http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Emma-and-David/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Emma and David en-us Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:14:44 +0000 Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:14:44 +0000 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 pro http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/blog-451313.html 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 wit http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/blog-439874.html 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 nonstop 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 t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/blog-432569.html 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 pickup trucks are broken so no one can travel to Ngong and there is t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/blog-430165.html Here are some photos for the last month or so in Kenya http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/blog-424562.html 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 t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/blog-419454.html Greetings from KenyaThese 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/blog-410390.html 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' http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/blog-405797.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-403529.html HelloThis 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 abs http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-399363.html So now we are back at school back to being a teacher again...This week was quite stressful I will give you a brief summaryMonday I go to school at 8am only to find about 50 students and 0 teachers. By 9am this number has gone up to 60 students and 2 teachers. By 11am this number remains at 60 out of 400 students and 3 out of 10 teachers. I then decide that the 60 students who have turned up s http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Gambia/blog-398050.html It has been a very busy week again So we had more drama with our visas finally managed to get an extension for another 3 months. Then we came back to Saikeri and on Monday the tuition was supposed to start. So on Monday morning I went to school met children but zero teachers So I walked to the house of one of the best teachers and she came with me to school but said she was unable to help in http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-393664.html We are in a bit of a hurry this time so I will just send you some photos of Zanzibar and Samburu which was absolutely fantastic http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-391217.html We have had another absolutely crazy week since I last updated this blog On Sunday I went to sleep in the manyatta of my friend Senewa which was great fun the bed is hardened mud and sticks with a cow skin over the top and many people go into one bed. I hardly slept the whole night woke up on Monday morning at 5 to walk 1 hour to school with everyone. On Monday Tuesday and Wednesday we were http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/East/Dar-es-Salaam/blog-387510.html We are again very very busy this week For the past 2 days there has been exams at the school and supervising exams is the most boring thing ever. There is so much marking to do but I'm fairly pleased because most of my students seem to have got semigood marks. One class in particular had a horrendous exam where the question paper had about 10 mistakes and the questions were completely irreleva http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-385445.html This update may be quite short because we are very very tired Last night four volunteers left so we went out into Nairobi and ended up having very little sleep. So now it is just me David and the other volunteer Carol left plus our host family. This week has been very very hectic as always I think When I last updated the blog I think I and another volunteer Caitriona were in the process of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-383592.html HelloSo this is the latest update from Maasailand and a lot has happened. We have 4 new volunteers who arrived 2 weeks ago and are staying for another week there are 2 teachers and 2 nurses so there are now 7 volunteers in total including me and David and a Kenyan girl called Carol who has been volunteering there for almost 5 months. The classes are continuing fine I seem to almost have acqu http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/blog-381563.html I have finally managed to get Travelblog to work again after a delay of about 2 weeks when all of their servers were down I was very annoyedHere is an entry I wrote about 1 week ago and planned to postThe safari was absolutely excellent we had a great time. Back in the maasai village we are plodding along there's more problems with the starvation. Last year all the violence has caused big pr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Kajiado/blog-381561.html Hello againI am back in Ngong about to go into Nairobi centre. Last Monday was an interesting day I took the bus into Nairobi and one of the lovely people from Fadhili took me to all the various main branches of Barclays in the city. Turned out to be a completely lost cause Barclays are currently refusing to refund me my money and saying that they have already given it back to my bank Nationwid http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Nairobi-Province/Nairobi/blog-373481.html Hello everyoneSorry 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 goatscows usually sitting on top and then a few maasais rid http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Kajiado/blog-371797.html