KENYA!

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Hi, finally managed to get to an internet cafe in Malindi, first of all Happy birthday to Dad again. Good to speak to you earlier.
From last Sunday to Thursday i was in Mombasa doing my in-country-orientation. I learnt some swahili, kenyan culture etc. We were doing the training on the beach front!! Had our first taste of kenyan travel, going round in a mutatu, which is like a bus driving by boy-racers! quite an experience haha.

We spent all day traveling to Malindi from Mombasa where i got alot of pictures of the amazing scenery inbetween. unfortunatly the internet is so slow here, i will have to wait til mid-August to able to show you all, as they are putting fibre-optic broadband in all of kenya. We met our kenyan host home who is called nissir and all of his family, which calculates about 17 people living in one house!! quite a different experience than Market Deeping! and even the family get togethers in London round Auntie Ann and Uncle Anthony's!! We ate our first meal which was some sort of chicken curry and clumpy rice, didn't look any good but was very tasty anyways, didn't have much of the rice though. It was all very different to me as we ate alone in one room while the others ate in another. We don't actually live in Malindi itself but a small village outside the town. Its all dirt tracks and rubbish is basically the pavements. But overall a nice place to live.

On Friday went into the M.E.D.A. project headquarters, who are helping us on this side of the exchange, we had a fwe short presentations on M.E.D.A and what is expected of GX in Kenya. The rest of the afternoon, we got prepared for our community welcome which was on saturday morning.

On Saturday Sarmad and i turned up early (for once) and helped set up the hall for the community welcome. We got all the posters up we had made, and helped out setting the hall with chairs and things. The first thing we did for our welcome was do an exhibition of what we had done in Glasgow, whilst we were over there. it then went onto talks from the guests of honour, the work placements, the host homes and a prayer from the local priest. After all of this, it went onto entainment. First up was a traditional kenyan dance, performed by 20 youth, who were very good. This led onto a sketch of one youth who was involved in two old people arguing over the 'good ole days' didnt understand much as it was all done in Swahili but nevertheless still really enjoyed it. The next lot were the best, they were all acrobats doing all these crazy break-dancing/street dancing moves haha, got some pictures that might be better to describe them but you never know. The manchester (mombasa) team were also there i forgot to say. They had turned up out the blue to see our community welcome. We finished off having lunch, and saying our hellos, and welcomes to the locals. After we had finishd the welcome we all went down to the beach, where Sarmad, and the first pakistani out of both groups, learnt how to swim properly! We left the beach and headed home exhausted not before saying our final goodbyes to the mombasa group and making plans to go and see them one weekend soon. Once we got home Sarmad and i had made a new friend called Mohammad that lives in the same house as us. him and his friends were very intriuged with my camera and screamed in glea when i showed him his picture i had taken! haha. Had alot of good conversations with Nissir, his sister, Mohammad Juma(Nissir's dad) and Nissir sister in law.

Yesterday Nissir and Abdul took us to the local market, where we met the Omari project chairman (the omari projects is where i will be working, it is a drug rehab project). We went to the beach again and sat on the pier there looking over the indian ocean. After this we went to the crocodile and snake farm, where i saw the worlds oldest tortoise supposdly. We finshed off the day sitting at the local park, on the beach again haha, having a picnic.

Today, we did alot of report writing, sorterd out my kenyan sim card and now trying not to shout at the computer for being so slow!!!

Hopefully will get on to use it soon. Hope everyone is fine.
Love Alex x

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