Maasailand

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Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long gap between updates, but that is because where we are staying really is in the middle of nowhere! Today to get to the nearest town where I am now, I had to ride on a matatu for 1.5 hours (these matatus are very small open backed pick up trucks with about 30 maasai's piled in and the equivalent number of goats/cows usually sitting on top and then a few maasais riding on the roof too) I was lucky this morning, I took the 6am matatu so there wasnt any goats. These things regularly break down too - on saturday a huge piece of the exhaust fell off randomly, so everyone got off and helped to stick it back on.

We are teaching in Saikeri primary school - so for everyone who attempted to look up Kimuka on the internet, sorry - we aren't staying there any more! Saikeri is a lovely village, and our host family are so welcoming. We are staying with a nurse, Maggie, who runs the only health clinic in the area, and her boyfriend Simon and their daughter Meris. There are also many other random Maasai's who regularly appear in the house who are very kind although they don't understand a word I say!

We started teaching on Wednesday, at the moment I am teaching Year 5 Science, Year 6 Science and Year 6 English. David is teaching Year 7 Science and Year 5 Maths. He is really enjoying teaching the Year 5s, but he says that the Year 7s are like moody teenagers...! I adore my Year 6 class, they can be quite lively but they work hard and the lessons are fun. The school is very basic though, no electricity and sometimes no paper or pens so you have to use your imagination to teach with very few resources!

A quick note - teaching is very very hard!!! I now fully support the idea that teachers should be paid more.

I am getting used to the distinct lack of showering and washing - and the food is actually lovely, we are eating lots of chapatis and ugali and rice and beans and vegetables - its very good.

You may be wondering why I am sitting in an internet cafe 20km away from my school on a Monday morning - I will enlighten you. We always knew things would go wrong on this trip, and crisis number 1 has occured, but its okay, I am handling it.

On Tuesday we booked a safari for a few weekends time, and went to a Barclays ATM to get out 30,000 kenyan schillings to pay for it. This is about equivalent to 300 british pounds. So the ATM sits for ages then gives me this receipt saying "your account will be reimbursed" - basically, the ATM had deducted 30,000 kenyan schillings from my account, then realised it didn't have enough money to pay out, so it gave me NO MONEY!! I tried again, and yes - my account had been cleared. A security guard at the ATM said that the money should go back into my account in 1 hour - it didn't. A kenyan called Mike from our volunteering organisation drove me to 2 banks. One bank said it should be back within 1 day, the other bank promised it would be back in 2 days, because my account is not a Kenyan bank account.

In the meantime, our volunteering organisation paid for my safari for me, believing that I could pay them back in 2 days - but I went into Nairobi to pay them back on Saturday, and my account was still empty. So today its Monday, almost a week later, and my account is still empty.

The most USELESS person I spoke to was when I called Barclays UK headquarters - the woman says "Oh, we can do nothing, contact your own bank and they must request it from us" I was speechless - I'm in Kenya, I owe a lot of money to a charity, and this woman tells me to start an inter-bank process which could take ages.

Sorry for the large rant! I am now on my way to Barclays to make some demands!

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