Wow! Such a fab weekend, I need to update earlier than expected…

Me and Jenny

We decided to hit the town on both Friday and Saturday night (I get the feeling this might become routine) and hit the beach all weekend. Friday night was lots of fun, it wasn’t too packed in Forties for a change, so we had space to take over the dance floor.
We stopped off at the office on the way through and guess who we found? STEVIE!!!! We all went running and screaming towards him (though he was completely unfazed with a typical relaxed ‘hey guys’), and tried to persuade him to come to the beach with us; he said he was still feeling a bit rough from the Malaria. Fair enough!

The beach was lovely - the tide was out for a long time, so I had a nice wander in the shallows, then did some swimming and snorkelling with Ben and Katie. We found a lady who makes clothes from Kanga’s, so placed an order with her for some funky baggy trousers. Cue us all looking like MC Hammer with a Kenyan twist.

After a busy day we all felt absolutely wiped when we got back, and many of us got ready to go out quite reluctantly. At one point I was so ready to sleep that my only reason for going out was the fact I’d just deet-ed myself up; can’t put that juice to waste! So, I got persuaded to go but I’m SO glad I did. Then as I’m sat having a drink, who walks in but the first project leader  STEVIE!! Brilliant surprise; that livened us all up. We were all a bit concerned that he was drinking whilst still on antibiotics, but he assured us that it was part of the recovery process. Ha.

Had a great time dancing with him (our traditional ‘dance off’ circle where we all do animal-impersonating dance moves), though a highlight was when some random Kenyan guy joined us (he obviously thought we’d just taken Stevie into our group as a token african member and that he was therefore welcome too) and started copying our moves… even when we ran around in a circle with our arses in the air doing ‘the warthog‘. I had to laugh… he did look a bit confused as he was doing it.

Sunday was also a great day – though we were a bit peeved we couldn’t leave for the beach until after 11am; especially since this involved having breakfast (9am) and an early lunch (11am) consisting of hot beef and pasta! Who the hell wants to eat that much, and BEEF, in the space of 2 hours?!? Just get us to the mother freaking beach!!!!!!!!

Got there in the end and Maggie had made our clothes – I now have some bad ass baggy trousers, though they make me look

on La Beach!

suspiciously like Aladdin. I then took a paddle and met a beach boy named Ali …who proposed to me. No joke. His exact words were… “I saw you the first day you come here and I fear to tell you my feelings. I now have courage to tell you all. I see you and I love you..I think of you each night, I can’t sleep – I obsessed. I want white short wife like you. What you think?” JESUS CHRIST. I politely declined and made a hasty exit up the beach. He was ok though (Mum, don’t let this freak you out – most are harmless; one even bought me some cake!), and I didn’t see him for the rest of the day; he was probably off tapping some other ‘white short wife’ up the beach.

Today we spent the morning at the nursery building a new oven (it has a Swahili name, but I’ve usefully forgotten it) and making porridge to hand out to the kids. They’re so lovely. We played some games with them after, and taught them the Okey Cokey and Ring-a-ring-a-roses, which they got very enthusiastic about! It was so cute, at one point I had all of them fighting over who got to hold my hands, and then after lying on the ground for ring-a-roses, 3 little boys stood picking all the grass off my back, cleaning me. Ahhhh!! This afternoon I’ve just taught an IT lesson to a girl named Fatuma – apparently her favourite thing is potatoes.

Got a fun packed week planned as far as the evenings go – Lion King screening tonight (in a hut), bonfire at camp tomorrow, African Pot restaurant on Wednesday (typical Kenyan haunt that serves Nyema Choma – grilled meats), team quiz on Thursday, then probably out Friday and Saturday. As we get Friday afternoons off, I’m going to try and get a Matatu (public bus) into Ukunda – though I’m a bit scared… they’re like mini vans that they apparently manage to get about 25 people in!! That should be fun in the 2pm afternoon heat! I’ll let you know how it goes…

Ciao for now xxxxx