mood for haggling or spending any money. However after expressing brief interest in a banana leaf picture Nat was harassed into the shop and effectively bullied out of buying anything (she refused to be forced). The attitudes of these sellers were a world away from the cooperative stall owners we've befriended at the market.

We left ASAP and once home enjoyed the comfort of Disney film Finding Nemo, which Ariel had brought with her. It was an easy way to end an exhausting day!

24th August

We went back to the slum this afternoon with Natalie and Fred so that he could show her around. As we were walking we noticed that some parts felt very empty and soon realised that it was because some of the houses had been destroyed by the rain. Whilst we were trapped inside by the torrential rain, the people in the slum were trapped outside.Recognising the faces of some of the children playing in the dumpsite made it hit home to us that the children we teach at school really do live in these conditions.

In the evening all the volunteers went out for a meal. We were the only Mzungu's in the restaurant and so when Nat and Grace went to choose their cake all eyes were focused on them. Of course Fred was 30 minutes late both taking us to the restaurant and picking us up, and we even specified Mzungu time to him!

22nd August

Not much to say as we're very comfortable now with the routine that we have here in Kenya. Our evening entertainment is usually provided by Peace and Emmanuel, for example last night they played musical statues using our iPhone which led into Grace teaching them an interpretive dance to 'Circle of Life'. We have high hopes for Emmanuel's future in the Royal School of Ballet. Although spacial awareness is an issue, his use of the floor space was breath-taking.

Hannah has sunburnt her toes and is now having to wear plasters on each one to school. Loser. Grace is concerned that she has sunburnt her lips so expect a trout pout on return.

Today was our first full day of teaching the children ourselves. Having planned the lessons via visual mind maps we were skeptical as to how they would play out but we have had a great day! We're also happy to have kept some of their work. Hannah has some very interesting 'faces' and Grace has pages of abstract animals and one purely covered in the number '2'.

After having just gotten over her battle with the cows, Grace experienced an even more traumatic confrontation with yet another farm animal; turkeys. As we made our way from Alex's to school, Natalie and Hannah walked around one side of a mud puddle and Grace the other side. Sensing her fear and honing in on her lonely status at the far side of the mud puddle, the turkeys made a break for her. Screaming and protecting herself with her handbag (thanks Dad) Grace ran back to the crowd of motorbikes and their amused drivers. One was kind enough to distract the turkeys long enough for Grace to escape to the Hannah and Nat who were in hysterics. Now everytime we take that route to school, Grace is on red alert.