Kenya. Camp 2: Tsavo

Tsavo is RED. Everything is red and glowing as soon as you swing open the banda door in the mornings.  The sand is red and so is the sky, and now so are our clothes and skin.

 

We are now based in the middle of nowhere about an hour and a half's drive from Voi Town - which is pretty much skankville, but quite hilarious! with 'jambo jambo' man shouting how he's clean and my face is shiney - brilliant  But where we are is wonderful!  One night, our roommate Dave, came into our room whispering around about an elephant.  We assumed he was just pissed but he piggy-backed me along and led us to an elephant about 2 metres from the fence!! so amazing!

One evening we watched the African sunset, definetly somthing for everyones bucket list, AMAZING!

For project work, we dug trenches to help maintain the water holes for the wildlife, we dug a shit-pit for the school in order to build a boys toilet, built the foundations for a new classroom, plastered a classroom already built by other volunteers and did some 'wildlife monitoring'.  Safe to say there was a lot of ho'ing involved.

 We also learnt to start fires with Masai Mara when we went to visit there town which we later put into practice on our 'bush adventure day' during which we built dens, in case we got stuck in the bush with a hungry lion, as well as firing bow and arrows built fires out of sticks.

Den Building ^

 

 

The most inspiring part of our trip so far was visiting Imani, the womans group in Voi town, put together to help locals with HIV/Aids, as well as orphans and other in need. The leader that spoke to us was so immensely grateful for our help and had the best stories to tell. We helped them plant crops to fun their group, as well as making bracelets; another form of income.

 

Writing this from Bali (post coming soon!!) we are lovesick for Kenya already, the locals, animals and the friends we made, made it probably the best month of our lives so far!

You have to go to Tsavo, even if it's just for the stars...

Updates soon, Meg and Jod xxxxxxx

KENYA: Camp 1, Muhakka

After a short journey but sweaty journey across the border to Kenya, we arrive at Camp Kenya's beloved camp: Muhakka. With monkeys swinging around in the trees, kittens playing, chickens trotting about and our OWN REAL BEDS (!!!) in a new Banda, it was a huge difference to the Camp in Tanzania, but equally as charming.

 In Muhakka there was a main addition to Camp Life... nightlife! The infamous Forty Thieves was the club we visited 3 times in the week that we visited Muhakka. It was a step up from a shack on the beach, but still.... a shack on the beach + alcohol. The shooters bar was AMAZING (personal favorites being the Toffee and Kamakazies) plus the most cheesey music meant we had a great night every time.

 Campfire area.

The food in Africa so far has been great! THIS IS JULIUS ^ He was our chef and filled our stomachs with African food: Chapatti! Pancake like additions to a curry; so good! 

The project that we worked on in Muhakka was the dispensary, a project designed to provide the local village with a emergency maternity ward, as currently the mothers in labour have to ride on the back of a moped to the nearest hospital... not practical!

Jodie and one of the local kids...all of whom seem to dress in ballgown like attire.

LADS LADS BEER BEER DIGGING DIGGING LADS LADS LADS 

One of our days we requested if the two of us could go and work at the local school.  It was so fun and interesting to see the differences between school life over here compared to home.  All the kids click and jump to get their teacher's attention and are free to jump all over the desks.  They are not allowed, however, to speak any other language than English whilst at school. This was odd - of course it's great for them to learn English so quickly, but Kiswahili sounds far nicer! 

Speak soon,

Jodie and Megan xxxxxxxx

We made it!!!!! First stop: Tanzania!!

WE MADE IT
for us that's an achievement in itself, trust.

It wasn't in our original plan to come to Tanzania, but then again what was? However, as the Kenyan elections were going ahead, and there was no guarantee that the uproar they caused last time would not be repeated, Camps International sent all there volunteers to Tanga camp for a few weeks until everything died down. 

At first this caused a little stress with changing flights booked with STA etc., but aren't we glad about it now!! It's always great to tick another country off the bucket list and exciting to see the differences as we drove across the border and into Kenya.

After the four flights(!!) it took to get us to Kilimanjaro, surprisingly (due to our awful luck at the best of times), a smiling Camps representative 'Sammy' was there to greet us and drive to our campsite. Nothing to worry about!  Our journey was amazing.  It was just unbelievably cool to drive past every tiny village with millions of kids trying to get you to wave back at them, and jumping for joy when you do and millions of adults just sat in the shade, staring out at the world.

When arriving at the camp, we saw our soon-to-be friends for the next month hard at work and COVERED head to toe in mud. 

Our accommodation for the next week was a reasonable enough looking tent.  That was until the great storm hit!!! Our sponge mattresses soaked up what they could of the lake that surrounded us, the odd sock, passport or camera floating where we lay.  We screamed for help but our constant 'guys?...guys?' was no help.  In the morning however, we discovered the rest of our camp-mates had been giggling at our calls outside together, wondering why on earth we didn't just LEAVE the tent! hahaha

For our project work here, we were finishing building a school for the local village.  It was great to be working right in the middle of the community to see who our work was benefiting as well as to be jumped upon constantly by the village kids shouting 'mzungu mzungu' (which means 'white person' by the way...fairly close in sound to 'mzunga' which means penis..hmm) at you and acting like your biggest fan. In the afternoons, we took in turns to teach the locals (students aging from 6 to 55) computers and English - and we learnt a little Kiswahili too.  The others who were already in Tanga had been seaweed farming and de-worming the animals - so I'd thoroughly recommend staying for longer than the 1 month we did at Camps.

Next up...Muhakka!
Much love from somewhere that's not Jersey these days

Meg + Jod