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It has been a month since we first arrived in Kenya and having spent the hottest month of the year in one of the driest places on the planet I am still as pale as an alibino with a hangover. The first thing that struck me after meeting and introducing myself to a few of the natives here was that I am something of a trailblazer in these parts. Clearly no-one here has ever met or heard of anyone called Gareth before. The most common reaction I get after the standard name swapping formalities is a look of confusion and then in a thick African accent 'Car-ol?'. I did try and introduce myself as Carol to one bloke on the off chance that this was some linguistic quirk and he might say 'Ah, as in Gareth Bale?' He didn't. He laughed nervously and didn't speak to me again. We have spent most of our time so far travelling with a charity called Karibuni Trust, who support thousands of the poorest children throughout Kenya by feeding them and/or paying for their education. It has been a pretty difficult experience; we visited the main slum in Nairobi, Kibera, where over 1.2 million people live. We were invited into a house no bigger than a cupboard under the stairs, with walls made of cardboard and no permanent roof where a family of 8 live. The parents work as hard as they can but they earn 80p a day if they are lucky. You just want to give them a wad of money and say 'Go on, sort yourself out' but what do you about the family next door who are in the same situation? You see all the poverty on Children in Need (Kibera is the place that they sent the celebrities to spend a week, I think Lenny Henry lasted one night - lightweight) and you think how bad it must be, but I guess it's impossible to put across just how sad it is without actually taking someone there. On the plus side we have got to meet loads of awesome Kenyan kids who are always stupidly happy to see us. They spend half the time rubbing your skin to see if the weird white stuff will come off and the other half waiting to be entertained. After spending 5 minutes with the children at the first project we visited, I quickly realised that they would copy anything I did. Inexplicably I took this as an invitation to do some tribal dancing. Thankfully the children didn't take offence to the fact that an unfit, pasty Mzungu (white person), wearing a stupid hat and covered in factor 50 from head to toe was trying to teach them the dance of their forefathers, and they all joined in. Whilst travelling round Central Kenya, we ended up sharing a hotel with Tusker FC. I went over to speak to some of them at breakfast and it turned out they are the current Kenyan champions and were preparing for a big African Champions League game against the Rwandan champions. I started to wonder whether I would be good enough to play for a Kenyan Premier League team. Assuming I probably would be, I decided to start a game of football at the next project we went to in order to showcase my talents to any scouts that might be passing by. Within 30 seconds Victor, a 7 year old Kenyan, had ruined my potential African football career by tackling me with embarrassing ease, to add insult to injury the little sod turned around, nutmegged me, and after kicking the ball away, pointed and laughed. As it happens, it was not a complete disaster; the next time Victor got the ball I was able to introduce 'the reducer' to the children, who didn't seem to find it quite so funny after that. After leaving Karibuni Trust we are about to travel South along the East coast into Tanzania, where hopefully they sell cheese or else I may just kill someone.
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Nic Kiling in the name of cheese is unnessecary Gaz, but then I'm in France and spoilt for choice. (I was at the Abbaye Port Salut yesterday!) But i would murder for a pasty! The French just don't seem to get the idea of meat and veg in pastry! Good to see you on offexploring too. Big love to you both xxx Nic