More Building

A lot of photos of the building work this time I'm afraid, but this is what I've mainly been up to. It has been a very interesting time and great practice for learning the language although all my vocab is mainly construction terms.

There is also the usual amount of fun stories that have happened such as our hunt for a new beach on saturday. After driving for about an hour supposedly on a road we came to a village that seemed to be the end of the road but we were determined not to get beaten and weaved our way around trees, rocks and houses all with about 300 children following and watching us. Soon we had to abort mission as it was impossible to get through and we obtained a burst tyre for not quite missing one of the rocks.

I wanted to get a photo of the 300 plus kids watching (and probably laughing at) us but as soon as we got the camera they fled like I had pointed a gun at them.

This is the best picture we could get showing some of the kids.

This is a photo taken out of the car window of some of the roadworks that they are doing here. Here they are installing drainage under the main Airport Road.

I would like to draw your attention to some aspects of this photo as an engineer. Firstly note the 'barrier system' between the live traffic and the sheer drop. Also note that this photo was taken about 1 week before the rains which destroy most roads and I think will cause a bit of mayhem to the banks of this excavation. These guys where all wearing safety helmets which is quite impresive but they were all bare foot as well!

So the building work. This has been going well and it is very interesting to see how things are different. For example to make glue they pour petrol on polystyrene and, as this picture shows the hazards are quite different.

This guy is continued with his hammer and chisel for a another week or so.

These are the pillars for the workshop which should give you a bit of an idea of the height. It is useful that Health and Safety is not like that in England and that everyone here knows how to climb a coconut tree.

All five pillars up and straight!

Hans and I 'supervising' the work

Monday morning briefing

Paula getting the hang of laying blocks

This last photo shows another of my pastimes here - catching rats. I have lots more photos but I think some of you would not like to see them.

Thanks Jo for the T-shirt!

New nephew, new house and more building

I thought that there would not be much to say in this blog entry but when I think about it a fair bit has been going on. There has been many stories, such as another running in with a cop, this time I was at fault driving the wrong side of an island however after 20 mins I managed to convince him that he was a nice guy and we were friends and he let me go.

Some very exciting news is that we have another nephew. His name is Eli and was born on the 27th of Feburary and I can't wait to see him.

Jon and Eli

I mentioned last month that we were about to move house. This we did.

This is our new house, familier to some of you as it is our team mates house, Alex and Julie's, as is the pink car we have inheritted which is a blessing in light of our car troubles back in England.

Inside: this is our lounge. Notice the IKEA chairs which are the best chairs on the island - brought from England of course.

And yes, a dog. This also came with the house and has probably been the biggest sacrifice I have made considering my love (or lack of it) for animals - especially dogs. This one is called Pumba and is a little crazy although we are getting used to it. Our previous mlinzi (guard) said that it is better to have a dog than a mlinzi because they won't just sleep all night.

Most of my time this past month has been at the site where progress is happening with the building work.

This picture was taken 10 days ago...

...and this was taken this afternoon.

This is the workshop area which we are building first in the hope that we can get a roof on before the rainy season.

This poor guy has been digging this whole for about 3 days with a hammer and chisel as the ground is mainly rock. It is for the pillars supporting the workshop roof. No steel toe caps-just bare feet!

This is also quite cool, a guy making pretty good quality scaffold boards from a
coconut tree using a chainsaw.

Paula also got her hands dirty with some blockwork which I think she enjoyed.

Today we managed to get some cheddar cheese after about 3 months of searching for some-I originally didn't want to pay £9/kg from the guy down an alley who disappears off somewhere and comes back with a warm soft yellow lump, but after giving up finding some elsewhere I went back only to find the price had gone up and they would only sell me a 2.5kg lump and they didn't actually have any. I eventually got 2.5kg of fairly naff mild cheddar from a shop with a fridge for £22 but am very happy to have it. I don't want to think of the amazing cheese I could get in England for that!

Paula getting to grips with windsurfing

This is our local beach which we can walk to and is very refreshing

after a hot days work on the site.

Off the Island

Since our last entry we have managed to get off of the Island and been to some areas of cooler climate which has been totaly amazing. We attended a conference near Nairobi last week and decided that it was cheaper to drive there than to fly. So we have had a bit of a road trip 4 adults and 1 child travelling about 2,400 kilometers over 4 days with at least 20 police stops, 3 new tyres, 2 border crossings, 2 ferry crossings and 1 speeding ticket!

