Sasa? I'm writing from one of the most idyllic places, Zanzibar, in front of a view that should probably on a tourist leaflet in a hammock in front of a stretch of white sand and turquoise water. It is really hot, my guess would be 35 degrees, but it's the humidity that's such a shock, everywhere you go here you feel as though you just walked through a light rainfall. I don't think it's possible to get cold here, and I get cold easily. After two nights in S...

I'm being a negligent blogger, but I've decided to give it another (belated) shot before I'm back in NZ again. I'm now in a totally different world, hot and red full of dust and children and noise (although with a similar disrespect for anglo-saxon timelines). But I'm going to backtrack. Five months is a hard amount of time to spend in a country. It went so fast, but felt like so long. You have your rituals, your little family of friends, your become fluent...

This will be my last blog entry, at least for this trip. I find it hard to sum up my experience in writing so I'm going to take the easy(ier) way out and make a list. First (to get the negative over with): 10 Things I Won't Miss About Kenya 1) The constant mutterings of 'mzungu, mzungu' under people's breath as I walk down the street 2) Marriage proposals, no where near as flattering as you think when they begin with 'I love you, because you're white' and en...

Hi everyone, the last few weeks have been more chaotic and busy than usual and I feel a bit like I'm being stretched in five different directions. Jessie and I are visiting children's homes. It's often an odd experience, we end up all over the city in obscure subrurbs and towns. We usually wake up and get home in the dark and spend most of the hours in between stuck matatus waiting Narobi's truly shocking traffic and then getting hopelessly lost. Luckily Kenyans ...

What I would like to do is describe my average day. the problem is, there is no average day here. Everyday things shift and change, i learn something new, I'm back to square one and being the beginner mzungu once more, or I master something and step out of the usual boundaries of my world. The closest thing to normal day during the week begins around 7.30am. I get up and eat breakfast cooked by my house mama, surrogate mother and friend, Charity. I don't know ...