Woke up this morning to the sound of the call to prayer floating in through my window... I'm sure I would have appreciated it much more if it hadn't been half past five in the morning! The streets are lively here in Mombasa at all times - we even had a marching band come down our street the other day! It can be quite surreal sitting on the rooftop and listening to the sounds of the city; it's so different from anything back in England!

We have now started painting the rooftop area of Grandsons - we finished the first coat of paint today! It looks ten times better already. The children all want to join in of course - but we have learnt our lesson after the hanprinting fiasco! The other day we took in some sheets of canvas, so they could all put their handprints on them and their names. The kids loved it, (I'm not surprised considering how messy things got!) and we're planning on doing it again this week. However, when we came out of the classroom the boys had handprinted the whole corridor! There were handprints literally everywhere. Thankfully it was decided that it made the corridor look much more colourful and we're going to keep it like that! We're planning many more painting activities now that we know they love it so much.

There's been a new group of boys come in this week, but also some of the others have left. For some, this will be their third or fourth time at Grandsons, as they tend to come and go whenever they need anything. But there are always the boys that stay! One of the boys, Kevin, has been there for three weeks now, whereas before the most he ever stayed for was three days. It's wonderful to see the boys really turn their lives around. Monk will be starting school with the next term, and we'll be going shopping for his uniform soon! I can't wait to see him all kitted out.

Went to Old Town this weekend, and had some fun haggling over everything I bought! I have also visited the spice market, to buy some masala tea, which is really really nice! And this weekend I'm planning on chilling at the beach!

Emma.