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Hi Peeps!!
CAN I JUST SAY THAT WHILE I WRITE THIS I AM SO EXCITED AS WHEN YOU READ IT WE WILL BE HOME!!!! When we couldn’t get jobs in Australia and we changed our flights and shortened some bits of our trip it turned out we would be in London around the 17th of March so we decided that if we just cut another week off our volunteer placements it would mean we could be back for Chloe’s 18th Birthday which I always felt bad about being away for. When we called Continental to change our flights to Peru they were a bit awkward and we had to pay a bit of money but because the route is different at this time of year it meant that we got to fly out of Edinburgh so what we paid to change would have been what we would have paid to get back to London anyway. When Craig came back from tours In Iraq he kept it a secret and just turned up at his mum’s house and he said it as was great so we decided to keep it a secret and surprise everyone. It has been a nightmare as the whole time Chloe was with us in Oz we knew we would be home and then when Kirsty’s nana died and she was all upset we couldn’t even say that we would be home soon but I’m sure it will be worth the surprise, I just didn’t want to risk Chloe finding out before her birthday as we thought it would be a nice present, well we hope she thinks it is lol!! We get home on Thursday morning and are hopefully going to stay with Emma although she doesn’t know that yet, we know she has room and can keep a secret so we will go into hiding there. We are just going to go to Chloe’s party about 9pm as we don’t want to steal her limelight with everyone asking us about our trip at her meal or when everyone turns up at her party, so we will just give it enough time till she has seen everyone and people are a bit merry and then we will turn up as by then I will be champing at the bit to see her and everyone else. At first I was a bit like ‘if we go home for a week that means we wont have been away for a full year’ but we realise now it doesn’t make any difference. Now that we know we are going home we cant wait especially as we get to go away again so we have all the good bits of going home and none of the bad like working lol!!! We are so looking forward to seeing everyone, I cant wait to see my Dad and go to my Gran’s with all the family and have tea (especially soup - the time is finally near) and have my Gran tell a story that goes onto something completely different from what she first started talking about and my Dad shout about how its not what she started talking about and Aunty Betty trying to keep the peace and Andrew asleep in the chair. It is funny how you miss the simplest of things that you wouldn’t even think about at home. I am especially looking forward to using a washing machine, I have hand washed my clothes for two and a half months and they now feel like cardboard and are minging and dirty, I have already started to plan what I will wash first and what will go in what wash, how sad lol! Also food is featuring high up on every conversation my top things I am wanting are my Gran’s soup obviously, an Indian at Guru’s, chips cheese and brown sauce from Ali’s and Craig is dying for a full Scottish fry up in the George Foreman grill lol! Most of all I am just looking forward to not having to worry about how each and everything was cooked and avoiding food in case it is not safe and being able to drink water out of the tap and also on that note, toilets that are actually toilets and not squats and toilet roll being a common place thing in a bathroom lol!! On the down side though I am not looking forward to paying normal prices for stuff though, we have a hire car from the airport for a week and I think I will faint when I have t fill the tank lol!! Also we are both looking forward to a wee check up at the doctors as we have various ailments especially from the malaria pills which are not great! I also cant wait to go out with my friends and talk about stuff instead of the usual travellers questionnaire lol! Also we can talk in our normal voices and people will know what we are saying haha! I have been a bit worried as Dad and Chloe have asked me about my flights a couple of times so I hope they don’t know about them being early!!
