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Published: March 23rd 2013
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Week 2 has been interesting. It started with a drive round the marathon course – it is pretty amazing. Everyone in the villages had big smiles for us and waved. They were happy to hear the marathon would be returning. A Red Cross vehicle drove us around, with three seats in the front where I was making notes and taking photos furiously. Ibrahim from the Red Cross was driving and Mark was reading directions from the laptop. Emma was in the back of the truck in charge of mile photos. The course is amazing and it is making the marathon seem even more real. The following day, I went to one of the mining camps to try and recruit expats to our Makeni Marathon launch party at the weekend. 3 of us from Street Child got a lift with a guy called Alex, from a non for profit organisation called the Collective. An hour later, we are dropped off at Dawnus, an African Minerals Mining camp. I was warned beforehand that I needed to wear long sleeves, long trousers and closed
shoes. Putting on socks in this heat was a challenge, but nevertheless, I did it for what they call Health & Safety reasons. They are very strict and apparently it reduces mosquitoes and sunburn. Not sure about heat exhaustion but hey – a rule is a rule. I was too late to recruit over lunchtime and Dawnus very kindly said I could stay the night so I could work my magic in the bar after the guys finished work. Now, my room was only been a portacabin, but it had air-conditioning, a fridge AND very excitingly – a shower with running water!!! Woo hoo! As soon as I was shown to my room I jumped in and washed my hair. Bliss! I returned to the bar area, trained the staff in customer service (check me out!) and prepared for the troops to finish work. I spent the evening working behind the bar and chatting to the miners. What surprised me was the price of cigarettes at the camp. You can buy them for as little as 15p for a packet – now wonder so many of them smoke. I was
surprised that the didn't jack up the prices a) to make more money for the charity and b) if they are so health and safety conscious – to discourage them from smoking. The guys working at the camps work 13 days straight (pretty long hours – 7am until 6pm). They have one day off and then after 6 weeks, they get to fly home for 2 weeks. And as long as they work a full tax year, then they do not have to pay tax on their salaries. There is not a lot to do in the evenings except drink, which was why many are overweight. They are not allowed to travel after dark either. Trying to encourage them to spend their one day off in Makeni instead of at the beach was a challenge, but managed to get a couple of recruits.A cheap night as I was bought several drinks and only had a little stroll to bed! Although due to having super fast email, I actually stayed up another couple of hours doing work and chatting to my mum over Skype. I got a 4am wake up call as I was staying in Ella's room, a paramedic who
was in the UK for her two weeks.The next morning I had a lesson in how to carry things on my head (they do it everywhere here – even suitcases!). I am sure my head is the wrong shape. Take a look at the pic on Mabinty, with two crates of beer on her head and one under her arm! Alex Thomas was my driver back to Makeni from Dawnus. He was very nice, told me he was 27 and wanted to know where my husband was. As soon as he found out I didn't have one, and how old I was he suddenly remembered he was 34! When I returned to the Centre (door to door service!) I was very excited that I had a new toilet seat (I never mentioned quite how bad my old one was), a key to the front door of our little house (yep – had to always come and go with other people until now!) and a paddling pool! Woo hoo! That night, Mark, Emma and I watched a film whilst cooling off
in the paddling pool! Saturday night was our launch party in Makeni – we were worried that people wouldn't show – but it was a roaring success, except my Makeni Belly (bit like Dehli Belly – just in Makeni). I wasn't able to taste the amazing BBQ that the South Africans had donated and went home early and missed the football tournament the following day that we hosted as more promotional activity. Now, fully recovered from my belly problems and ready to face the start of week 3.
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