Hello again,
I'm sorry for the absence in writing. I really have no excuse but I hope that I can improve in the future!
I have a lot of news over the past month or so, perhaps I'll separate it out a bit and try to give you a picture of what I've been up to all this time.

19th - 31st April
HOLIDAYS!!

As you've now seen from the pictures I had a little bit of a holiday. Lucy and I met up with Bianca (A volunteer living in Kitui but from Austria) to go off on a Safari to Massai Mara National Park.
In order to get to Narok (where we were meeting Bianca and the rest of the group), we had to take 3 matatus. First from Kiptere to Kericho, Kericho to Bomet and Bomet to Narok. This was all to avoid having to go to Nairobi to meet with the safari company. We made it to Bomet in plenty of time to be changed by the conductor to the next Matatu. Unfortunately they decided to try a little 'take advantage of the white people' plan. They put us in the front of a car that was leaving immediately and we headed out of the bus park. Only to be stopped at the gate by the watchman telling us that we had to get out because the driver was under arrest. We turned round to see 2 policemen, complete with their weapons, waiting to arrest the man. Apparently they had thought that the police wouldn’t cause a stir if there where Muzungus in the car...... Sadly not and the driver did not get to escape!
So we then had to transfer to another vehicle which to start with was actually missing its driver, we waited about 30mins before he appeared and then another 15 mins until the minibus was full. By this time the safari company were calling me to say they had arrived in Narok and were waiting for us. I had no idea how far it was between us and them...it turns out that it's pretty far....about 1hr travelling at over 60km/hr, but we did stop after every 5 mins to either drop someone off or to cram a few more people in. If you've not seen a full Matatu then you probably don't really get the real picture but imagine a youth group minibus designed for 14 passengers...crammed with around 26 people, their luggage and often their chickens too! It's an experience I repeat on many occasions since it's the only way to get to places at a reasonable price...I know those 'grown ups' reading this are wanting to tell me not to travel this way but up country there are not any busses and this really is the only way to travel!
So we arrived about 1hr late to meet the group but were still able to eat a good lunch to prepare for the rest of the journey. The group consisted of the 3 of us ICYE volunteers, an American girl also volunteering, an older guy from Jordan and another older guy from Japan. We drove to the campsite, which was not DofE style at all...the tents had real beds, electricity and a real toilet and shower inside the tent! The 4 of us girls shared, Jordan guy stayed alone and the Japanese guy went off to his luxury lodge inside the national park...to be honest I didn’t really care, we had a toilet and a shower, that was luxury to me!

Since the Japanese guy was leaving the next afternoon it was organised that we would visit the 'Massai Village' that evening. It was located about 5 mins walk from the campsite and not to let my scepticism take over...was strategically placed to cater to the tourists. Anyway, it was nice to see the traditional houses, dances and 6guys attempting to make fire to convince us they don't use matches! We finished the visit at their market place where every family tried to show us that the things they had made were better than any other. There was also a fair bit of convincing to try and tell us that the traditional Massai blankets they had for sale were made there in the village...along with the plastic wrapping they came in too! Ok, I might be a bit unfair here but I think that comes from actually living in Kenya with a 'real' family and not being the usual 'fly in-fly out' tourist. So I'll stop complaining! They showed us some traditional dances and the horn of the Kudu that is blown during celebrations. Since I was the musician among the group obviously I had to try it. First I tried to ask the guy if I blow it like a trumpet or like a recorder, demonstrating each. He said 'Just blow'...not much help there then! I tried it and did make some small noise but not very good. I think with a bit of practice I could master it, maybe I'll find one to bring home!

The next morning we set out on our safari at around 7am. You can see some of the pictures from the trip but we saw very many animals. Impala, Elephant, Gazelle, Giraffe, Hyena, Vulture, Hippo, Wildebeest, Buffalo, other Birds, Cheetah and very many Lions (including those eating a buffalo, two on honeymoon and some resting under a tree). My favourite animal was the elephant. I think it was a real treat to see so many in one day and to even see the occasional calf with its mother too! We spent one final night at the campsite and then headed out for another drive in the park at 6am the next morning to see what other animals we could see before returning to Nairobi.
It was a really nice safari and even though it was only 1 full day we really saw a lot of the animals. The only one we were left searching for was the Rhino but hopefully I will see some before I come home.

