Happy New Year

Well it's that time again, in the words of the song "Another year over and what have you done?". We are five years from the millenium also so a good time to reflect on what we want out of this decade. I'm pleased and proud that we are doing the thing we planned to do for years - but inevitably I feel that we aren't using the time productively enough, not making the most of the opportunities etc. Also whilst we are travelling around the developing world, especially Africa, there's plenty of chance to feel guilty and greedy, by the disparity in life opportunities and by the amount that we are spending on travelling! Despite all of these horrible feelings I am enjoying myself and am glad to be doing this. I think that we are all learning A LOT.

Yesterday we had to have a school conversation, how horrid - but the girls have got to choose their options for next year soon and also Melissa had to think about whether or not to return to Stringer. It seemed a shame to have to put our minds to school with nine months still to go before the inevitable return but it had to be done. Also inevitiably Mark and I have been thinking about earning money when we get home and how we want our lives to be. My old dilemma of how to combine small scale farming with living around working class/black/Asian people is back in full view, as the more time that I spend around farms/animals/land and around black and Asian people the more I know that I really want both in my life. The only solution seems to be to move to India! Although the question of earning money then becomes another problem.

We now are the very proud and delighted custodian of two delicious (not in chinese terms I hasten to add!) puppies. We have called them Sunny and Jessie and they live in a large hutch type affair outside. I am charged with training them and training Paulo how to continue their training after we have gone. I've never had to train guard dogs before and it's a little daunting but they are so much fun and so cute, we just love having them.

Of course the news of the Tsunami was very shocking especially as some of the places hit are places that we have either visited recently or planned to do so soon. We were discussing this morning whether there may be any way that we can assist in the Aid effort whilst we are in Thailand - we'll explore the possiblities and practicalities over the next few weeks. My immediate impulse was to return to India to help out there, where I feel at home and connected but we have arranged to meet Diane and Jo in Thailand and obviously don't want to miss that.

Hope you all have a good New Year and a happy, exciting and inspirational 2005

- Heather

Malaria

Melissa and I were both poorly the night before Christmas Eve: hot and cold, with headaches, body aches, and shivering on getting into bed. Both a bit better by morning, but Bugs, Bites and Bowels tells us to treat all fevers as potential malaria (and we knew we'd each been bitten a couple of times on our trip to the coast), so we headed off to Kisumu to find a blood test.

Medical Diagnostic Services is one of several offices in teh centre of Kisumu where they'll check your blood for malaria parasites while you wait for KSh 100 (one Euro). We'd brought our own sterile needles in case of need, but the old technician guy used single-use metal spikes, fresh from the sealed packet, to make a small but painful hole in each of our left middle fingers. Then we waited for 40 minutes in the waiting area, empty but for us, the bored and unfriendly receptionist, and lots of adverts for anti-malarials, voluntary AIDS tests, slimming pills and the like.

Results are brought through, and the receptionist spends five minutes typing them onto results slips, without saying a word to us - come on, have we got malaria or what? No malaria, somewhat disappointingly by now! Melissa has slight and I have moderate neutrophilia though - so we're infected (I guess with something flu-like) even if not infested. Three days later, though, Naomy takes a test, and she is infested: which doesn't stop her driving all over Western Kenya for the following couple of days, fulfilling social obligations and shopping for Anne's return to school in January ...

- Mark

Circumcised boys

Well, our invitation to a circumcision party hasn't materialised, but we saw our first recently circumcised boys on the way to Tabo for Christmas lunch:

Then, driving home from Kisumu the other day, we pulled over to look across a field at a crowd gathered around dancing circumcised Tirigi boys:

I was invited and encouraged to take photos by several men, once they'd checked it wouldn't be for profit. One guy was trying to make sure I got a good shot of his son when a very tall, angry-sounding man with a flat wooden blade of some kind came up suddenly, shouting, telling me I mustn't take photos and couldn't take my camera away with me. After a couple of minutes, and some placating noises from me, several other guys intervened and got the tall man to back down - I got the impression he was mainly hoping I'd offer him some money in order to get out of the situation.

Several men I hadn't previously spoken to made a point of coming up as we were leaving to apologise, and invite us to come again the next day. No harm done, and the pictures are nice, but it was scary when the big guy had my wrist held tightly and was shouting at me! New rule of travel: stay out of fields full of drunk men celebrating manhood.

- Mark

A Rainbow by Moonlight

The other night it rained hard, drumming on the corrugated iron roof as we sat at dinner (altogether these days - Heather's persistence paid off). After eating, I went out to enjoy the coolness of the tail end of the storm, and saw a moonlight rainbow.

