I am very sorry for the very long delay in the updates! I have been incredibly busy with the upcoming exams. I have now basically finished teaching. Friday (yesterday) was the last day of school for class 8, and we all cried. Over the year they have bonded so closely with me, I was completely filled with nostalgia that now it was all over. They excelled in their last practice exam, so I was so proud of them and so proud of myself - I could not believe that I managed to teach them and they are now going confidently to [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! We have been without water for about 1 month, it has been insane. Now finally, after 1 month of "it will be fixed tomorrow", tomorrow actually came and our well was fixed! I am now so happy because of that. So school continues, we have 6 weeks until exams! I will be pleased when the exams are over, for several reasons - but I am going to miss my students so much. Now I am together with them 7 days a week, and for a group of 16-20 year olds they are remarkably good company. Today I discussed Iraq [View Full Entry]

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I have been very busy organising 2 weeks of tuition classes for the older students during the holidays - something that was very tiring teaching about 3 hours non-stop every day! But it went well and was very rewarding to hear some of the students saying it was one of the best tuitions ever. On the last day, Friday, we got someone to bake mandazi (fried pastries) for all of the students who were there, which was great fun and they all went home very happy. We have 1 week left of holiday now before school starts again. On Saturday we [View Full Entry]

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Hello and I am back in Saikeri after a very nice holiday to Mombasa for 5 days with my parents and sister! They arrived and visited Saikeri, saw the closing ceremony at school and then we travelled to the coast. It was very relaxing but now I am back in Saikeri, I'm back teaching, the well has broken so we have no water, all 3 pick-up trucks are broken so no one can travel to Ngong, and there is the onset of another drought and famine in Kenya. However, I am still having a great time, absolutely loving it and am [View Full Entry]

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Here are some photos for the last month or so in Kenya [View Full Entry]

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I apologise again for the very long absence in update. We have had an extremely busy few weeks. Our host mother, Maggie, is setting up an organisation to help send students from Saikeri to secondary school - we have been helping with websites and powerpoint presentations. Basic idea is a central bank fund where fees can be paid using Paypal, because that is what people internationally trust, and then paid to the school - and to withdraw money from the fund to pay to the schools, 3 signatories are required so there are 3 witnesses for the school fees being paid. [View Full Entry]

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Greetings from Kenya! These past few weeks have been very very eventful. It seems to be football season in school, so there has been not so much school and a lot of travelling all over Maasailand to various other schools to compete. And here, believe me, football is taken VERY seriously - a whole day of school will be cancelled for just one game! It means I am seriously behind with my classes now, and there will have to be a lot of catching up when this is all finally over! It has been a lot of fun however - because [View Full Entry]

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It is very hot here in Kenya today! We currently have an absolute overload of other volunteers, due to it being the month of the American holidays starting. I feel like I am very reluctantly becoming educated on every aspect of the American culture by very willing teachers - these teachers are usually absolutely shocked at how much T.V. I haven't watched, how many brands of sweets ("candy") I don't know about, how many ("totally") famous people I haven't heard of - I think the general opinion is that I have been in Maasailand too long. Anyway, aside from my slight [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone, and I'm so sorry for the huge absence in updates on this blog. Several things have happened since about 2 weeks ago, which I will update you on now... On Saturday I took my friend John back to the hospital, to check his knee and he had to have a huge amount of fluid removed from it with nothing but several large needles, no anaesthetic or anything they just stuck the biggest needle ever into his leg and took it all out! So then on Saturday afternoon I was meaning to write an update and include pictures of the [View Full Entry]

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Hello, This is a very very quick update, since this has been a fairly insane week. Actually everytime I write in this blog I seem to be reporting on another crazy week, but this one was definitely an exception! Thank you so much to everyone who donated money for the food. On Friday I took all the donations we had so far and bought 720kg maize, 450kg beans and 60 litres of cooking fat, which was absolutely great. Today I have just received a few last donations so I am going to buy 150kg of rice with these. We buy maize [View Full Entry]

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