Week 2

My Dad is complaining that i havn't written for a week so here i am...

This week has gone so fast! It has been mostly more of the same, speant time at Chesire -learnt how to make these mat things out of wool, made pancakes, harvested potatoes, heard the girls singing with one of them playing a drum it was really cool!

Speant some time at Im His Image -speant a lot of time in the garden with the 3 boys and becky, they are hilarious, there is this little cat that they get so excited about and chase and shout at but if it gets too close they come running to me crying! On wednesday we were out in the garden and there was this massive hawk like bird sitting on a post watching us and swooping down really low over us, i am sure it was considering whether to try and eat the boys it was kind of worrying! I also saw a sunbird, a really cool little guy with a shimmery bluish back, very pretty!

We also did some more painting, i painted a giraffe yesterday and he went suprisingly well (i was expecting it to be a disaster judging by my lack of artistic skills) i'll put up a pic when he's done!

Yesterday morning we went to Jikaze with Joe to do food relief. Jikaze is an IDP camp, (Internally Displaced People) they are a group of about 400-500 people of a certain tribe that had to flee their homes in 2008 (after all that post election stuff i think). Jikaze is Joe's project, he works for Global Connections and they've gone in and helped these people to build houses instead of living in tents and they are helping to get them a decent water supply and yesterday we were giving them food because they dont have much at the moment, a volunteer that came last year raised the money for them to do this. He is also helping them to set up little buissinesses and things to help them support themselves. Its a pretty cool place down in the rift valley near Mount Longonot, absolutly stunning surroundings! And the people were all very friendly. There was just joe phil debora and me and lots of kenyans, bagging up the maize and beans and flour and things and then giving it out depending on how large each family was.

So its been a good week and now we're having a lazy saturday not doing much! Just now i was on skype to my parents and phil came along and put a chameleon on my hand!! They are really cool they have such funny eyes and feet! Its weird because i dont think i've ever seen one not in a glass box before!

Some details i missed out...

So i missed out one of the coolest bits about mount longonot...
As we were walking up to it phil looks at the floor and goes 'oh buffalo went that way' a bit further on 'oh they went back that way more recently' a bit further on 'a warthog went that way', 'zebra went this way' and then up on the rim of the volcano we found lepord tracks, and he knew by looking at it that it was male and worked out it was about 2.7 meters long (including the tail which is really long) and then found female leprd tracks too, and some poo so he told us what it had been eating (some sort of gazelle) and that it had been there less than 24 hours ago! Pretty amazing hey!
On a completely different note, joe found a lizard in his bed last night... will have to keep a look out now! It could run pretty fast too.. crazy little thing!

The veranda and painting at twinkle twinkle.

Photos up Mount Longonot.

This is where we came up first, we then walked all the way round to the peak you can see in the distance.

Us at the top! (Me, Nick, Carmen, Joe, Phil, Deborah)

This is a panorama from the top! Sorry bout the blip i couldn't see the screen in the sun!

Mount Longonot!

So yesterday we climbed mount Longonot! Got up at 5.30 am and drove as the sun rose and started the climb at bout 7.30! It's a volcano so you climb up to the rim and then walk round it passing through the summit on the way. I'll have to get some pictures on someone whenever i can use someones laptop for a while... The peak is something over 9,000 and you really notice the lack of oxygen, i've never panted so hard in my life as the last like 20 minutes scrambling up to the top! But describing doesn't really make it sound any good so i'll get you pictures!

It was Carmens birthday yesterday so in the evening we went to 'diamond plaza' for dinner. Its a crazy place, there are about 6 or 7 or probably more different places all selling indian food. You sit down at these tables and they all come and stick their menus in your face and try and get you to buy there stuff... but it was pretty yummy and not expensive. =)

On friday afternoon we went to this big shopping mall which was strangely western compared to everything else here. They have a Masai market too so i made Deborah bargain for some earrings for Carmen for me because i didn't really know how to go about it. I'll have to try next time.

Im not feeling in a particularly inspirational mood to be blog writing and i feel this is all quite boring so i'm gunna stop now!