A similar size and width to daylight rainbows, it appeared opposite the just-past-full moon, which was around 30 degrees above the horizon (the rain clouds were blowing away from the moon). The colours of the rainbow were much fainter, and could only just be made out, but the bow itself was very clear, and seemed to divide the sky into a noticeably lighter interior, and a darker sky outside the arch. Very, very faintly, a second, larger arch could just be made out outside the first, the gap between them being 5-10 times the width of the inner bow (or the width of my hand held at arms length).

None of us had seen or heard of this before, and a quick google suggests they are rare (more common to see moonbows in waterfall spray than after rain) - so it was a stroke of luck to catch this one. An impressive sight, at any rate: but we don't have the right kind of equipment to have photographed it, sorry!

- Mark

Christmas in Kenya

On the eve of Christmas Eve we shopped and bought gifts and food for Christmas, and started to decorate the house. We also put on Christmassy tunes on the cassette player and got into the mood. Naomy went and picked up her mum, and her six year old niece Virginia, who were coming to spend Christmas with us. That evening we sang some Christmas carols with Naomy's mum singing the same tunes in Kinyore whilst we sang in English or hummed along.

On Christmas Eve we finished decorating the house, brought in a branch of Cyprus for our tree and made the front room very pretty. Whilst Naomy and her mum went off visiting I cooked a traditional (ish) English christmas dinner, with the chicken that I had been fattening up - had to have a little cry at its demise as I had got used to it pecking around the garden, but it seems better this way somehow - at least you know what you are eating!

The evening came and we ate our Chirstmas meal. Afterwards the children got very homesick and both had a cry, Mark and I were homesick too. Later we sang more carols and had a nice evening. People nearby were banging drums and Naomy told us that Pentecostalists and some others stay up all night on Christmas Eve.

The next morning the girls woke up to (surprise) stockings - we had a nice time unwrapping them together and they gave us some nice gifts too. We had received a few texts in the night and we read them out - which cheered them up no end - never underestimate what it means to us to hear from our folks back home - we are having a great time and love being here but we still miss you all terribly. I went off to make eggie bread and baked beans for breakfast and after that we all sat around the tree and opened our presents.

We all had one or two presents and to be honest it felt as good to me as when there are a huge heap (but I doubt the girls will agree) - I got some chocolates and an African kikoye (sarong) - very happy with them. Everyone seemed happy with their gifts and it felt nice. We were going to visit a friend of Naomy's for lunch and, to be honest, I don't think any of us were looking forward to leaving the house again after such a lot of travelling but we finally went at midday.

After a very long (2 and a half hour) and very hot drive we arrived at Wilbroda's house and straight away were made to feel very welcome and happy that we had taken the trouble to come. Wilbroda, and her husband Juma, work in Nairobi (she's a Luyha lawyer!) but have a shamba (farm, homestead) in the countryside, where Juma's mum and dad are buried. They have a large extended family and cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and even pigs so I was in my element and got to feed the pigs - the highlight for me! The countryside around was incredibly beautiful and I could see why we 'wazungu' had so wanted to steal it away from the Africans. That area had been very popular with the British colonists and it was easy to see why.

We ate a huge meal outside under a canvas canopy - there were roasted goat, beef and chicken stew, rice, pilau, chapatis, pasta, cabbage and tomato salad. This was followed by watermelon and a massive birthday cake for their son who was celebrating his ninth birthday and the fact that he had just been through circumcision and was now a man! On our journey there we had seen whole gangs of little boys covered in clay and painted fiercely who had been recently circumcised and were spending time 'in the forest', some had clubs and looked a little scarey. Mark will put photos up eventually. Our host's son Emmanual was dressed conventionally for his birthday but had been similarly attired before our arrival!

Finally I drove us all home in the dark, exhausting! It's like driving in rural England at night but with many potholes, speed bumps (many unmarked), bikes without lights and many people - some of whom were obviously a little worse for Christmas cheer! Boxing Day saw us four wazungu collapsed in a state of exhaustion, reading our Christmas books (me and Melissa both read a book each and Mark and Rosa two!) and feeling rather pathetic whilst the Wafricans carried on working as normal around us. - Heather

Xmas Photos (Part Two)

Tabo for Xmas Dinner

Xmas Photos (Part One)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

Twawatakia Krismasi njema ...

... na mwakwa mwenye mafanikio!

We have our internet voice-mail working at last - so to hear our Christmas message to the world, click here.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas

Kenya is proving to be a bit difficult to communicate from as we are very busy, a good distance away from internet access, and the internet access is very unpredictable.

