Blogs from Nairobi, Nairobi Province, Kenya, Africa

Sleeping through the afternoon yesterday meant that I couldn't sleep at night, so I gave up trying and settled for one of the rubbish magazines that I had bought to read on the plane. As I sorted through the magazines, I found a Virgin Atlantic safety card tucked in amongst them. I'd obviously picked it up by mistake whilst clearing out my seat pocket on the plane. Initially I felt guilty to have deprived Virgin, but only for three seconds, because I'd actually spent about half an hour before take off trying to take photos of the funny pictures on the safety card. My favourites are the child with a ridiculously long head (the elasticated band of the oxygen mask would never go over it), a man with a 60s mullet wearing purple sunglasses with an ... read more

Anyone that knows me well knows that peeling potatoes, or anything else that has to do with cooking is not my cup of tea. The only thing I love more than eating food is eating food that someone else prepared. However, there are some potatoes that I would love to peel. They are potatoes that came from the ground of Pastor Stanley's house for the children of Spring Valley Academy. The Giving Garden shifted from our place to his when we moved from Kenya and ITHM was able to help Pastor Stanley get his 3 acres of land tilled and planted. Now they are harvesting a crop for the kids. A seed put into fertile ground, sprouts, grows and comes out giving life. Spring Valley Academy is putting seeds in the hearts of 350 children daily. ... read more

Yesterday I did a tour through Kibera, the second biggest urban slum in Africa (second to Soweto in South Africa). Kibera is about 2.5 square kilometres in size, and estimates of the population range from about 200,000 to 1 million. People from all of the Kenyan ethnic groups reside in Kibera, and there is a high percentage of Muslim and Christian devotees within the community. The houses in Kibera are pretty much the same as the mud houses that we build in the village, although they are smaller and more closely packed. Unfortunately, the same number of people, if not more live here, so it's usually anywhere up to 10 people being packed into a house not much bigger than a 2 toilet cubicles. There are no rubbish collection schemes, nor any rubbish bins anywhere, so ... read more

Hi all, So here I am on my second expedition to Kenya to work with World Youth International (not counting, of course, the fact that it's technically my third time here due to the infamous Cairo/England fiasco). This time I'm the assistant team leader for a group of volunteers who have come here to build some eco-toilets in the village of Odede, and also to build some more mud huts for people who desperately need it, as well as a free medical clinic to many people within the village. I arrived in Kenya yesterday at 1.15pm and spent the rest of the day with my good friend Victor and his lovely (and gorgeous) girlfriend, Jane. Can I just take a moment here to highlight the utter discomfort and annoyance of being squashed in a plane in ... read more

We hope you have a very Happy Christmas and we wish you all the very best for 2012! We enjoyed a week at the beach before Christmas, with some friends. It was lovely being at Tiwi Beach again, by far my favourite Kenyan beach so far. Although the scorpions and other creepy crawlies tried to ruin our holiday. I really am a beach person, and loved watching the kids enjoying the beach and watching their swimming progress. Charlotte is now trying to swim unaided and is not worried about water splashing on her face (big improvement there), and Hayley is swimming with arm bands by herself. It is probably not where their swimming should be, but we find Nairobi too cold to swim, so this week at the coast was some precious swim time. We had ... read more