Camp Kenya - Muhaka Village.

Written 3rd July 2011.

‘Jambo’ from Camp Kenya! My tour in Egypt came to an end last Thursday after an overnight train to Cairo. The train wasn’t as bad as expected and was quite pleasant to be honest; however I have to confess I did not brave a visit to the loo! Our last day was spent by visiting the Egyptian Museum near Tahir Square, an experience in itself as locals were directing traffic, people were sat doing nothing and there were lots of tents and flags around! Mr Mubarack is not a very popular man! My final experience of Egypt was similar to my first, worried and clueless in the back of a car wondering where the hell I was going to end up. However, my mission to get my hair cut before a month in Kenya wasn’t all bad. After paying a taxi driver an agreed fee of £1 to drive me around for about an hour, lots of hand gestures later, and eventually getting the message across I just needed a man with some scissors I ended up at a very posh male boutique. £5 later I emerged with a great hair cut, and ready to go!

My journey to Camp Kenya, located about an hour out of Mombasa in a village called Muhaka, started with a number of flights; Cairo – Sudan, Sudan – Nairobi, Nairobi – Mombasa! Lets just say I was fine until I realised after an hour of waiting at the luggage belt in Nairobi my bag wasn’t going to appear! Panic set in, my first flying day and already I had lost my bag, great! Panic was soon over though as when I was filling in the required missing bag forms there was a phone call and my bag was found. Sat all alone next to a ramp having fallen off during transit! Phew!!

I arrived at the Camp along with about 30 others who I met at the airport. The majority are English and have just finished college, there are also a few Dutch, a German and an American. Yet again though I am out numbered 5-1 by the girls! Up until now we have spent the majority of time getting to know each other, snorkelling, relaxing on Diani beach and itching bites!!! Snorkelling was awesome, I saw some great fish and finally got the chance to take some good pictures under water! It was no coincidence the person I spoke to the most on day 1 had a waterproof camera! Today (day 2) we had another beach day and but this time we played with some of the local kids on the beach. I spent about an hour with kids standing on my hands, having water fights, spinning them around and giving hugs when they wanted one, I also taught them how to play piggy in the middle!! I won! This was followed up by playing catch back at camp with some of the locals I will be working with!

The local area is what I imagined Africa to be like, mud huts, sun and sand! Tomorrow is the start of our project work. Over the month we will build a communal toilet, lay a floor in a nursery and build a house for the oldest woman in the village. Everyone here is very very nice, the children wave and run after our bus, the lads love to talk about football however most of them support Man U! Write soon x

Written 4th July 2011

Day 3 - Start of project work!

I am just sat on my bed which is in a room full of bunk beds covered with fly nets, I think I have just about recovered from what has been a very hard day! We started out at about 9am, wheel barrows, spades, buckets and trowels in hand. We arrived at the site a few minutes walk from Camp to find a massive hole, around 4m by 2m and 6m deep! Inside the hole walls had been started by previous groups but we still have around 5m to reach ground level, we will then create a little hut so the hole can be used as a toilet by the locals instead of them going into the bush. The guy showing us what to do is called Sampuli! He is a really nice chap and is a great laugh! We have already have many chats about Rachel Hussey, who he knows from Camp Kenya in 2009. Sampuli and I already have our own little handshake going! After transferring materials, sand, water, concrete and bricks, I was in the first group to work in the pit. I climbed down a ladder, saying goodbye to the breeze on the way, and looked up! We have our work cut out! We created pulley systems to lower bricks and concrete into the hole using buckets and it took around 3 hours to lay 2 layers of bricks! To say I was sweating is an understatement! When I climbed out the hole at lunch time my shorts had changed colour due to sweat and I was able to wring my vest out like a tap! Very hard, hot and satisfying work! The afternoon was spent doing much of the same however I swapped roles and became a bucket boy, we were joined by some of the locals who helped and liked to try on my hat!

After work came the serious stuff! England v Kenya! Team Captain - Thomas Hampson! I got a team together from the camp to play to local school football team. In our make shift sports gear 11 of us, shattered from a hard days work and melting under the sun, took on locals in bare feet on a real make shift pitch. Running in sand is hard, running against a Kenyan is hard, but running in soaring heat is a killer! After a shaky start we managed to pull it back to 2-2. Our second goal being a run on to the ball, little chip over the keeper and smash into the back of the net less goal by Hampson! I was well chuffed! Unfortunately the heat, and the ref, beat us in the end! We conceded with 1 min to go and the match ended 3-2! Next time they better watch out! Tomorrow is much of the same and we hope to do around another 4 layers of bricks! Hopefully I will be off into school tomorrow so I will fill you in on what’s going on after that! Jambo! x

Written 5th July 2011

Day 4

Jambo! Again just about to go to bed after a great evening of fun playing card games, singing cheesy songs and watching the girls trying to dance like a horse, all while drinking heavily chlorinated water!