Some of the views driving through Tanzania

There were some paved roads which was nice and they are constructing others but there is often no diversion road so you just find a way around along the side somewhere!

We saw this Zebra just at the side of the road but he started to walk away when we stopped

This is our team car which is kept on the mainland for such trips. This was us changing our first tyre after a blow-out at 100kph. We had another flat and ended up buying three new ones. Notice the bits of tree on the road behind, this is not the reason for the blowout but standard practice is that when broken down (quite often in Africa) these bits of bush or rocks or whatever act as a warning to others. They are usually left there as well!

Kilimanjaro

I had been warned about the amount of traffic police who seem to be everywhere so had kept an eye on my speed, however at one point on the main road to Kenya there was a 30kph limit (thats pretty slow-18.64mph actually) I slowed down and after going through the supposedly hazardous area sped up only to be confronted with yet another cop with a speed gun saying I was going 68kph when it was 30. I explained that I thought we were between a 30 and 50 limit so I was ok but he told me I was wrong and needed to pay a fine, go to court or pay him a gift. I paid the fine only to find on the return journey that I was right and that I had been out of the 30 limit!

We were also stopped on the way back with another cop with a speed gun saying we were going 58 in a 50, we were actually going about 35 and he hadn't even pointed the gun at us so we told him were to go!

We stopped for a couple of nights on the way up near Arusha with some friends. This was really nice as we had our own little banda in the foothills of Mount Meru. It was cool in the evening and we enjoyed wearing jumpers, having a duvet and hot showers for the first time in almost 5 months.

We also made the most of being there and went to Arusha National Park, we were told that we may see hippos and elephants however they must have been hiding. We did see flamingos, buffalo, girafes, zebras and other animal things which I am not sure what they were.

I also saw this there and have included it for all the Land Rover fans as it is quite something.

Once in Nairobi, Paula made the most of civilisation and chopped off all her hair. She is holding what used to be on her head, she said it was too hot or something. We also enjoyed being able to go to supermarkets which had things in them. We were able to get a few things to take back with us such as breakfast cereal, pork sausages, bacon, olives and diet coke.


Just before the conference we were invited to go camping with some English friends who live near Nairobi. We went to a place near Naivasha which was great, it was out in the bush with nobody around, no toilet etc. We were able to enjoy toasting marshmellows on the fire and wearing jumpers and jeans.

The conference was also a really good time. We met lots of people and were greatly encouraged. I think we gained a few pounds due to the amazing food of which I ate alot.

I have saved the best till last. Upon driving into Nairobi we saw big banners over the road advertising a Jars of Clay concert. That is the Jars of Clay, i.e. my favourite band who have not been to England for ages if at all. I need to explain that we used to talk about going to America to see them! We had planned to be in Nairobi for 2 nights and 1 night after. The concert was on the night after the conference so we went. This was best described by Roxanne who said that this was a gift from God.

End of school and start of building

It is now the beginning of February the hottest month of the year here although we are having a few periods of heavy rain which is unusual but very welcome as it is cooler for me and it helps the locals shamba's (gardens for growing loads of fruit and veg).



At the end of January we finished our beginners class at language school which was good fun and we learnt a lot. This is us in our classroom with our teacher who was very encouraging. I am glad that it is over with for now as our days were very busy and I feel that any more information would have gone straight over my head.



This is a picture of us at our house with the certificates from the school. We are unfortunately moving out of this house this month as we are moving into our friends house for a few months while they are back in England and then we will have to find another place!

On Saturday the 24th of January we had the official ground breaking ceremony for the vocational training centre we are building. This was attended by lots of influential people such as some people from the government the German consulate, members of the board of the school, local traders, etc


This involved a few speeches from various important people including our project manager Mr Alex Kittow. This was followed by a viewing of the proposed site (with the sign which Paula painted) and then the Principal Secretary for Education (the guy in charge of the ministry of education), dug the first part of the foundation and finally we had some refreshments.

(Note the lady in the red top with the camcorder just behind the guy's head, she is filming for the local TV-enough said)

We did manage to record the local news which I have included for you to see although it is in Swahili you can see what happened. We are all in it at some point except for Alex although when Hans is explaining details of the site he is called Alex!

Since then work has begun. We have dug the foundations, installed a water supply and the laying of the foundations starts tomorrow. (For those of us who are interested this is not done with concrete as cement is expensive but is done by packing bits of coral rock closely together with a little bit of mortar in the gaps! We will see how it turns out.)

