Well it appears that I couldn't have chosen a worse place to do the volunteering part of my holiday! Hmmm...nice one Sandra. Because of all the troubles out in Kenya,and especially Kisumu, I'm not going back there. I've rearranged things so that I'm now doing community work in Moshi in Tanzania instead of teaching english in Kisumu. Moshi's at the foot of Kilimanjaro,which should be a nice view to wake up to every day :-) We were supposed to be spending the last few days driving back through western Kenya and should have been in Nairobi by now, but it just wasn't safe. Especially because our driver is Kenyan and from the Kikuyu tribe, so he would most likely have been killed if found during searches at all the roadblocks. So we're all staying in Kampala until sunday and then flying down to Tanzania to start the next part of our trips from there. Our driver and guide are staying in Uganda for the time being and will continue with more gorilla trips instead of going anywhere near Kenya. All the stories we're hearing are pretty scary. 2 weeks ago we stayed at a campsite in Eldoret, which is where the church was burnt down a few days ago with 30 people inside. We have been lucky with our timing. No one here ever thought this would happen in Kenya though.

Anyway, since I last wrote I've been horseriding through the african bush and along the nile (amazing way to spend new years day, but ow my legs still hurt!) and been for a wander around Jinja and Kampala. Kampala is nuts. There are cars and people everywhere. I fear for my life every time I cross the road :-) We went to visit Richard in hospital earlier (the chap who nearly drowned rafting) and he's much better. He had pneumonia on both lungs, but has recovered nicely. He'll be out today and will hopefully fly home sunday. It'll be nice to have the whole group together again for the last few nights. We had our first motorbike taxi experience today, which was fun, yet scary at the same time. The driver was smelly and tried to rip us off. Bad driver!

I'm also starting to get a tan. At least I think I am. It's hard to tell as the red dust here gets everywhere so maybe I'm just dirty. I love it here though. I've adjusted nicely to being on Africa time, living in a tent and being smelly all the time. I'm also developing thighs of steel with all the drop loos and bush toilet stops :-)

Hope you're all well. Thanks again for your messages. It's really nice to hear from you all.

Sandra xxx