A week on...
Mambo! (that’s hello round here) Its taken a while but here’s my first blog. I’ve been here a week now, and so much has happened already. For starters it took 48 hours to get here as my flight from Amsterdam to Mombasa was delayed by over a day and then we still nearly didn’t go – we got to the plane and then a thunder storm broke out and we had to sit there for 3 hours to wait for it to pass. If it had been any longer then we would have had to wait another day because the staff can’t work over a certain number of hours. But we got to Mombasa on Sunday morning and I was picked up by Faridah who I’m staying with and got to the place where I’m staying just fine. There’s another girl, Rachel staying here too, she’s from Switzerland and her Dad is Kenyan so she has family here and knows her way around a bit.

I’m staying near the beach which is nice, I spent the first day walking all the way to ‘Pirates’ – the public beach and back again which took a couple of hours but was a lot of fun because the tide was in and we got soaked trying unsuccessfully to avoid the waves. Then on Tuesday I went to school for the first day. I went to the orphanage first because the infant school kids go to school just next to it there. The kids remembered me which was great and I of course remembered all of them. Even Jimmy and Jacky, the twins that were so shy last year ran up to me to shake my hand. I soon remembered all the things that happen here, like the little ones that are still with their mum in the day shouting out ‘How are you?’ or ‘Who are you?’ or even ‘Wow are you?’ because they don’t speak English and don’t know what they’re saying. I think I’m just about used to getting stared at again complimented with shouts of ‘Muzungu muzungu!’ and I’ve only had one or two guys pass me with declarations of love, haha.

I went to the school to find Violet and it was really good to see her again. We got to catch up a bit on everything that’s happened to each other in the last year, there are a few new children in the orphanage now, Lillian being the youngest addition – we think she’s about 3. Then I met Albert again, I don’t think he believed I was coming back so was really pleased to see me. He showed me round the school again, all the classrooms have changed, there are new rooms and they even have a staffroom now! The children are still there, some of the older ones have gone to different schools for their final year to have a better chance of getting sponsorship to go to secondary school but it was lovely to see everyone again. After only a week I already feel like I’m being more useful than I was last time, I’ve been teaching some of the maths classes and joining in with class 8 who are the top class and studying very hard to pass their final exams. I went back to see my kindergarten class who have changed so much – they’re speaking some English now and have grown to twice their height I’m sure.

And then there are all the other things, the matatus (mini busses) with the crazy driving and the conductors that think just because you’re white they can charge you twice as much. And the pot holes that make you feel like you’re playing a game of trying not to fall against the bus or someone else while you travel across roads that can hardly bear that name. Or the goats and cows and chickens just on the street as you pass them hoping you won’t run them over. I got on a matatu the other day and a lady put a bag on the bus that squawked when she put it down! I guess it had a live chicken in it, lol.

I visited Namu and Mary this weekend – it was so nice to see them again – they are real friends here and I enjoying being around them just relaxing.
Oh yeah, and last thing for now – I went to the church the orphans go to yesterday. Apart from two of them they didn’t get to go because they hadn’t washed their uniforms which was a real shame but I think they were lucky in the end because it rained and rained and rained yesterday! And the church doesn’t have a roof, just some plastic covers that don’t cover everything and collect the water so that when they’re full they pour a waterfall over the people below. And church was 5 and a half hours long!! It starts at 9 and we finished at 2.30 but I think the preacher saw that there were some people there that didn’t understand Swahili so he at least spoke English for the talk of which I was very grateful. It’s a church true to its African nature, with shouts of “Amen” every minute or more and great passion and dancing and joy. It was encouraging to see because last year I only went to churches that remind me of some churches in the UK, with liturgy and slow quiet hymns and not much interaction with the congregation. I got completely drenched and sat with everyone else in a puddle up to my ankles for the best part of the service. But it was good to be in communion with other Christians and to worship Jesus even if I didn’t understand a lot of the songs – I at least got the easy bits and joined in where I could and soaked in God’s presence and clapped and danced. There were some of the ushers having a great time dancing next to the band and it looked like so much fun and made me really smile but we were quite tightly packed so we just swayed together to the worship.

There are 4 other volunteers staying in the same compound as me. A guy called Jan owns the place and rents out the other 13 houses, mostly to Germans that spend a lot of time here in Mombasa. Of the girls in number 12, 3 of them are Dutch which is kind of cool seeing as I’ll be going there next and Jan is Dutch too and is around as well. I didn’t know whether he would be here as he doesn’t stay here the whole year but he’s in Mombasa at the moment so I’m hearing a bit of Dutch as well. And there is a German girl too so all in all we have English, Swahili, Dutch, German and French being spoken here, understandably I think I can get a bit confused and I think some of the time I can’t even remember English words! They’re volunteering in another orphanage near where we are staying so I think at some point I’ll go visit with them just to see another place and see what its like.

So there you go, I hope I haven't rambled too much, good job if you've got this far! Now that I'm online I can post small updates more often.

My love to everyone at home. Xx