Arusha to Zanzibar

Apologies for the delay in updating you all! Will be redundant soon as we will be home to share all our stories!

After safari we were dropped off at St. Jude’s School in Arusha. St. Jude’s was founded by an Australian woman from NSW and is an amazing story, click here to find out more; http://www.schoolofstjude.org/
A brief summary however; Gemma was working in East Africa, Uganda mainly, when she started the East Africa fund, aimed at raising funds to build a school. She met a Tanzanian man, Richard, fell in love, and upon their marriage, was given land to start a school in Tanzania, a country with a much poorer standard of education than neighbouring Kenya or Uganda.
It started with 3 students in one room and 10 years later, thanks to sponsorship of its students, teachers and projects, now educates almost 1500 students from Standard 1 (Grade 1-ish) to Form 4 currently. In 2015, they will have their first graduates.
St. Jude’s takes the brightest students, but also the poorest. There is a stringent screening process, and they only take 150 students each year. Firstly, the students must pass an academic test. Once they pass that stage, their homes are visited to determine if they are ‘poor’ enough to attend the school. If it is determined that the family has means to send them to school themselves, the students are not allowed to attend St. Jude’s.

Richard, Gemma’s wife, was our wonderful safari driver, and it is a tribute to the determination and almost business mind of Gemma that the safari company works so well. For all the tourists and volunteers that come to work at the school or see their sponsor kid, why not add on a safari, with proceeds going back to the school.

We ended up spending 4 nights at St. Jude’s. The community there is wonderful; mostly Australian teachers/volunteers, some who directly teach classes and others who are teacher mentors, helping to raise the standard of the local teachers. We loved listening to everyone’s stories and why they were there. Richard has a bar on the school grounds with the cheapest drinks in Tanzania! We enjoyed talking to everyone before dinner each night :)

We toured both campuses, primary and secondary, helped in the library and went on a home visit. Now, without sounding as it may come across, and in an observational manner, I will now perhaps sound a little negative to some of you. Feel free to come to your own conclusions, however :)

The home visit was to a 16 year old boys home about 10 minutes from the junior campus. Both his parents had passed away, so he was cared for by his grandmother, uncle and older sister, who had a child of her own. When we walked into their home, it struck us that it wasn’t the poverty we expected. We had heard of dire circumstances and families who couldn’t support their children. However, the house and situation we saw was nothing compared to Kibera. The house, and it was truly a house, mud walls and tin roof of course, but in no way was it a shack, was 10 times better than the shanties we had seen in the slums. We were offered a meal of rice and beans and there was more than enough for myself, Marty, Amanda and our two guides. After spending perhaps half an hour there, we said our goodbyes, and Marty, Amanda and myself were full of questions for our guides. It was determined that it was an average house for Arusha, and an average house for students of St. Jude’s. There were definitely worse situations around. The family were lucky as the grandmother had received the tribal land in a re-distribution scheme. Amanda, who had previously been in Ethiopia, had similar feelings as ourselves, in that it wasn’t what we expected, and the poverty perhaps wasn’t as severe as what we had seen in our respective countries earlier in our trip.

St. Jude’s is remarkable in what it has achieved in 10 years. To educate so many students, and for Gemma to secure funding and sponsorship year in and year out is truly inspiring. I think Marty summed it up really well in the end, as we were feeling strange feelings towards St. Jude’s when we had seen dramatically worse situations in Kenya. He said that St. Jude’s was amazing, but it didn’t need our help. Places starting out, like in Kibera, and the school Amanda went to in Addis, needed our help. They are only taking their baby steps.

One thing that St. Jude’s left with us however was their kindness and assistance at all stages of our visit. We were unable to secure a ticket on the bus to Dar Es Salaam the day we needed to leave, and they were super helpful in making sure that our plans could work around the minor disruption. So we got to enjoy another day of Peter’s cooking (our Safari cook) and explore Arusha a little, jumping on a Dallah Dallah (pretty much a mini van that you fit as many people into for 300 shillings a trip) into town. We had a really fun extra day :)

But then the day from hell, or Amazing Race day began! A 4.45am alarm woke us to get a taxi to the bus stop, where we would board a bus from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam, then get on a ferry to Zanzibar. An easy day of travel we thought! Wrong!!