We travelled back to Nairobi to decide what to do next. Lucy and I were staying in a hostel while Bianca was able to stay with relatives of her host family. We had dinner together near by the hostel and made plans to visit the ICYE office in the morning. First thing after breakfast Lucy and I headed down to the infamous River Road (one of the not so safe places of Nairobi but actually about 2mins from the hostel) to find a bus to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Our bus company was called Spider and we would soon find out, wasn’t quite up to British standards! The next one was leaving at 11pm that evening so we would reach our destination at around 3pm the next day (apparently!). We went to see Judy in the ICYE office in Westlands and spent an hour or so giving updates about our projects and how things had been going over the last 3months or so. It was really nice to talk to the staff who are looking out for us, in person rather than over the phone or by email. We don’t get much contact with them so it was good to have a real catch up. We left Bianca back in the city centre and found lunch. After a little look around and picking up some supplies for the long bus journey we went to wait back at the hostel. We decided that since the place the bus was picking us up at wasn’t the safest place to walk to at 10pm, we would go to the office at 7pm just before dark and wait there until the bus arrived. This was a surprise to the staff there especially as they probably already knew that the bus wouldn’t arrive until after midnight! I spent the journey sitting next to a rather rounded Tanzanian lady who thought I could speak fluent Kiswahili… fortunately I knew enough words to communicate but most of the time I tried to sleep. About half way there she pushed an envelope at me saying ‘address’, we had hardly spoken the whole time but she still wanted my address… African’s fascination with white people never ceases to amaze me! We reached the border at around 4am and after getting our visas had to wait until 6am when the border reopened for the day. More travelling and we arrived in Dar at around 7:30pm that evening…so much for 3pm then! Luckily one of the guys from the bus found us a safe taxi and we made it to the YMCA very tired but in one piece. After finding breakfast the next morning we decided to look for an ATM to get money and go directly to the ferry to Zanzibar. Dar was a big city a little like Nairobi and neither of us were too concerned with seeing it. Bjorn (from Iceland) and Josh (from USA) had already been on Zanzibar for about 4days and we were going to join them in Nungwi at the very north of the island. We bought tickets from the first office we went into and probably got a terrible deal but at the end of the day it wasn’t too bad once you converted it to £. Kenya has about 115 shillings to the pound and there are 19 Tanzanian shillings to 1 Kenyan shilling. So sometimes the numbers were scary but in reality not so bad. We took the slow ferry there and arranged for the fast one to return. I had read that it could take 6hrs to get there but in the end it took only 3, a real improvement on the usual African time! We then joined with a Zimbabwean young lady who’d been studying in Glasgow to get a better price on a taxi to Nungwi. When we got there we found the Baraka Bungalows that the boys were staying in and discovered that Josh had already left that afternoon and Bjorn was sleeping off a hangover. So we wandered along the beach and around the local village to see what was around. It was a really beautiful place with white sands, crystal clear waters and hardly anyone around. We eventually met with Bjorn and were able to catch up a bit. He’s in a school near Kisumu (about 2hrs from me) but we’d not seen each other since January. Being in a school he gets 3 months off during the year and was certainly taking advantage of this first holiday with plans to head to Namibia to see his Uncle after Zanzibar. We joined the group of friends he’d made while being there, all guys, two Germans, one Canadian and a Swiss guy who had driven with a friend from Switzerland to Namibia after finishing their military service.
That first night we ventured into the local village for supper and managed to find what we came to understand as the national dish…chip omelette! Not bad but not exactly the exciting food I was looking for as a replacement for Ugali from home!