On Friday we are heading to the mainland and will be driving up to Kenya for a conference. I am looking forward to this as it sounds like an awesome road trip and we haven't been to the mainland yet but have heard that there are such things as supermarkets! We will also spend a couple of days in Northern Tanzania on the way which I am looking forward to as it is supposed to be beautiful and a bit cooler!

This is a picture of my friend who helps me with my language. Here I am writing stories in Kiswahili and then I tell them to him and he corrects me. I wanted to include this picture because if you look closely he is wearing a Royal Mail T-shirt-Amazing!

Finally here is a picture of me attempting to windsurf in no wind. I think that I this will be my hobby whilst I am here because our team leader has the equipment and there is not much in the way of waves as can be seen below

Language School

January has been a busy month so far. We started language school at the state university which is from 8 till 12 everyday. This is intense but we feel that is worth while as we are both learning lots everyday. Paula is doing really well and I'm following closely behind. I am already better at Kiswahili than I ever was at Fremch which is encouraging because I studied French for more than 5 years at school and at university. Our class is great it consists of the teacher, Paula and myself - more like one on one tuituion. There was supposed to be more but they didn't turn up.

Paula after another big dinner

This morning we had to go to the place where they issue a sort of MOT based on how clean your engine is. I watched one guy check a vespa moped, (lots of them here, they are called piki pikis), he looked at the engine, kicked the tyres and tested the horn. All in all took him about 30 seconds! We had to go to this place to prove to a guy, who was going to issue our national driving licences, that we could drive. Apparently our UK licence didn't mean anything to him so we went for a drive with him. He asked if we could go half a kilometre to quikly get something from his house - this ended up being about 8km to drop a chicken off at his sons shop. When we got back we asked if we could have a licence for a piki piki as well which he agreed to issue one to me as he thinks that anyone can drive these. Unfortunately he decided not to give one to Paula saying that she was not fit to drive one of these as she has to wear glasses but more likely because she is a girl!

Project stuff is going well. We started work on it this week installing a gate and digging a trench for electricity and water supply. We have an official opening ceromany on Saturday in which important people will come and give speeches etc. Ill post some photos of that event in the next blog. Here is a little drawing I did to give an idea of what the Vocational Training College may look like.

Some girly stuff. The girls held a suprise baby shower for Julie....



....and Paula had yet another birthday.

Happy Christmas and New Year

I trust you all had a happy Christmas and New Year. We have had a good few days however they were very different to what we are used to. The culture here carried on as normal as Christmas isn't celebrated here. We have continued to settle in and have had many adventures such as taking a few thousand litres of water in a trailer to some friends the other side of town as the local pump was broken. I wish I had some photos as this was another great experience especially when the empty 2000 litre tank fell out of the trailer at full speed along the road!

We have good news regarding the project, the Memorandum Of Understanding between us and the college we are partnering with has been signed. (This took 1 year!) So we plan to start on the building work soon, this is very exciting and I am looking forward to being involved with some of the building work which will be a bit different than in England - No machines, no pointless paperwork, no safety!

This my language helper/gardener/day guard, Im not sure what his job is really but it is great to have a friend that I can talk to and help me with the language. Here he has just climbed our coconut tree so we could drink the fresh coconut juice! In our garden we also have bananas, passion fruit, papya, sugar cane, lemon grass, advocado, and more which I dont know what they are.

Roast dinner on Christmas eve with Alex and Julie. Windows were shut and air conditioning was put on all day and by the evening it felt a little cool which felt a little bit like an English Christmas. (Although I guess the first Christmas was probably hot without any snow)

Christmas day on the beach, with Paulas home made mince pies.

Christmas Dinner - Not bad. All the trimmings such as stuffing and bread sauce all made from scratch by my amazing wife. (You cant just get packets of stuff like that)

Team Girls - Roxanne, Paula, Julie, Doro. Kids - Annikah, Analie, Romy, Nasia

This was Boxing day with the team, Its good to have our team

leader (Hans) and his family back on the Island

And the boys with the meat - Jason, Alex, Hans, Me

New Year
This was spent on the best beach on the island, which was amazing beautuful white
sandy beach, swimming under the stars, nice food etc.

Looking into the year ahead, January will be a busy month for us and will bring a bit more structure to our days as we start language school on Monday. I am again looking forward to this as we want to learn the language quickly and so far we have just learnt a lot of vocab so would be good to understand some of the grammar.