The bus ride was sooooo long. We ended up spending 10 and a half hours on the bus, which is longer than a macbook battery, given that we watched about 12 episodes of The IT Crowd on it, to the amusement of those around us. There was a lot of staring out the window, napping and listening to the iPod. Luckily we had people updating us on the cricket score on the way :)
Once we got into Dar, things got hectic. One thing we have noticed here is you can never get a straight answer. The bus conductor had told us that the last stop on the bus would be at the ferry dock. Wrong. We got off the bus, only to be almost abducted by a taxi driver assuring us he would take us where we needed. 15000 shillings later to the men who picked up our bags and carried them 20 meters and I started asking questions of our taxi driver. As it was after 4pm, I was pretty sure there would be no more ferries that day. “Yeah, I take you to ferry”. But will we get a ferry? “No, ferries done. We get a plane. Last flight 5.30.” We got in the taxi with trepidation and bribery by the driver, while throwing 10’s of thousands of shillings around for leaving the terminal, then “I take you long way but no traffic, but more money”. I’m fairly certain Marty was going to throw a punch at one stage during the trip. At 4.50pm he told us that we were half an hour away and “you make flight, you make flight”. Luckily, we got off the back streets of Dar and could see the airport, where we jumped out, threw over $150US for two seats on the worlds smallest plane, and headed to the waiting room, where surprise surprise, we weren’t told what time the plane would leave, let alone which one it was. Marty had enough by this point and called our accommodation in Zanzibar to get a taxi to collect us so we didn’t get ripped off by someone else for being mzungu (white).

We both started to relax when we got on the plane and knew that soon we would be in paradise! Mind you, I’m a fan of jets, not little propellor contraptions where you can see the pilot.

After travelling for 14 hours we finally made it to Imani Beach Lodge in Bububu (so not a real name of a place!). Right on the beach, with a treehouse restaurant and a cute little room with a good shower. Dinner and bed was all that was left for us, we were wrecked!

We spent Saturday in the water or by the water! No big adventures for us. The sun was out and it hasn’t taken long for either of us to get a bit of colour! The only issue is the tides and the fact that the coast is either rocky or has coral, meaning you have to walk far out at low tide, or walk over coral at high tide. On Sunday we went on a Spice Tour in a local community spice farm, which was a bit socialist to be honest! I don’t know if everyone shared the profits or not, but I couldn’t help thinking there were a few Marxist principles in the way they operated! We saw a crazy man climb a coconut tree, tried spices and fruits and had a delicious home made lunch. In the afternoon we got a taxi into Stone Town for a look around and some western food – the home food cravings are well and truly here! Stone Town is really pretty and had a lovely water front with no coral! We watched the locals play soccer and throw themselves into the water and walked around the amazing food market for nutella crepe pizzas :)

On Monday we joined two other Aussies to visit Prison Island, where they have giant tortoises! You’re not allowed to feed them, but you can pat them and pick the baby ones up! However, the boat we took was an old fishing dhow, and lets just say it wasn’t the smoothest ride! Cue sea sickness for me, no vomit, but was so close! We snorkelled and saw some amazing fish and coral and beautiful blue seas! However, 6 hours in the sun is never a good thing, and when you feel too sick to move, let alone put on sunscreen, you become a lobster. I was not the only one though! We all returned sore and sorry for ourselves and the two of us had a quiet night in the treehouse, and thankfully on dry land, no more boats for me!

Yesterday, we dared to hire a scooter to go exploring. Once Marty got the hang of it, off we went! We had a really fun day :) Only went about 20 minutes north of where we were, then back to Stone Town, but loved seeing all the communities and adventuring our way around without maps! We did a bit of shopping and had a lovely dinner at Mercury’s, a restaurant dedicated to Freddie Mercury, as he was born in Zanzibar! We are pleased to say that we are in one piece after our scooter adventures :)

Now we’re packing to return to Nairobi tonight, then start the long journey home tomorrow L Not happy, but looking forward to being home and seeing everyone and eating cheeseburgers and dumplings and BBQs, all the things we have missed! So the next time we speak to you, we will probably be home! I’m sure there will be one last update in us though, so stay tuned :) We will be home soon with presents!

