Christmas Eve and my first Christmas away from family! I was invited to Christmas Eve dinner by Kuki at her house at Kuti. There was 11 of us – Kuki, 6 guests staying at the Mukutan Lodge, Philip, Tanguy, Alfie and I. The house and garden were beautifully decorated with flaming torches and rugs outside and Christmas trees, decorations, etc inside. Even the staff were festively dressed up for the occasion. Dinner was a lavish affair (I lost track of how many...

On Thursday Tanguy arrived with his mother. Tanguy’s a Belgian guy that was in charge of the Lelechwa project before Alfie. He’s so enthusiastic about everything – it’s great! The four of us went for a sundowner on the stage at Makena’s Hills which has the most fantastic views. The stars late on Thursday night were absolutely amazing.

Last night I went with the guys that harvest the honey from the bees. There are hives all over the ranch in the most random, middle of nowhere places! It was absolutely amazing to watch. The men wanted to see if there was enough honey to harvest. First a guy either strips off most of his clothes or rolls them up so there are no gaps for the bees to get in. Then he climbs the tree where the hive is and smokes the bees out with a flaming torch. The hive is sometime...

Yesterday evening, despite our adventure of the previous night, Alfie and I went to Kuki’s Point to watch the sun go down. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was drizzling a bit which probably added to the effect. As the sun went down the light was reflecting off the ground (and I guess the water as well) so it looked like the ground was emitting a yellow glow – absolutely beautiful. It’s worth going to Ol Ari Nyiro just for the views fr...

Alfie (who’s working on the UN Lelechwa project) and I took a car out to have a quick look around big dam at about 4.30pm. We hardly saw anything so started to head towards another dam, getting stuck in mud along the way. We tried everything to get out, digging, placing wood under the wheels etc but eventually it was too dark. We were going to admit defeat and call for help when we realised that the mobiles had no signal and the radio wasn’t working &...