Anyhow Africa is great. We are having a good if rather exhausting time holidaying around Mombassa. The heat is fierce and driving a large non-air conditioned car packed with 7 people and all our luggage around is quite tough. We took two days to drive here over 500 miles from 'home' - we are taking three days to drive back, as Mark and I were really tired. The Kenyan roads are incredible - the main Nairobi to Mombassa road (the biggest and most important route in the country) has a few miles of lovely smooth road followed by miles and miles of pot holes and virtual farm track. Even the smooth road is one lane each way and is packed with huge, stinking lorries. Concentration is needed to negotiate the lorries, especially as they pull out to avoid huge potholes from time to time without warning. The Kenyan roads also have a lot of speed bumps (as well as the traffic-calming pot holes!), most of which aren't marked in any way, so it is really easy to miss them completely until you are flying over them - quite scary.

Having said all that, the Kenyan drivers are very well mannered and patient - last night I drove the wrong way down a one way street in Mombassa(there were no signs saying it was one way that we could see), it was very narrow and winding and no-one could get past me, I had to reverse (very slowly) about 300 metres back to the junction with about five cars patiently waiting for me to do it. No-one hooted, or looked annoyed and lots of people helpfully directed me. Also, on the 'big' roads, although some cars go very fast, you never get the 'hassled' feeling from them if they are behind you trying to overtake that you do at home, so you feel you can go at your own speed.

We are looking forward to getting home to 'cool' Vihiga and slightly looking forward to Christmas. It seems almost impossible that it is less than a week until Christmas, partly because there is little evidence of it here still (there is some but not a lot) but also because its baking hot and we have no presents, tree or anything like that.

However this may be my last opportunity to get to the internet before, so this is my Christmas message. Let me wish you all a great Christmas and New Year, especially those of you that will be celebrating it, have a toast to us.

Anyone that wants to ring us over the festive season can do so on my Kenyan mobile 00254 723 576 706. To make it cheaper use telediscount - dial 0911 219 32 32 before the phone number and that will make it 20p per minute (are we worth it?!).

Hope to hear from some of you over the festive season, and Mark hopes to get some photos up soon - but who knows - we probably can by the New Year at least. Lots and lots of love and best wishes- Heather

Merry Christmas

I am just writing a blog to say MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR We are having a wicked time out here but I, for one, am feeling very strange about the fact that i won't see any of you guys at home this crimbo! (not least that we won't be getting any big expensive prezzies this year!!!) Lots Of Love To You All A Very Very Faraway, - Rosa xxx -

Tsavo again, and Into The West

The Distarr Hotel in Voi serves nice hot curries, and the rooms were clean - but the beds were short, and at night it suffered from the liveliness that makes Voi look interesting: the neighbouring disco ended on the dot of 4 am, in time for the early train to whistle past at 4:10, giving me 50 minutes kip until the mosque woke us for prayer at five.

Back to the park as the sun rose - we drove about 100km that morning, and saw ostriches, several groups of giraffes, a troop of baboons, a beautiful secretary bird, mongooses, some kind of shrew, Grant's gazelles, more dik-diks, and lots of big cat prints, but no big cats. Plus termite mounds, big black wasps, Baobab and Myrrh trees and the Yatta Plateau.

Coming round a corner, we saw an elephant hurrying away from us, and failed to see its friend, until a large red angry bull elephant was charging us, ears flapping wildly, trunk raised, trumpeting ... We managed not to stall and to drive in the right direction - so none of us are squashed - but we didn't manage to get a photo of the charge - just the elephant trumpeting afterwards in the distance.

Then 600km homeward - and on the way back to Western Kenya we saw, from the main road, fifteen or so giraffes, one pale yellow thing some of us swore was a lion, several zebra, antelopes, cows, goats, donkeys, and Massai and many other people.

Tsavo East National Park

A lie-in till 8, in our comfortable enough rooms in the Manson Hotel - then a big included-in-the-price breakfast to keep us going. Off to a cybercafe, which lost all power just as Naomy had nearly completed a long circular email, I'd got a bunch of photos half uploaded, and Heather had finally got into her email account. So we dropped H, Mo and Rosa in another cybercafe in a more electrified part of town and went to visit Naomy's old college friend, at Telkom Kenya Regional HQ. Taabu was very pleased to see Naomy, and all of us, and we passed a pleasant hour chatting, and trying to get Rebecca a job.

Two hours horrible road, then one hour very good road to Voi, and the gate into Tsavo East National Park.

We hadn't planned to visit a National Park (too expensive) - but we couldn't resist it when we were going to be sleeping in town right next door anyway. And in fact it was cheaper than we'd feared - 27 USD each for H and I, 10 USD each for our two girls, and only 250 KSh for the Kenyans, for 24 hours access to the park. The photos won't do it justice, but that evening we saw giraffes, warthog, a distant elephant, a huge herd of buffalo, guinea fowl, spur fowl, a widow bird, several kinds of lizards and a medley of antelope, including the tiny dik dik.