Work at the toilet continued today and we managed to get around 3 and a half layers done. We also started to fill in the hole around the outside of our wall today which took ages as we were trying to avoid filling the toilet in! I focused on reparing a corner of the wall that we had some trouble with as it kept collapsing! I am now very proud to say it is no longer a risk and is very stable! I even carved my name into it I was so proud of it! 

After work at the toilet I got my first chance to go into school! I had a 2 min chat with the head teacher before he took me to a classroom. I was handed a piece of chalk, along with a text book which suggested a few sentences using the words; never, sometimes, usually and always, followed by another section looking at words like; faster, quickly, slowly and carefully. As I walked into the classroom consisting of a black board, a few desks and around 30 children aged at a guess 10-14 all sat waiting to be taught, operation ‘make it up on the spot’ began. To get the kids onside I played some clapping games, sang my trusty African songs (that they didn’t understand) with them, Ke Ke ku le and Cum a la Vista, and got them all to chant the words we would be looking at. This also gave me a few mins to give the lesson some kind of thought! I managed somehow to explain what the words meant and used the children, myself and a lot of actions to describe what I was on about! The good news is they actually got it! I then gave them some time to talk and come up with their own which I think they found hard but in the end we managed to write a few sentences as a class. I then taught them my ‘Little Johnny’ song, which they loved, before they all went home at the end of the day. This was an awesome lesson! The feeling of having 30 pairs of eyes fixed on me with 100% concentration and willingness to learn when I had nothing prepared was amazing! To be able to make something up, teach it, see little moments of progress and understanding in the eyes of children, some of which walk 2 hours to be there, and see their happy faces was brilliant! I cannot wait until tomorrow!

Kenya so far is brilliant! I have never physically worked this hard in my life and been so motivated to do the same tomorrow! The other guys in the group are great to be with. In our little gang there is, Me, Matt, Lois, Anna, Holly, Emma, Ashley, Charlie, Charlotte, Charlotte, Laura, Georgia and Kerry. Friends from Kenya include, Titus and Tom in the kitchen, Uistus the camp manager and Sampuli the chief toilet builder! Tomorrow is more of the same but I cannot wait, now I need to go to bed, rest my aching body and get ready for breakfast at 7.30am tomorrow! Tra for now x

Written 7th July 2011

Day 7

Jambo! So I am sat around one of the tables in camp with… Charlie, Holly, Charlotte, Kerry, Anna, Matt, Laura, Emma, Lois and Ashley! We are just arranging where to have a reunion and I have just decided it will never happen because it is too complicated!

Anyway, since I last wrote we have been doing much of the same, having a great time, working very hard and meeting lots of local people. The toilet is now more or less at ground level. We have filled in the edge around the brick wall and today we moved the scaffolding up, in total today we worked for around 6 hours! The ‘A TEAM’, Me, Matt, Ollie, Tom, Charlottle and Sampuli have literally blitz the wall over the last few days, the others do a good job at mixing the cement, fetching bricks, and sand when we are in the hole! I prefer to do the brick laying though, I’m not too bad family Bladen! I would say the hole is around 16 feet deep in total, and we have built around 10 feet. The next job is to build 1 more layer of brick, fill in the sides, level off and then start on building a little hut and some cubicles. Hopefully we will have time to do it all before we finish.

After working at the toilet during the day I have been going to school. Today I was late and apparently they were all asking where I was! Even though I was shattered and not feeling to good I went down and sang some more songs with them. When I got there they were all sat there copying from the board and there was no teacher in sight… strange! Anyway, a quick rendition of Ke Ke ku le and Cum a la Vista soon woke the kids up and I taught them Siahamba! Then I videoed all of the children singing the ‘Jambo’ song so I can use it at school in England!
Right, tea is ready now… Tomorrow is a ‘cultural day’ and then it’s a day at the beach and time for Safari!! Tra 4 now xxx

Written 10th July 2011

Day 9

Jambo! I am just sat in the internet cafe at Diani Beach. The cultural day was really good apart from i was ill again! Not to bad though so i still had a good time! We walked for about 45 mins to a village where we made stew, bread and other bits for lunch and then i made a palm tree hat! Love it! We then harvested a whole field of corn! Back breaking!

Yesterday was a really good day. We drove back to Mombasa for a city tour, about an hour and a half in a truck!! People were everywhere!I bought a few gifts and then went into teacher mode! Masks and a Jembe are now somehow going to have to make their way back to home! I hope the post works here!

On the way home we stopped of to feed some Giraffes at a park! I spent most of the time singing with a group of year 3/4 children on a school trip! Doing this like that is awesome!

Last night we were all on a high after having a suger rush! A visit to the town and the supermarket resulted in 3 Mars Bars, 3 Twix, 4 packs of Skittles, Beer and Chocolate Eclairs! Never has chocolate tasted so good! We decided to make a night of it! Full Moon is the local club and it is actually quite impressive! We had a really good night and went to bed around 3 ish. I'm off to the beach now to relax before i go on Safari tomorrow.

Tra for now x