Safari

Safari

Day One:

After struggling to walk and climb into the safari 4WD, we set off on our 5 day adventure with Amanda, a teacher from Perth who was joining us. We chatted the whole way to our campsite near Lake Manyara. The campsite was beautiful, all green grass and swimming pool, and we left all our stuff to be set up while we visited the park. Lake Manyara was stunning. Within 20 meters of being inside the gates we were already seeing monkeys and baboons playing around and walking back and forth across the road. We were lucky enough to see zebras, giraffes, elephants, flamingos, hippos and buffalos all on our first afternoon. Our guide, Richard, was so full of information and so friendly. We were very lucky, as you can see good guides are hard to come by when you stop for lunch or at the campsites. For some guides I guess its just a way to make money, and they care very little for their job or clients. Lunches soon became our favourite part of the day because we got these amazing lunch boxes filled with everything! We will be sad to go home to normal lunches now.
Upon returning to our campsite, we went for a walk to buy a Masaai blanket. Its not unlike Thailand, walking around near shops and stalls, with people heckling you to buy things and trying to usher you into their shop. We just went with the usual excuse that we couldn’t take it back into Australia.
Similar to Kili, we were fed like kings! The difference being this time we could actually eat it. Going home to my cooking is going to be a big disappointment!

Day Two:

Day two saw horrible weather! Rain, fog and mist for the entire morning. We left early to start the long drive to the Serengeti. We didn’t see a lot of scenery but enjoyed the drive. Marty slept a great deal, as he did for the whole safari! We had a 45 minute stop at the Ngorogoro Crater entrance gate, where the Tanzanian Safari version of Myki is about as successful there as it is at home. We enjoyed watching all the dorky European tourists in their khaki safari get ups.
At lunch, we visited a Masaai tribe and their village. It was a truly eye opening experience, but in a different way to what we had already seen. The Masaai people are nomadic, moving with their goats and cows depending on the conditions. To make it easy to picture them, they are the ‘jumping Africans’, with the holes in their ears. It was a meeting of western and traditional ways. Imagine 20 or so mud and stick huts, but with a water tank in the middle of the community. Multiple wives are allowed and the women are responsible for child raising and the building of homes. They also make jewellery to sell. Our guide is educated at a school near the crater and had great English speaking skills. But he still maintains the Masaai lifestyle and lives in his hut. There is no ‘taking them away from poverty’ feel here. It’s their way of life.
We reached the Serengeti gate in the late afternoon. We were lucky to see a few animals in our late afternoon drive. The place is just huge. You could get lost in there easily! We knew we were in dangerous territory when our dining ‘pavilion’ is caged and able to be locked! We had an early night that night after yet another amazing meal, as Marty and I had an early start the next morning!
Oh, and the bathrooms were disgusting! Drop toilets and cold showers!

Day Three:

We began day three with a 5am wake up call, as we were going Hot Air Ballooning over the Serengeti National Park, my Christmas present to Marty. It was such an amazing experience. The park was gorgeous at that time of morning, and we saw a lot of giraffes and elephants. The only downside was a horrrrrrrrrrrrrible Asian/American tourist who was the resident expert on everything and did not shut up! We tried to tune her out. We were treated to a full breakfast in the middle of the park afterwards. It was a nice way to spend new years eve :)
We did so much driving that day! We saw everything. Hippos, elephants, leopards and 6 lions in a tree, followed by a mumma and two baby cubs later in the afternoon. The afternoon drive was lovely, even if you don’t see animals, there is so much to look at and appreciate. And we were so lucky we had good company in Amanda, as well as Richard chiming in with funny comments every now and again.
We didn’t party hard at all new years eve, we were too tired! Some wine over dinner and an early night was preferred.

Day Four:

Back on the road again! This time to the crater. The crater is left from an old volcano. It is giant! It is here that we had our great lion encounter. There was a pride walking between the river for water and the carcass of their last kill. However, in the heat of the day, they were looking for places to rest. That place happened to be the shade provided by our parked car! We couldn’t move for 45 minutes! As we sat carefully in our car, a herd of water buffalo were fighting for ‘turf’ with some of the lions under the tree. Apparently, a herd of water buffalo are more intimidating than a few lions. But the worst was yet to come! There were two lion cubs with their mother, and once the water buffalo crossed the river, they were separated. I’m talking ‘stampede in the gorge, Simba’s down there’ style. One of the lion cubs tried to climb a tree out of the way and about 20 safari trucks were collectively holding their breath! Finally the cubs escaped and got back to their mummy, which was lucky, because our truck was almost in tears!
There was no topping what we had seen that morning, so after lunch and a bit more of a drive around, we headed back to our accommodation… which was in a B&B! Not a tent! Amanda and I were very excited to wash our hair in a proper shower and sleep in a proper bed.

