another blog post

I just read Rachel's blog and it's so much better than mine. I was tempted to copy and paste the whole thing..but instead I'll paste the link and if you are REALLY interested it has a lot more detail on exactly what we've been doing...and we have been together 24/7 ..I'm guessing only mum will do this...

www.getjealous.com/rachinkenya

Yesterday was the last day at Alango school. I didn't really expect to feel that sad but the whole day was quite sad but uplifting. The teachers and kids had to do evaluation forms which was good to see what impact we'd had. There were many encouraging comments about our teaching and friendliness and also some bizarre ones about us always being punctual (we were late most days..not always due to me..) One boy complained about the way we walk and Glori's tongue piercing but in general the section on 'things I didn't like about the volunteers' was left blank. Mebo's form was funny..it was designed for teachers so had questions like 'did you plan lessons with the volunteers?' to which she replied 'yes, we planned to make chapatis and mandazis and lessons on washing our clothes. It was exciting'...hmm so much for confidentiality...she said she didn't care anyway. The kingdom kids boys were funny about it...Nice Peter got really stressed out and was like 'Atieno you write it for me! whatever you say, i agree!' and Clay got upset about the section on what he didn't like about us 'I LIKE YOU!!!'

Glori left at midday yesterday. We had a 'last supper' at the school which was nice of the teachers, of ugali and Rachel's favourite- omena! We said bye to all the teachers and kids..we gave certificates for their entries to the 'Writting Competition' for 'Inter-national Literacy Day"....Teacher Fail Rachel...we decided to correct the certificates and highlight our mistake..and certificates to the kids who took part in the Fun Day (this deserves its own entry....the inappropriately named 'fun' day was less fun when we found that Tenteleni had cut its budget entirely this year...it was also organised very last minute..with a venue confirmed 3 days before, bread 2 days and unfortunately we had to fork out ourselves for the kids transport there as it was that or disappoint them. From Alango we had 5 boys do a drama on drug abuse and 2 girls reciting poems and the Kingdom Kids boys sang a Westlife song (lol) and danced...not to the westlife song.) When Florence left at midday (Florence is the most beautiful woman and lovely...although she does like to sit in her office doing dubious amounts of work all day) Rach and I had a bit of a cry. Its been pouring with rain at 3pm every day so we had to wait for the rain to stop then my favourite boda boda man Odema came to pick us up.

This week the boys have been crazy on attention craving...they have literally been dragging us around and its quite exhausting... I guess it's cos they know we're leaving soon...too soon... This weekend we (Rach and I) are going back this afternoon to spend the evening and tomorrow with them and then leaving on Monday morning. We'll meet debbie and go to Narok (6hours away) to visit Collins, one of the Kenyan volunteers who goes to uni there. rom there we'll go to Mombassa and whilst in Mombassa take a trip for a few days to Lamu, some random Island. Then to Nairobi and then home!! hmmm

in other news, I have increased.

Also, safari was amazing!! we saw sooooo many animals... and our guide was cool cos he let me sit on the top of the van even though it was against the rules :) we saw lions having sex!! elephants, giraffe, ostrich, LOTS of wilderbeast, more lions, zebra, baboons, hyenas and lots more... the highlight was when al the animals were gathering to cross the river for their migration and they were all too scared then one crazed wilderbeast crossed from the other side and swam directing into the path of an awaiting CROCODILE!!! The croc proceeded to bite and drown the wilderbeast who was thrashing about but eventually gave in and was dragged away by the croc to its croc friends down the river....it was so epic!

enough for now. I'm going to the craft market to buy things. xxxxxxxxxxx

I can't think of good titles

Hello. So it seems I'm stupidly behind with this blog business and have resorted to writing about random things rather than events as such...never mind. I'm just going to write about what's happening now. It's the ultimate day of the penultimate week of project and I can't believe it's almost over. We haven't had school this week so we've been gallivanting about visiting other people's placements willy nilly... We aren't really supposed to but MEH! On Monday we did some home visits, so driving for hours across beautiful landscapes to visit various boys. We did 2 days of visits last week also. Each one has been so different and interesting. On Monday we visited Felix, who was abandoned by his mother when he was I think 5 and lived with some uncles who mistreated him and so he went to the streets for 8 years. He was reunited with his mother and to his surprise 3 sisters a few months ago and its too good to be true for them all. The family was sooooo nice and funny and we think felix will go back permanently in December. They wanted to slaughter a chicken but as we needed to go they just gave us one, along with some nuts (we had quite a collection that day- nuts, chickens, bananas, pumpkins) .Ismael gets tired after driving so long so I tended to end up driving for the sake of our lives!! (over-dramatic but i have to justify it somehow...he asks me to drive so i say ok is the long and short of it)

On Tuesday we visited the Children's Remand home with Alfred to visit a boy who they are taking back to his family. He wasn't there so we just chatted to Lucy and Maxi. In the afternoon we went to Ebenezer Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre to do an evaluation on Becca and Sammi who work there. The boys there were amazing- so polite, charming and friendly. The kingdom kids boys are just raucous...if they have to pray they are like "bless the food God amen" but the boys at ebenezer were like "shall we pray before our meeting"..lol clearly theyve been well trained and ishmael is too lax!! On Wednesdays we've been going to Agape Outreach- a place where street boys can come and play and then have lunch and needy boys can see the nurse or counselors..its totally awesome there and we know quite a few of the boys and see them on the streets on the weekends. In the afternoon we went to HOVIC- a street boy drop in centre where Will and Johnson work. It was pretty cool. The rest of the day was spend walking about with about 10 of the boys..I should probably get some better shoes - i bought some evil flip flops that hurt my feet..

We went to our housemothers house again on wednesday but i havent even written about the first time we went there ... So now the boys are FINALLY almost all back so last night we had a proper noisy meal and today will be spent with them pottering about and perhaps doing something productive.

I dithered for a few weeks about whether to go on safari and in the end decided i was stupid not to as it was a reasonable price and masaai mara is one of the best places in the world...so tomorrow ill be getting up super early with Rachel and we'll go with 8 of us from the group. I hope it's good and I dont just get annoyed by all the mzungus.... i like being the only white one (with rachel and glori obviously)..we literally never see white people apart from in town maybe one or two and that's quite unsettling- i just feel like 'who are they and why are they here!!??'

Bye xxx