Snorkelling to Mombassa

Not a very impressive start to our snorkelling trip out to Malindi National Marine Park: everybody (including boat crew) up-too-early, and Rosa a bit sick feeling. The reef looks like anywhere else from above, but fish start coming as soon as we arrive, and a little bread sends them into a frenzy.

Soon we're swimming amongst them: Melissa's nervous at first, but her confidence builds. Rebecca stays in the boat for a while, the gets in in using the life-saver ring from the boat, with lots of encouragement from the crew, and from us. She uses a face mask, but doesn't like the snorkel: in the end she floats on the end of a rope for a good while, looking at the fish and the reef a little, feeling the bouyancy of her legs and the rest of her body in the sea, and moving herself around with her legs - a good first swimming lesson!

By now, Melissa's quite confident, so she and Rosa swim over with me to 'Finding Nemo'-land: loads of fish (zebra fish, six-bar wrasse, a sting-ray - lots more) and a whole world to watch. Would love to do more/scuba: we'll have to count our pennies in Thailand!

Rosa feeling quite seasick by now, so back to base, to pack and shower. The others (H, Naomy and Anne) have been to a Snake Farm, where they held tortoises, and Naomy was very scared of snakes. They saw two cobras with hoods out, baby crocs and monitor lizards.

We sat and chatted some more with Shabina Aslam, Diversity Director of BBC Radio, about the media, racism, travel ... Then it's goodbye and back on the road, via an apparently English supermarket for familiar snacks. Very hot driving, till we found a wonderfully cool, almost first world, shopping mall - bookshop, cafe, fastish cybercafe (the one inaccessible bit, sadly for Naomy), disabled parking, wheelchair loan - Heaven.

Driving around Mombassa's easier than we expected, and when our first choice of hotel from the guidebook turned out to have closed we didn't mind too much going round in circles till we found the next one. A rest, then out for dinner to the "best tandoori and nan on the coast" - not terrible, but not impressed with the guidebook today. Rosa and Melissa very tired, and very grumpy while we ate, but cheered up a bit as we ended our day with a drive to Fort Jesus and through the twisty thin roads of the old town. Fun.

- Mark

Happy Nights in Watamu

One week to Xmas - now I am starting to miss the tinsel and lights a little. We've only one more day here - we've been taking it easy, wandering around the little streets of the original town here, and spending some time on the beaches.

It looks like the cheap community wildlife place we thought we'd visit on the way home basically offers bush-walks, so we'll need to go to a proper national park for Naomy to see animals with us. Fifteen quid each would seem nothing too much at home, but it seems huge here - although it pales by comparison with the air safaris we were offered by a friendly guy today, starting at only 700 euro per person for two days (more than our entire Kenyan budget for just the four of us!)

Spent the day variously shopping, sleeping, chatting with Benny from Dudley (nice to hear a Midlands accent), and wrestling with a very underpowered PC getting photos out of the cameras and onto a CD-Rom. Then off to Malindi for dinner, 24kms up the coast, and Naomy's longest drive with us all as passengers. We sat and ate reasonable food served by very helpful staff, looking out at the Indian Ocean from the Baobab restaurant, discussing colonialism and world history (Anne is particularly interested in African and World History). I spoke to my Mum, and Melissa phoned home (well, got them to phone us, in fact), both of which were sort of sad calls. I think we'll miss people over Xmas.

Hotel-ward bound, but we popped in to Happy Nights Disco first, and stayed for an hour or so, hoping to meet our new friend from the Malob, Shabina Aslam, which we didn't. All too shy to dance - and it doesn't 'get going' till later, we were told, although around fifteen or twenty young Kenyans were doing their thing on and around the dance floor by the time we left.

Anne continued our education in African youth culture - the young men's clothes made them msalads (Stupid Africans Learning American Dress = salad, then add m to make it into a person word), while the young women were "dressed like Botswanans" according to Naomy (much less clothing than Africans generally wear). Anne got the DJ to give up on the WestLife album we arrived to, and to play a mixture of Tanzanian and Kenyan music - in pure KiSwahili and in Sheng, the Swahili/English street-talk young Nairobians use.

We tapped our feet, and pondered the 50-something mzungu (white) woman we've seen a few times with a teenage Kenyan boy on her arm, and the many middle-aged wazungu (white, plural) men we've seen with young African women in Botswanan clothes. We decided that true love was not the main factor in play...

- Mark