Day Five:

After a wonderful sleep we headed to Tarangire Park, a park popular for elephants. We have learned that you can never see too many elephants :) Unfortunately, its also known for flies similar to our sand flies at home. And they bite! We spent the day slapping ourselves and each other, while keeping an eye out for any animals we could see. It was a hot day, so a lot of the wildlife was keeping cool. And then our safari was over! It was time to drive back to St. Jude’s, a school founded by a girl from NSW that now provides free education to 1500 of the poorest students from Arusha.

We had an absolute ball on safari! We can recommend the company 100% and learned so much while seeing beautiful scenery so different to Australia.

I’ll update you all on our time at St. Jude’s tomorrow, when we get to Zanzibar!

Love Rach and Marty xxx

Kili!

Day One:

We were picked up from our hotel by a van full of porters, cooks and guides and driven the three hours through questionable Tanzanian traffic from Arusha to our gate on the Marangu route. I was definitely nervous about the climb but felt better when we were all registered and started off on our walk. However, that feeling didn’t last long, as Marty was powering up the hills with me puffing behind him! The guides laughed and told Marty to slow down, and we gradually settled into a rhythm for our first 8kms. I was wrecked when we got to our first camp, and didn’t realise it at the time, but was probably suffering a little altitude sickness, with a headache and loss of appetite. We popped our first altitude pills and headed to bed early, like every night for the rest of the week! Sleeping took a bit of getting used to, with monkeys chirping and carrying on most of the night. A trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night showed a beautiful night sky :)

Day Two:

Things took a turn on day two, with the path being a lot harder! After a massive breakfast, like all the meals on Kili, we started walking uphill for most of our 12kms. The landscape changed from rainforest to desert, with the occasional random gum tree. After a well deserved lunch break, the last hour and a half of the walk was a lot easier, I think we both did our best walking after lunch! It was so hard getting up in the morning and forcing all this food down, particularly as a) you didn’t feel like eating due to the altitude and b) it probably wouldn’t be your first choice of breakfast. We quite often got a telling off for our lack of eating. The Horombo huts were up a lot further, and a lot colder! It would be our base for the next two nights.

Day Three:

Merry Christmas! We were lucky enough to have a rest day for Christmas Day, in order to acclimatise ourselves more for the ascent. We went for an hour walk up to Zebra Rocks, which funnily enough, were striped like a zebra. We spent most of the day sleeping and trying to get through the mountain of food fed to us before our next big walk. Christmas away was different, but with no way to communicate with home or family, it didn’t really seem like we were missing anything! Except a whole lot of ham and turkey :(

Day Four:

Another big walk for day 4; 10kms. We weren’t really feeling any effects from the altitude apart from a lack of appetite and shortness of breath when walking. Though that could have been because the walking was soooooooo long and slow and constantly uphill! I cracked it by lunchtime and chucked my iPod in for the afternoon walk, walking along to The Beatles until the iPod decided to not work, further increasing my bad mood. I should mention here that Marty found the walk trying at times too, I’m not just being dramatic :)
Once we reached Kibo Huts, we were to have a rest, be woken for dinner at 4.30pm, have a briefing, and then sleep until 10.30pm, when we would be woken to start the summit. As we were sleeping in a dorm room, this was easier said than done! Everyone did really well trying to keep the noise down, but I think we were all geared up and nervous for the summit and overthinking too much to sleep. So at 6.30ish we went to bed after choosing how many layers we could wear at one time and packing our day packs full of snacks and energy gels (thanks Dad!). 10.30 came around too soon, as we had one CRAZY Bolivian girl who had walked all 3 days/stages in one day and was then going to summit, who must have packed only plastic bags and fussed around in her pack, ate dinner in her bed AND brushed her teeth in bed for a good hour. Lets just say she didn’t make many friends!
So the layers went on, we had one last cup of milo/tea and we started walking at 11pm. A good time for going out, and amazingly, a good time for walking. Because you can’t see where you are going, apart from the dim light your headtorch shines. So you just keep walking. Zig-zagging up a mountain, walking on more sand than path, up you go. I hit my low point at about 2.30am, when I had no energy left and felt physically ill from the effort. It was here I got a bit of tough love from our guides and was told that we were close to the halfway point. Another energy gel down and off we went. Lots of stops, lots of water, and it was at this point a guide took my daypack, meaning just me and my poles kept going up! Marty was faring well, except a quick trip to the bathroom walking fast meant he was out of breath for a while after. You can’t do anything fast. Even though we weren’t feeling unwell or showing any signs of altitude sickness, you are out of breath so quickly!
We reached Gilmans Point at 5am. After climbing a motherload of ridiculous rocks, ones that I had to be physically lifted up in order to make the step. That was our walk. Sand and rocks. Until Gilmans, when we found snow! The walk passed quicker once we were at a fairly similar level and knew that we would reach the summit.
And reach the summit we did :) At 6.30am we touched the sign of Uhuru Peak, the highest point on the continent of Africa. Incredible. And crazy. Considering we didn’t train, wore our boots once before leaving to ‘wear them in’ and weren’t tooooo fussed with reaching the peak. But we did, no sickness, no injury greater than a sunburnt nose. But you don’t get long on the peak, so after 5 minutes, and a few tears from me, we went down.
Now I’m a reader. I read a lot about this trip, where to go and what to do. No one, and I mean no one mentioned the horror of the walk down. A lot of people say how good it is going down due to altitude, but seeing as we weren’t suffering, we just found it hard. But, at least we didn’t see what we were walking up in the darkness.  We were quite surprised just what we had walked, and found it hard coming down in pretty much sand. I was dragged down the hill by Daniel, and Marty and Joshua sand skied a little bit behind us. We arrived back at Kibo at 11 for a quick nap and some lunch, as well as finding out how our new friends went on the climb. It was a particularly bad luck day, with only 3 out of the 10 groups we knew of reaching Uhuru Peak. Most made it to Gilmans, earning 1 certificate, but quite a few suffered from altitude sickness. It really showed how lucky we were. The weather was quite bad so we had to leave after an hour to the next camp, 10kms away. This is where we learned that downhill is not as fun as it seemed. Double pairs of socks lead to the stubbing of toes on the front of our shoes. We started off at a good pace but soon tired, and found the last hour or so of the walk infuriating, particularly when the guards wouldn’t tell us how much further it was to go. We spent our last night mainly sleeping and eating a little, I think we were so overtired that we didn’t feel like eating. We were definitely looking forward to getting down to a shower, a bed and a real meal!

Day Six:

Finally the last day arrived! We knew we had a difficult walk ahead of us; 20kms downhill. We packed up, said goodbye to new friends and tried to shovel down as much breakfast as possible so we could get down the hill.
However, our last challenge was not the walk; it was tipping. Tipping is something that we don’t understand to start with. Its not a case of leaving the coins from your change in a restaurant or rounding up the cost of the bill. It is expected. We had tried to ask around as much as possible prior to leaving, as we had been quoted as much as $300US each to tip our team of 8. The day before we left, we were given figures by the tour company, which we took with a grain of salt, expecting them to be a little inflated. By their calculations, we were expected to tip around $550 to the group of 8, with each staff member receiving a different amount. To put that in perspective, that’s how much money I would see after tax working 3 games of footy at Etihad. Luckily, we had talked to our room mates on the last night, who had spoken to their porter about the subject of tipping. He told them that the tipping cycle has become inflated due to tour groups asking too much, and at the end of the day, it is a tip. Luckily we had that conversation before we gave over all the money! It left Marty and I with a bit of a sour taste in our mouths, particularly because the guides initiate a ‘group photo’, after which we are expected to hand over the money. The argument can be made that they earn so little per month, but I think that problem lies in the tour companies, rather than relying on the tourists to supplement their salary. It cost us $1440US each to do the walk. Park fees are $585 and the remaining money is then for the food, a ‘cut’ for the company, and I’m guessing salaries come last. There is a market for a western based company to sell trips with the slogan ‘no need to tip’!
But back to our walk. Down we went. We knew that we had to walk 12kms downhill to our lunch stop, and we went hard and fast, before the rain started. And once it started raining, it didn’t stop. We were so wet! We only had a 15 minute lunch break because we got too cold having stopped. Luckily we had company (as Marty walked ahead of me all the time!) and we were able to pass the time with laughing and telling stories. Finally, the other girls’ guide told us 7 minutes left, and we made it down to the check in, where we signed back in, got our certificates and thought what the hell did we do that for?
Walking was now a big issue, with my legs having given up, and the prospect of a 3 hour bus ride ahead of us was not appealing. Luckily we warmed up and settled back into our seats with the thoughts of all the food we were going to eat when we got back.
But of course we had one more hiccup. Our accommodation was overbooked and we had to be moved to another hotel, luckily 10 meters down the road. I think the look on my face was pretty unimpressed, and I would have been a scary sight, all wet and tired and dirty, so they ushered us to the new place. Marty had to speak sternly to reception for us to get our clothes washed, but everything worked out in the end. We were safe, well, clean, and could order whatever food we wanted and eat as much or as little as we wanted.
All in all, writing this a week later, it was a strange experience. It was one we weren’t particularly ‘motivated’ or felt challenged to do. We hadn’t prepared any more than making sure we had the right clothes to wear. It wasn’t on our bucket list. We got sick of walking and didn’t like our guides sometimes. But as much as this all might sound a little ‘whatever’, we did it. We made the top and I cried at the effort and determination needed. It was truly hard to keep going some days. But we were lucky to not get sick or injured and as the guides said at 2.30am when I had had enough, there was no reason for us not to make it. We had to keep walking.
However, our next holiday will definitely not be an adventure one. We’re thinking more resort with room service and an infinity pool :)

Kibera

Hello from Arusha, Tanzania! We are currently sitting in the restaurant of our accommodation, The Outpost Lodge, enjoying the free wi-fi over dinner. It has been a MASSIVE adventure day and I don’t see us staying up very late tonight either!

Our last three days have been incredible. We have been lucky enough to spend time with Wanawake kwa Wanawake Kenya, translated: Women for Women in Kenya. The organisation aims at supporting women and children in the slum through education and sponsorship. You can sponsor a child from primary school through to college (Tafe)/university. They also run an ‘informal school’, for children who have not gained sponsorship yet but still want to learn. This project is located next to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. The amazing Leonida picked us up at our accommodation Tuesday morning and took us to the office, which is in a slightly unsafe electrical-wise building (Will Mac would have a heart attack!) about 2 minutes walk from the edges of Kibera. After a quick trip to the shops for proper shoes that wouldn’t get our feet dirty, Edwin, Nancy and Paul took us on a walk through Kibera. They are all current or former sponsored students, and all live in Kibera. There is no way of really describing Kibera. Imagine an assault of smell, noise, dirty ‘roads’ (no asphalt, only dirt) while either side of you there are a million structures, and I say structures because in most cases, even a throw away word like ‘shanty’ is too generous. There are women selling food by the side of the road and men selling charcoal, the biggest trade as it is used for fires for cooking. The children, mainly shoeless, yell ‘how are you? How are you?’ at you as you walk past, and Marty had 3 or 4 hanging off him at one stage touching his skin. Apparently, they think all people are named ‘how are you’ and will yell that or ‘mzungu’ (white person). I think we were both overwhelmed but asking so many questions of our guides at the same time. But no matter how full on it all was, everyone was friendly, smiling, positive, kids were playing. There was positivity when we weren’t sure how people got from day to day. There is Western influence and assistance obvious everywhere. There are schools or health centres in ridiculous conditions, but run by Christian brothers or sisters. One in particular, the Mary Rice centre, is run by Christian brothers, for disabled children. Our first stop, down a rabbit warren of paths and under a million exposed electrical wires, was Helen’s house. Helen is the grandmother of one of the sponsored children, Cynthia. There are 7 people living with her, in a room the space of 2mx2m. Helen makes beaded necklaces and bracelets to sell to support her family the best she can, while also being HIV positive. It was here that I got a bit emotional. 8 people living in the size of a bathroom. Marty bought necklaces for everyone :)
On our way out, I asked Edwin whether or not that was the standard house for people. He explained that it was a bad situation, as in African culture, teenagers sharing a room with their parents is taboo. As a result, a lot of teenagers seek other places to sleep, which as you know, can lead to kids getting into trouble and as is too common in Kibera, leads to a pregnancy or the sharing of diseases.
Our next stop was at Paul’s house. Paul’s house would have been lucky to be 1.5mx2m. He lives there with his mother, his sister and his brother. Paul wants to finish his education and become a priest, so he can help others out of Kibera, as well as his family. Paul’s brother has autism, and is lucky enough to attend the Mary Rice centre. However, when school isn’t on, and his mother is out selling vegetables to support the family, Joffre has to stay inside with the door closed, otherwise he runs away, and cannot communicate with people to take him home.
We learned so many amazing, funny, scary, truly mindblowing things. Paul and Nancy were asking after Marty and how long we had been together, and then the discussion became about sugar daddies, and how a lot of young men and women seek a white sugar daddy to pay the bills, gold digger style. Edwin told us about the violence Kibera sees and how they are scared it will come again in the elections next year.
After a trip to Java Hut for lunch and coffee (am now a Kenyan coffee snob!!), we went with Leonida to visit their bank, where they are awaiting funds to be transferred in order to purchase a property of their own, which is really exciting J We returned via the supermarket, which was mindblowing given it was located 5 minutes from Kibera, with a KFC and lovely shops. KFC isn’t as ‘nice’ as home.