We spent the next 3 days enjoying the sea, sand and the peace and quiet. Avoiding the local skippers who would always come looking for customers ‘you want snorkelling trip…sunset cruise…I have good boat…I give you good price…’ I was able to finally do some reading and just relax. After the food in the village the first night we ate at hotels near the beach for the other nights. The luxury of cheese burger was too much to resist since we don’t often get meat in the village and if we do it’s interesting to say the least! There’s not much to tell from Zanzibar except that it was a really nice break and by the end I did not want to go back to Kiptere (Apart from the millions of biting insects that decided to feast on my legs! – thought I’d get away from things like this but not so lucky!)


We took the fast ferry back to Dar and since there was a storm over the ocean it was a little bouncy… I think ¾ of the boat were seasick that day and it also still took 3hrs so not much improvement there! Then we walked back up to the YMCA. We didn’t know if we would be staying the night as we’d not found a bus back to Nairobi yet, so we took a taxi to the bus station (a task that became difficult since the taxi driver hadn’t really understood where were wanted to go, the traffic was terrible and the rain was making the roads even worse!) eventually we got there and about 30 bus company guys crowded around the car while I tried to negotiate a price for the guy to wait and take us back to YMCA. Since I suspect that he wasn’t even a registered taxi I was not giving in to his demands and eventually won. He waited for us while we conveniently found the Tanzanian office of Spider coaches who let us pay in Kenyan shillings and told us the bus was at 6:30am the next morning. To keep the taxi guy happy I organised that he would pick us up at 5:30am and drop us at the bus. A wise idea I think since it was raining and obviously still dark. So we found supplies for the return journey and got some sleep before the early trip. The journey back went fairly smoothly and since we didn’t have high expectations of arriving at the time they’d told us we were not too bothered when we reached Nairobi at 11:30pm. A couple that we had seen around Zanzibar and Dar, who happened to be on the bus with us, kindly offered to walk us back to the hostel we’d stayed in previously and we headed for sleep!

We had hoped that we could travel back to Kericho the following morning but when we got to the coach station we found that all seats were booked. So after organising to leave the next day we had a whole day to spend in the capital. We visited the tourist shops, the internet café and had some good food knowing that it would be back to Ugali the next day! After one last night at Greton Hotel we took the ‘Easy Coach’ (look I didn’t say matatu mum!) back to Kericho. It was actually really nice to see the tea plantations and to know that we were almost back home. We picked up some shopping for ourselves and for home then made the final journey to Kiptere. Everyone was very pleased to see us back and our host-mum said to me as we were eating supper (ugali and greens!) “I’d missed this, everyone together”. It meant a lot to me that she had missed us and even more that she used the little limited English she has to tell me.

So that’s the story of the holiday. I know that it was an adventure and that on occasions the ‘grown up’ world would tell us that things were not so safe. We were totally fine and there was no need for anyone to worry about us. We had no problems and apart from a thief opening my rucksack at a crowded bus stop and making off with my pen knife (He left my toothbrush!) everything was really good.

Now I’ve written a lot and my laptop battery is not going to last much longer. Once again I’m at the Tea Hotel for my weekly visit. There are lots of things from the past month since the holiday that I will write about next week when I can and then hopefully we’ll be all up to date!

I guess one major last thing to tell you all is that Lucy has now gone back to England. Her 3 month stay in Kenya was over and she left on the 15th May. It’s really strange being the only Muzungu in the village and especially as we spent basically every waking moment together over those 3 months, things are very different now. We all miss her at home and I no longer have my One Tree Hill partner for the lunch times. But we’re getting on ok and just as Kenya went on before she came, we will continue now she’s back at home. She’s a very determined young lady and it was a pleasure to get to know her over the time she was here. Now she’s going off to study English Lit at Reading University and I am certain that she’s going to do great things! Just as the footballers learned at the COWART Cup in April… Don’t mess with Lucy Millgate!
Good luck in everything Lucy and I look forward to whatever you can smuggle through the post!

I’ll leave things there for today since this is probably the longest post yet! I’d appreciate to hear from anyone who’s reading this if you have the time to write back. I’ve also sent quite a bit of post out to lots of people so if you’ve not received something yet, look out it could be on the way! Kongoi (thank you and goodbye for now)