Lessons learnt

Its another hot day here and we are very grateful for a new (second hand) fridge and freezer provided by our landlord as the other one didn't work. This is great as we can now have cold drinks to refresh us in the day and of course keeping food fresh. Power can be a bit of a problem last weekend there wasn't any and then sometimes there is only a bit or too much. This can mess up all the electrical items that are plugged in as we found out with our internet router which we bought in England used for one week and then it burnt out in one of these so called 'brown outs'. This however is not the end of the story, the following morning we plugged it in and with some help from above it works as good as new!

Random camel at side of the road

We have also quickly learnt that where you buy your petrol is very important, the price is the same, the provider is the same, but the fuel is not! Unfortunately we took this advice too lightly and after being turned away from a recommended petrol station, (because there was no power to work the pumps!), we decided to get some from the one around the corner which had a generator. This seemed fine as we drove on our day out to the other side of the island, however on our way back the problems began with the engine stalling and periods of unresponsive accelerator. It was getting dark so we decided to continue like this all the wayt back taking more than twice as long stopping at the side of the road every couple of minutes with all the locals standing around and staring. Some petrol stations mix kerosine in with the petrol whilst other places don't have water tight tanks and in rainy times you get water mixed with the fuel. A lesson well learnt.

We are trying to get into the festive spirit but it is a bit difficult as it is not celebrated here and there is a severe lack of misty cold days. We managed to find this small tree and are listening to Christmas music. Paula managed to find one shop which was playing Cliff Richard though. We are looking forward to it though as we are planning maybe a BBQ on the beach and a roast in the evening! (Paula has been looking for recipes online to make stuffing, bread sauce and mince meat.)

Paula is really getting into the culture, her friend persuaded her to get traditional henna which the local women have especially for celebrations. It doesn't look so crazy on the locals as their skin is not so white! He she is with her friend learning how to make chapati (like a bread pancake) - very nice. You can see some of the henna on Paula's hands and arms.

You may have noticed that I have put a clock on this page showing the local time here. This is not only quite a cool thing which took me ages to work out how to do it but is also so people know what time it is here. (This should be particularly useful for a certain guy in Glasgow who likes to phone at 2am!)

Although rainy season is over it still seems to throw it down every day or so which is nice as it makes it a little bit cooler. We are slightly jealous of the English frosty mornings that you guys are having there.
I have worked out how to get the photos small enough to upload (nothing over 1 Meg seems to work here) so I have attached the ones for the last blog entry as well as some new ones.

This is a photo of our team minus the team leader and his family (they have been in Germany having a baby but are back this week). This is the most beautiful beach you can imagine – white sandy beach, sparkling turquoise sea, palm trees - it is an hour’s drive away but worth it on your day off!

We had the opportunity to attend a friend’s wedding on Friday which was a great insight into the culture here. The guy getting married lived in the flat next door to the place we stayed with a local family when we first arrived. Alex and Julie were also invited as they knew him as well. The men first went to the mosque for the ceremony in which no women were allowed, (not even the bride!).

This lasted about an hour and we didn’t understand much as it was not in English. We sat

around on the floor and drank some coffee and ate samosa’s and some people said some prayers at the front. Now that they are married the men then went to the bride’s house, where all the women were, to pick her up. This was where Paula and Julie should have been while we were at the Mosque but they got lost and then were stopped by a police man for doing a u-turn so they ended up missing that part of the celebrations. In the end they came back to the Mosque and followed the men to the Bride’s house where they were ushered inside to have their photo taken with the bride. This seems to

be a tradition. The bride sits in a bedroom on the bed and everyone takes their turn at going in and having their photo taken with her.

The photos show me and two guys from the family we stayed with outside the flats before the wedding, the wedding car arriving at the brides house and the Bride and Groom at the brides house (the bride traditionally wears green on her wedding day).

I have also included a picture of me and my first catch (an octopus) using a spear gun whilst snorkelling on Saturday.

In other news, Paula has had traditional Swahili henna on both her hands and feet, which I’m not too wild about but it’s all about getting into the culture!!

It's hot here! It’s just been rainy season which has been refreshing but also very humid. We spent our first 2 weeks on the Island with a local family in a 5th floor flat quite central to Stone Town. This was a useful experience as we learnt a lot from the family and made some good friends. We lived like the locals which includes eating with our hands and having spicy soup with bits of octopus in it for breakfast! Our days were spent walking around the streets of Stone Town browsing and trying out our few Swahili phrases on the local shopkeepers. Many evenings we went out visiting numerous members of the family which is quite complicated as most men have more than one wife!

Our first impression of Stone Town is that it is very safe and the people are very friendly. The whole of Africa is madly in love with Barak Obama! There is an Obama tree in Stone town which is dedicated to him and you can even buy Kanga’s (sarongs) with his face printed on them!

We have been staying with friends for the past 2 weeks and have just moved into our own house which we will stay in for about 3 months. Until we moved into our house we spent most days going out to the local shops and buying a coke, learning new words and phrases, playing draughts and making friends with the many men who just hang out everywhere. We are slowly learning the language through these conversations and plan to go to the language school in January. We have also enjoyed being able to go for a quick dip in the sea to cool off just before the sun goes down every day which is great and is only about a 5 minute drive.

We have been trying to put up some photos but this has proved difficult with the internet connection we are using at the moment. We will try and put some up as soon as we can.

Hello, we thought that we would create this blog to keep you up to date on what we are up to.




We are currently in Kenya where we have spent three weeks in a town called Machakos where we learnt lots about African culture etc. This was great fun, we met lots of great people and learnt important African skills like how to catch a Boda Boda, (a ride on the back of a push bike), or in a Tuc Tuc, (see photo).









We spent one day at 'Small Worlds' which is a game park with good food. This photo shows us with a few of our new friends on top of a Land Cruiser (A Land Rover would have been better!) for our safari. We saw lots of animals such as giraffes (see blog title photo!), zebras, ostriches, etc.











Last week we went to Kijabe which is north west of Nairobi for our language course. Kijabe has a good hospital and an international school (a mini America). The course consisted of learning how to learn a language and practicing it with our language helpers at the shops.


Kijabe overlooks the Rift Valley which you can see in the photo and several inactive volcanoes.