Anyhoo back on with the travel diary….the day after I last wrote was our last day of our placements, we were quite sad that we had not had longer here as it was by far one of our favourite bits of our trip. We did our classes then Craig and I did an extra class with Geoffrey and Mtoyi where we just played and ate popcorn. In the afternoon the boys did some gymnastics for me, they all love cameras and love to pretend they are like 50 cent and stuff it is so funny and then look at the pictures you have taken. We played some football and the boys climbed the trees and I got some lovely photos and Amersay bopped John in the mouth for winding him u, it was so funny. John is a very troubled kid but he can be so rude and asks us all about our sex lives constantly so it was kind of funny lol! For lunch we had beans and rice and neither were burnt it was amazing, I actually ate some of it. Craig has been taking Collins for extra English lessons and he gave him his Scotland strip which is loved. After lunch we handed out some sweets that we had brought in and everyone tried to claim they had not had on yet lol!! In the afternoon I finally took my social studies class which was a nice way to end my time here as I had not been able to take it so far as the lunch was always too late. Next on the syllabus was Child Abuse which I was not looking forward to teaching. It is really hard with the kids as the language barrier is bigger with the younger kids. It was a shame when they were giving me examples as you cant help thinking that half these things have probably happened to a lot of them. When we were finished we got some of the older boys to translate to the younger ones that we were leaving and we said goodbye to all the wee ones which was really sad, lots of hugs and kisses. This afternoon we had arranged to go to the local crocodile farm and some of thee older boys decided to come along and the younger ones chummed us to the gate and along a bit which they do sometimes when people leave and Geoffrey carried my bag awwww!! When we got to the croc farm Abdul spoke to the man and he let us all go in so we got to go on a wee outing with all the boys it was really good. Today Juma and Rama had been to see their mum and they were in funny moods a bit, Juma was on my shoulders and kept going in a wee huff if I took him off. We saw some wee crocs and then we waked to a bigger enclosure and looked though the gate at the bigger ones and then the guy opened the gate and we were allowed in beside them and at one point everyone ran so I just ran and had thoughts of being eaten alive etc but it had just moved like a metre but the older kids thought this was hilarious and kept snapping at the back of our ankles when we were not looking lol! After it was time to say our final goodbyes which was really sad, handshakes for the bigger ones and huge and kisses for the smaller ones. I almost cried at the end but left before I did, its amazing how 2 weeks with the boys can make you so attached. It was a shame as Juma was in a bit of a huff when we left but he had had a hug but all the same it made it a bit sadder to leave him. We were really sad to leave all the little ones as we had spent a lot more time with them especially Geoffrey whom we have signed up to sponsor so that he will have the chance to go to school properly. It was so sad to say goodbye. On the matatu on the way home they had DJ Sammy - Heaven blaring so we all had a dance and the locals all looked at us like we were from another planet which as ’mzungos’ we might as well be but it was funny and cheered us up. On the way home we had a shandy and a samosa seeing as it was Friday lol! Then we went to see the sisters about sponsorship, it seems like a good programme for the first few years our money goes toward the school to make it a better educational facility and employ professional teachers and then it pays for Geoffrey to go to high school so now he will always know he can try hard as he already knows he can go to school which is quite a luxury for most of the boys, they are drastically looking for people to sponsor the older boys as they are all ready to go to school but the centre does not have the money to send them. It is only about £400 a year as well and they send us report cards etc and Geoffrey will write to us. If anyone wants to sponsor let me know and I can give you the details. After we had a couple of drinks and went to the beach bar which was quite crap as they had no vodka, sprite, cider and the wine was rubbish, it ended up a quiet one for me, the same cant be said for Craig who was wasted and slurring away to Steve ‘you do such a good job for the centre, nobody is as good as you Steve’. there was also some steaming locals who did not believe in gravity and talked crap who I could not be bothered with so I was quite glad when we went home.
Next day we got up Craig felt a bit rubbish so didnt come but me and some of the other volunteers went to Nyali Beach for the day. We got two matatus and had a bit of a walk and stopped at the Nyali Beach Hotel and paid a couple of quid to use their sun beds and swimming pool. We had a dip in the sea, some lunch and a go in the pool where tested out the bounciness of the diving board while forgetting I have a chest and making everyone laugh then I also managed to smack my forehead off the water and had the local kids imitate me, yes very funny, we also had underwater competitions lol!! After we got back and everyone was quite shattered so we all just had an early night.