The next day saw Marty using his super dooper graphics skills to create a new logo for the organisation. We spent most of the day talking in the office and learning as much as we could about the project and the issues Kibera faces. All our suggestions were so ‘western’; there are so many layers of issues and conflicts that there is no immediate solution. Education is simply an attempt at giving the children a brighter future and a chance to secure a job and move out of Kibera. We were very sad to say goodbye to everyone but will see them again before we fly home :)

Yesterday (22^nd) we caught the bus to Arusha. It was a long 6 hours but we saw some incredible scenery. The border made me a little nervous, but already having a visa made it easier. Tomorrow, we begin our Kili climb. We’re excited! (I’m nervous) but looking forward to the challenge.
So we send a Merry Christmas to everyone and look forward to updating the blog once we conquer the mountain!

Lots and lots of love, Rach and Marty

Lion count: 2!

Hello from Nairobi!

We've had an amazing day today :) A day long adventure was had, with photos to come, once Marty has finished photo shopping them!

We both crashed before dinner last night and set the alarm to get up for a quick bite to eat, then straight back to bed at about 8pm. I made it through till 6am, Marty 7, and I think we're on Africa time now!
Breakfast is complimentary here and was amazing! They do hospitality different here, but we like it so far :)
Our driver from the airport yesterday had offered to take us on a day trip to see the Elephant Orphanage, Giraffe Sanctuary, Crocodile Farm and Kazuri Bead Factory.

Our first stop was at Shelrick Elephant Orphanage, which rescues baby elephants whose mothers have been poached, injured or have abandoned them. They were the most adorable little elephants, ranging from baby ones to two years old. They are fed 6 times a day from giant milk bottles and you can see the affection between the keepers and the elephants. The little guy above is the youngest, and he needs sunscreen and an umbrella escort as his skin is very sensitive. However, the best part of the visit was the two lions we saw!! The orphanage backs onto Nairobi National Park, and during the feeding time a Simba and a Nala (male and female for those haters who haven't seen Lion King) just cruised on by. We were so shocked we didn't even get a photo. The keepers moved the elephants out of the way while the lions were walking by. As we were leaving, we ticked off another Lion King animal, with a family of Pumba's (warthogs) walking across the path in front of us. Soooooooo ugly! But cute :)

The Giraffe Sanctuary was established when a species of giraffe's numbers were dropping in Western Kenya. At present, the sanctuary has 13 giraffes and they aim to reintroduce them to the wild when they are old enough. We got to feed the giraffe's and 'kiss' them - which involves putting a pellet of feed between your lips and the giraffe licking it off your face with its 18 inch tongue. Urghhhhhhhh. Was an experience! Everyone has so much knowledge to share, and they are so willing to share it :)

