Saturday 3rd July

Hi All

I am exactly half way through my 10 week volunteering placement. I can't believe how fast it is going. I think I'm managing pretty well so far. Everyone is really impressed with my kikuyu. The locals sometimes demand who taught me! I need to start learning the same in Swahili now as I'm sure I'll be back again to do a monster safari J. This has been the week for random animals. Some of the others found a tarantula and I found a chameleon on the path. It was soo cool, got some great pictures!

Sundays are our only day off so we normally try and make sure we have a good plan for the day to make the most of it. Last Sunday we went to the National Museum in Nairobi. We managed to get in for 400Ksh (approx 3quid) instead of 800Ksh as we said we blagged the "resident" tariff. Well we aren't exactly tourists or citizens so…? Score! The museum is set in really nice grounds and was opposite an amazing coffee shop so we had our first Kenyan coffee. I still can't believe Kenyans don't drink coffee….ludicrous!!Tea, tea and more tea just not coffee. The museum was good; there were a lot of stuffed animals, African art, tribal history and Evolution. Pretty interesting!

After the museum we took a short taxi to a famous Indians called Haandis. It's the best Indian in Kenya and has won awards and we all love curry so we thought it would be a good shout. It was bloody lovely! Jas and Roshan are Indian and Zahra is Pakistani and they said it was probably the best they've had! Yum. We ended up fannying about in Nairobi and ended up being 15 mins past our 6.30pm curfew so we ended up getting wrong and were very close to getting a warning. We are allowed three warnings before we get booted off so we were chuffed to not get our first. Its gets pitch black at 7pm and we wouldn't want to be out past the curfew anyway but matatus are not the most reliable form of transport.

This week we have been working at Mirithu School again. We were in different groups doing different jobs. Seven of the girls were painting the entrance walls and gate with the school signage etc. Uncle Jim will be proud of the wall J We spent Mon, Tue, Thur and Friday afternoon and got the job done. The School was really pleased and so were we. They think we are all better than the professionals that had done it previous but they were shocked to learn none of us have experience or qualifications in Art. The Deputy head told us that the parents will be shocked to hear a bunch of girls have done it too as it's normally a mans job!!

Mrs Njenga had been annoying most of us this week. She is so demanding. On Tuesday she tested my patience. First of all we only had a 10 minute dinner break as she got a few children to come and ask us to take photos of them planting trees. She wanted us to walk her to her matatus stop after work even though our supervisor said it would add 20 minutes to our already 20 mins walk back. She insisted, and made us wait over 30 minutes before she got the hell out of her office! "I admire your patience" she said before handing her heavy bag to Jodie and Roshan to carry for her. I was fuming, I just wanted to get home! We finished work at 4pm but didn't get home til 5.40pm! Grrr. We had an idea she was like Miss Trunchbull and that sealed the deal for me!

On Wednesday, our community day we were making teaching aids for a local youth group called 'Compassion' which is a charity organisation linked to the Kisima project/school and local church. The Teaching aids will be used to educate young people who can't afford to go to school.

There was a kids playground outside so a few of us went and played on the swings and merry-go-round during our break. It was the most fun we'd had in ages and we were getting stared at by a few young children. They must have thought we were mad!

After work we went into Limuru, the local town and I ended up buying some items from the market as I didn't come too prepared for the cold days…a big chunky cardigan for 40Ksh (about 35p), a shirt for 50Ksh (about 45p) and two lovely scarves for 70Ksh each. Bargin! Had a power cut all night so torches it was. We didn't have any running water until after work on Thursday too. It wasn't too bad!

On Friday night after tea we had a bit of a disco in our common room with some Kenyan pop choons. It was funny!

Today I have spent most of the day with my host family. Mnica came with us today as her host family was not around today. Elizabeth made us one of the mean egg sarnies…the best In town I reckon!They are preparing for their fundraising event tomorrow. Tomorrow we had planned an awesome day out but my host family is fundraising to help send her daughter Miriam to university so we are going to help with that instead and defer the plans for another Sunday. Its mine and Jas's host family but all 15 of us are going to help so that should be good. 150 people have been invited so it should be a good day. We have come into Limuru town with Miriam today. We are going to treat her to dinner. A burger and chips with a bottle of coke at this café is only 150Ksh which is less than a quid! She is going to help us get local prices in the market rather than the muzungo prices some try and have out of us.

Thanks for reading. I Love reading the comments so keep leaving them.

Til next week

Love Jules xxxx