Well its been a crazy 2 weeks. Murray, Charlotte & I flew from Kenya to New Zealand, an eventful trip of over 30 hours, that saw me re-gaining my morning sickness in one aeroplane toilet (yuck!), one flight cancelled, and us running for 20 mins across Bangkok airport to catch a replacement flight (amazing race for preggie women here we come!). We did manage to get to NZ on time and all in one piece (although belly cramps after the 20min run had us concerned). We spent the next week or so preparing for my sisters wedding and preparing Charlotte to be a model flower girl at the rip old age of 21 months (yikes!). The wedding went really well, Charlotte was a star and I managed to keep my promise to my sister and not ... read more

In December I travelling to Afghanistan to meet with Senior staff recently recruited for our Water and Sanitation projects, and to visit some of the project sites. Afghanistan is a spectacularly beautiful country which for many years has been ravaged by war. The presence of international military forces was evident immediately on arrival, and the security situation was palpably tense. Military hardware from past battles is evident everywhere. Soviet tanks are littered along the road sides, broken tank tracks are often laid across the road as speed humps, and shell casings are used as road cones. Mine clearance operations were visible in many places. But despite this backdrop the local communities were surprisingly friendly and welcoming. I spent a few days in Kabul and then travelled north through a snow covered mountain pass. The road passed ... read more

Well it’s been a bit hectic. Murray has been to North Sudan, Stockholm, London, and DRC since we last updated the blog in July. I have been teaching part time at a small Christian school as their PE teacher. Charlotte is becoming a young lady with growing curls and accessories including hats, bracelets, shoes, and hand bags. Her vocab is expanding too, “Bye-Bye” is fast becoming the favourite word, when she leaves the house and when she sees people. Other phrases are “Oh dear”, “Bless you” and “I got you”. It is really exciting to see the words increasing daily. We are trying to teach her some Maori and Swahili, with “Puku” being the favoured, and the Swahili greeting “jambo” “habari”, which is very sweet and the locals think it’s great! One weekend, Murray took a ... read more

At the end of April Charlotte turned 1!! Very exciting, can’t believe how time has flown by. She is definitely now a little girl, and is just a delight. We celebrated with some close friends, and over the following week opened presents as they arrived. Both of our shipments have now arrived, it is great to have our own stuff, and makes it feel more like home. We also moved apartments. Down a floor and into a much bigger apartment. We love it. Of course we were reminded that we live in Africa, after we had no power for 36 hours, and water is now being rationed to three days per week. Anyway, we love the new place, and feel much more settled in an apartment with more room and our own stuff. Murray did a ... read more

A lot has happened since our last blog. We spent a little over 2 weeks in England, being orientated for Murray’s new job. While Murray was working I spent a lot of time with a friend from Sri Lanka and her kids, a nice bonus. It was cold, which was a bit of a shock to poor Charlotte, who wore more clothes than ever before!! I was also included in Murray’s security training. This was mostly theory, but we did get to play with some VHF / HF radios and satellite telephones, which was fun. We also managed to catch up with a few London based family and friends, which is always nice :) We were delayed in coming to Kenya by a few days, as there were some political protests planned on the day we ... read more