My first two weeks!

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So much has happened in my first two weeks I'm Kenya I don't know where to start!
I arrived in Nairobi exactly two weeks and one day ago now, to see just tent after tent on the tarmac for the international arrivals and immigration! There was a fire a few months ago that took out the arrivals terminal so that made for a bit of a shocking arrival. But I was met by Paul from Projects Abroad and taken with two other volunteers to a guest house in Nairobi with no problems at all. Throughout the night something like seven other volunteers arrived from various different countries and flights, it was great to be with so many other people who had just arrived to share all the new sights with and finally meet those I'd been emailing from home about our upcoming trip! The drive to Nakuru was very interesting, there was a lot of different scenery and took far too many murky, through-the-window photos haha. Arriving in Nakuru we were shown around the main centre of the town, with key things like our matatu station to get home, the hotel with free wifi and a pool we can use and good banks/ATMs. Then after a lot of fiddling around we finally got our money changed and our Kenyan phones set up and were on our way to meet our host family! I don't think I could ask for a better host mum. Priscilla is so nice and welcoming, you know exactly where you stand in the household and although the first week I had quite a few 'how am I going to be away from home this long!!' Moments, I am enjoying living here, the amazing food helps! Then the next day was my first day working at my placement, Ronaken Education Centre. Selma, a Danish girl who I work with, and I were taken to work by Jessica the assistant director, at first I thought I'd never remember the different Matatus I had to take and the winding ten minute walk through the slums of Langa Langa to the school but its almost second nature already! The kids at the school are beautiful, always so excited to see you and fighting to hold your hand! It can be a little hard as they don't have much English, especially in the baby class of around 3-4yr olds. Trying to correct their work in class for example often ends in blank looks and automatic 'yes teacher' answers to everything I say. But it's getting better and better as I remember a few swahili words and come up with creative ways of getting the idea across, I counted out my bobby pins in a line on the floor countless times last maths lesson to demonstrate addition and subtraction! I think I will have to see if I can buy counting blocks anywhere in town, they were a massive help to me in primary school! I'm also thinking of buying some hula hoops, balls and skipping ropes with the money I fundraised back home, the kids have so much energy to expend in the break and only two swings in a dusty compound (which they all line up very sweetly for mind you!) so it'd be great to get some equipment for them to play with. There's only so many times you can play hopscotch or 'spinning around the teacher' ! A shout out to everyone who donated, I will send you all pictures when I buy the kids things, your kindness will make them incredibly happy I'm sure! At the end of my first week I did have my neck pouch with a bit of cash and my camera stolen by a visitor from my bag while at the school which wasn't such a nice start, but it was only my back up everyday type camera with not many photos on it yet, I still have all my most important things and the staff were very supportive which was reassuring 😊 On my first weekend I went on a three day safari to Masai mara national park with other volunteers. I could rave about that for pages it was amazing! We saw wildebeast migrating, elephants only a few metres away, whole families of lions, zebras, leopards, a rhino, vultures, several types of antelope/impala, whole river full of hippos and the most exciting, two lions mating right next to our vehicle!! And visited a Masai village which was very interesting and got some beautiful beaded souvenirs. I have put just a few of the hundreds of photos I took on Facebook already, no amount of photos could ever do it justice though such a beautiful place This weekend I stayed in town with my new roommate Laura from Italy, we went in a world First Aid Day parade with the Red Cross, to church with our host mum (a three hour service all in swahili!) and cooked food from home for our host family. And this coming weekend we have booked a trip to Mombasa with some other volunteers which I'm excited for it is said to be a beautiful city and a very different side to Africa I imagine with all the old Arabic influences. So many different experiences I could write forever! I will have to do this blogging thing much more regularly so they're not so long! Haha.

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