On Sunday Craig and I went to the internet but it was down so we just went to the pool with some of the others, it was so hot though I could not sit in the sun as I was already a wee it burnt from yesterday, I cant tell if my forehead is burnt or if it is sore from smacking it off the water lol! In the afternoon Hannah did French plaits for me and then we all went out for tea and waited about an hour and a half for food. I had half a kilo of beef which was more like half a kilo of bone. We were just at Legends up the road from us and we ate early so Craig and I could be back in time to get our night bus. The music was really good all old R n B, even Toni Braxton lol!! After tea and sorting out the bill where they will inevitably add on about 5 things you didn’t have because you are white, we went back to the flat and packed the rest of our stuff. Our taxi came at 9.30pm and we said by to everyone, we were sad to say bye as we had met some lovely people but the group dynamic had changed in the last few days as there had been 4 new volunteers and there was nothing wrong with any of them but it was just nicer when there was a smaller group and we knew we were going home so we were not too bothered to be leaving although we will miss our Steve lol! I was also really sad to say goodbye to Snoopy our dog who walks us to the matatu everyday and stays in the compound, he is so cute. We got our bus in Mombasa, it only left 15 minutes late which was not to bad and we had front seats so plenty of leg room. When we stopped for the loo I got off and this guy show me to a pitch black room and then another one came and the two of them took me into this black room and a wee loo behind the door one was ancient but I was still scared but he gave me his torch and left me to it lol! It was not as comfy as the way here and we didnt sleep much especially when we got nearer Nairobi and the roads turned to dirt practically and the temperature dropped totally and we were freezing below my Masi rug!
When we got to Nairobi we got a taxi to the hostel and slept on a seat till the guy came to open then he tried to charge us 3600 for a room even though he had said 2000ish on the phone then tried to say that was locals rate and whoever I had spoken to maybe thought I was a local, I almost laughed in his face as if I sound Kenyan!! We ended up getting a room with 3 bunks for 2400. We had a sleep then breakfast and then got directions from the guy to the cinema. We went the way he said and walked for ages and then eventually had to ask for directions in the street and walk in a totally different direction for ages, turns out the guy does not know his left from this right. We eventually got on the map after much arguing about should we get the bus or go back etc lol. We eventually found it and it had one film on about Notorious BIG which we were not interested in then we eventually found someone to ask about Kenya cinema and we were directed about 5 times to the wrong place where we eventually found Nairobi cinema which had an old Burt Reynold film on so we packed that in and then we asked again at the original cinema and he directed us to the actual Kenya cinema which we found and Valkyrie or Seven Pounds was on at 5.30pm so we had dinner where we were conned and had the biggest piece of cake I have ever seen and went to the internet. I had heard rumours that Michael Jackson was touring but was trying to not get too excited so did a check on the o2 website and IT IS TRUE!!! I have been waiting on this moment since I used to kiss the poster on my bunk bed lol!! I am on all early ticket lists and I will be going even if I have to sell a kidney, so excited!! We went and watched Valkyrie which was uncomfortable and boring and had burnt popcorn so not really worth all the faff lol. When we came out it was dark so we got a taxi back to the hostel and almost got lost but got there in one piece. We read a bit and went to sleep.
Yesterday we got up and had breakfast then a walk to the ATM, packed our bags to try and fit in all the souvenirs we could actually buy as we are going home. I have spent the afternoon doing this blog even although I cant post it till Saturday lol!! We had dinner and played some cards and went to bed.
Today we woke up early and I had an awful sleep, a mixture of excitement and the loud people next door so I now have a wee bit of a dodgy stomach again. We played cards and went for a walk to the park in the city and had a walk about but I was being majorly stared at so we decided to go back as one guy even said ‘nice girlfriend’ out a car window. We went to a coffee shop that had wireless and tried to drag out a couple of drinks to use the net then had tea and got ready. I have also spent the whole day asking what time it is, I cant believe I am actually finally in the airport. The traffic in Nairobi is awful we sat in gridlock half the way here! When we got here 4 hours before take off we couldn’t even get seats together as everyone had checked in online, not impressed at all, I hate flying enough. Also she forgot to print Craig’s Nairobi - London segment off but best of all we are somehow on business class from London to Edinburgh, no idea how but hopefully it means we can use the lounge at Heathrow as we didn’t realise we have almost 4 hours there.
Now I am just about to call Emma and ask her if we can kip at hers tomorrow night lol then waste the rest of the night in the airport before our flight at 11.30pm!!!
E will see you soon, much sooner than you think lol!! Happy Birthday to my wee grown up sister, hope you had a great birthday!
Lots of Love
Eva and Craig xxx
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