It's been an eventful six weeks and feels like significantly longer in a very good way. We've suggested a restructure to the way in which the charity runs itself, we've secured a permanent job for the girl who was the secretary in the local NGO office and who hadn't been paid any money for three months and we've designed a better process to monitor the businesses after the grants are given. We've taught the kids club too. If all of that has you currently finding...

Not only do you need to pay to get here and then pay for a tourist visa then you must also pay for a charity visa which costs another $120. If you don't do that and then offer to volunteer you are 'helping illegally'. Seems a little backwards to to me but it is what it is and is fine until the people at the charity you work for don't get their fingers out and you end up with no proof of visa when stopped by fifteen police and immigration officials while on a bus ...

We've settled into a routine here and it goes a little like this...We get woken up at 5am by the mosque, the cockerels and our diligent host who brings our breakfast into our dining room. We fall back asleep and wake again about 7.30am when we get up and boil some water which we put into a big basin and then scoop out with a jug and pour over ourselves, individually of course! Then we eat our beakfast which is avocado, two mandazi (fried squares of doughnut ty...

Getting to know the community is one of the benefits of living in one place for a long time, particularly a place that sees hardly any Mzungus (White folk, the literal translation is something like 'dizzy and lost') is that you really get to know folk...that also leads to some odd conversations... One such was for about twenty minutes on why the British don't eat goats. To begin with it was utter disbelief and convinced that we were kidding, kid-ding…got it ye...

I'm led out of the head teacher's office and into the muddy playground. I can see about a hundred kids sitting in their seats of their makeshift outdoor classroom, the only place big enough for the whole year. As I walk past they break into a rhythmic clapping. Then I'm on the stage. 'Good Morning Techas' rings out and the headmistress replies 'Thank you, Howayew?' they reply 'Fine thank you' before we sit down. Head teacher to my left, Eleanor to my right. Th...