The Crocodile and Ostrich Farm was amazing! We have crocodiles in Australia of course, but we weren't aware of how much we didn't know! Crocs live for 100 or so years, and we saw three different pens, 18 years and up, 5 to 18 years and little baby ones, which Marty is holding above. I held one too, was definitely more scared! We also saw Ostrich's, ridiculous looking animals! They look insane because of their eyes. But they do run faster than we can legally drive in Australia so we kept well clear of them! Marty is taking to the African cuisine well, mainly because they do a lot of buffets and he gets to eat a lot! We had a lovely lunch in the sun with our driver. The funniest part of the stop was a bunch of local children asking us for a photo with them - I guess because we looked so different! They loved the high-5's afterwards, it was really sweet :)

We also popped into Kazuri Bead Factory, which was established in the 1960's and provides employment for young single mothers. They create beautiful beaded jewellery and pottery and all proceeds go towards the women and their families. It was a lovely place where all the women talked and sang while they worked, and the products they make are world class. They showed us a board where they list all the orders from around the world, and Australia was on the board :) We will have to hunt it down when we return.

We were stuffed after a long day and enjoyed a lovely evening outside having dinner and Marty photoshopping the above photos, which attracted a couple of the staff - looks like we might be taking some photos for the website! We watched a movie and fell asleep half way through and had another deep sleep - we're both enjoying being relaxed and on holidays!

We're about to go visit the community centre with Leonida so we will say bye for now, off for an eye opening day!

We're having an amazing trip and we're sending you so much love :)

Rach and Marty xxxx

Nairobi!

Hi everyone,

22 travelling hours later and we are here! I for one am wrecked, Marty is faring a little better, but we both enjoyed a shower and some food once we arrived at our accommodation!
The flight was fine, the blessing of sleeping tablets allowed us both to get at least 7 hours sleep on and off. We had to do an 'Amazing Race' run in Doha between terminals; they have no joined terminal so you are bussed everywhere. It was very military-like but seemed to run well. We enjoyed the flight out of Doha over some Star Wars landscapes, much of the land we crossed wasn't inhabited.
I was surprised at how calm and low key Nairobi airport was like. They seem to be expanding around it so there was a lot of construction, but at the moment it is the size of one terminal in Melbourne.
Our drive to our accommodation was fun, with Marty asking all sorts of questions of our driver. We got our first 'Hakuna Matata' used in everyday language. Swahili is the national language here, but all signage and advertisements are in English. Petrol is just as expensive here as home, however we're on a much better wage!
Our accommodation is small but pretty, Marty has already been taking photos! We'll hang around here for the afternoon, I don't think they have daylight savings so for safety our adventures are limited to daytime!

Love to everyone at home,

Rach and Marty xxxx

Our itinerary

Hi everyone,

I've been reading my Kilimanjaro guide book and apparently we should be able to get phone signal near the summit of Kili! How bizzare! Africa has better reception than my lounge room in Bendigo.
So where are we going and what are we doing? This has been a very long process, with flights being booked in the middle of the year and constant googling and asking for advice.

We're flying into Nairobi and staying 4 nights, where we will be spending a couple of days in Kibera, a slum that covers an area of 256 hectares. We will be working with the wonderful people from Women for Women in Africa. I don't think we can properly prepare ourselves for this part of the trip, and I'm already curious as to what I'm going to write about our time here.
Once we leave Nairobi, we are going to Arusha, where we will spend a night before climing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Only 19,000ish feet or so, won't be too hard! This is where we will spend Christmas and Boxing Day, doing the Kili Shuffle up the mountain. A different Christmas, that's for sure!
Once we decend, we will spend another night recovering before taking off on safari with Safari's-R-Us, a company affiliated with St. Jude's, a school in Arusha. We will spend 5 days in a number of national parks and hopefully will find a baby elephant for me! (I promise I won't bring one home.. maybe!)
After our safari we will spend two days at St. Jude's, a school an Australian girl built, which provides education to 1500 students from the poorest of backgrounds.
And finally, we will spend 6 days lazing on the beaches of Zanzibar before returning to Nairobi to fly back home.

So that's our trip! We leave in two sleeps and we are so excited! Time to start taking the malaria tablets and pack our bags!

Rach xxx