We were up very early this morning, and have arrived in Rwanda! More in awhile! Still need to let you know about our last day in Kenya - will do! Just wanted to let friends and family know we made the trip safely.
Good morning from Nairobi! We continue to be quite busy - but we are having fun, and learning lots! Friday morning we visiting a project that has some involvement with Rachael's church in Edmonton. She will tell you all about it! Well, we traveled far out beyond Nairobi, into Masai land to an area called Ngong. It is a beautiful part of the world with many acacia trees and stunning mountains (not as big as the rockies though!!!). It is the area where the gentleman from the book Out of Africa (in the movie- Robert Redford's character) is believed to have crashed his plane. He is said to be buried there. Anyway, we visited a very interesting project where they are trying to help orphans, kids from the slums and the Masai children to get education and health care. They have a primary school, secondary school, health clinic and quite a progressive farming program. The farm is meant to help teach the children the skills needed for farming and animal rearing. I (Rachael) found this area particularly fascinating. They have a biogas program set up where they use cow manure to produce methane gas to run the food burners to cook for the children. Imagine, "poop" from four cows generating enough energy to cook half the food for the kids!!! The ultimate form of recycling. It was a gas, man!!! The project was quite ingenious. It is amazing what you can do with so little. The resourcefulness of the Kenyan people always impresses me. In the afternoon, we had a board meeting with the Board of Tumaini. Here is Carolyn to tell you all about it. Well, we should have known we were in trouble when the meeting started 1 hour late! And it went on for 4 hours!!! We received a report of happenings over the past year, most of it pretty exciting. The music group from Tumaini came first in a regional competition, then 9th out of 25 schools at a provincial level! Not bad for the first time participating! A low of the report would be the struggle to make ends meet due to the rapidly rising food costs in Kenya. We received an update on the building construction - the exterior of the building is due to be finished in the fall of 2011, with the inside completion by the new year. For sure, my faith in Johnstone, our board chair, the rest of the board and staff of the school continues to increase. They sure work hard! More later!!! Today we hit the market - SHOPPING!!!! Below is a picture of Paola, with a student sponsored by her go  Well, we had a early start to the day! We headed out to the Nairobi National Park, at dawn, so we could see the animals in their natural habitat, later in the day they are hiding because of the heat! And did we see animals!! We saw: wildebeests, water buffalos, giraffes, millions of zebras (are zebras white stripes on black or black strips on white?), ostriches, gazelles, one monkey, impalas, something that looked like a small deer, many varieties of very cool looking birds - the crown bird, hawks etc.... But the best animals we saw today were two very large male lions!!! It took a while to find them, but they were well worth the hunt! As soon as we spotted them, they laid down hidden in the long grass. But no worries, our driver wouldn't be deterred! He pulled off the road to within 8 to 10 feet of where the the lions were! It was fantastic! But they were just laying there, so the team tried everything from a gentle call to loud banging on the side of the van to get their attention! Finally tired of us, they rose and started walking right towards us!! They passed within a foot of the van!!! Alan managed to catch all this on video, except for a brief shot of the roof of the van when the team panicked and tried to pull him in! (The van was equipped for safaris with a roof that lifted so you could stand up and look out - with enough space for a lion to stick his head in!!) Needless to say, this ended our exploration of Kenyan wildlife on a major high note!! We all left the park in a very euphoric mood!  To cap off an already great day, we drove into downtown Nairobi to meet Stephen and Rosemary Mbogo, the couple instrumental in the beginnings of Tumaini Primary School, and very good friends! We were joined by Tumaini's board chair, and our agent in Kenya, Johnstone and his wife Esther. We had lots of conversation and laughter! It was a day filled with hilarity, terror and good fellowship. A day not to be forgotten by any of the team!! Tomorrow is another day....... Good Morning from Nairobi! I apologize for not writing for a bit - we have been so busy that the energy level is low when we return to our guesthouse in the evening! We spent the last two days at the school. Tuesday we had the honour and privilege of handing out sponsor packages to the students. It was so special to see the faces!! The smiles on the faces of Kenyan children is extremely heartwarming! Below is a picture of Mackenzie, Sam and Hannah with Daniel, one of 18 new students brought into the program. They quickly snapped him up and decided between the three of them, they could manage his fees with their babysitting money.  Wednesday morning we picked up Polly, teacher in charge of sponsorship, and Josephat, the Headmaster, and went shopping for books and shoes!! Money goes further here! And who doesn't like shopping! The downtown Nairobi traffic was a real eye opener for everyone! You have to really know what you are doing to drive here! In the afternoon we returned to the school and were totally entertained in a school show! The girls performed as well! Our little angels! The show ended with most of us being dragged up on stage by the high school students to join them in a dance - what an aerobic workout! We all found it hard to say goodbye yesterday, as it will probably be the last time we see most of the children. We are not back out to Mathare until Saturday! Mor Greetings Everyone from Nairobi! We are here! After two very long flights broken up by a mad 5 hour dash around London to see as many landmarks as possible! We arrived in Nairobi after 9 pm on Saturday night, and after a long wait gong through the line, we purchased our VISAs, gathered up at 17 huge pieces of luggage and walked out to be greeted by our hosts! Unfortunately, they didn't get my warning about all the luggage and only brought one van - but no worries, these guys are amazing packers!!! All 17 piece, the 8 of us and our driver managed to be transported to our guest house! We got to bed around midnight, and managed a bit of sleep before the noises started! This morning we spent the morning at Muthare North, where Tumaini is, and went to church with all our friends. We saw a fair number of students - but of course they were all in their Sunday clothes, so no purple uniforms to identify them! We were taken to lunch by Johnstone so we could set up our week and here a bit of what's been going on. Our Belgium partners joined us with part of their team of about 39!!! Tomorrow we will head back out to the school and Kristy and the Stewarts will get a more detailed tour and history of the place, and Hannah and Sam will be set up to attend a class!! Then we will here what it is like in a Kenyan classroom from our youngest team members!! Tuesday has been set aside to hand out all the packages sent by our sponsors. Sam's observation for today - what really struck her - was the contrast between sitting in our guesthouse, which is a fairly nice family home and looking out the back window to a family living in only a shack, cooking their Well, it has been an interesting and very busy time getting everything ready! The generosity of our supporters has been overwhelming! We are going with a core team of 8, and being reinforced in Rwanda by 3 more joining us from Ontario! We are leaving Vancouver on Thursday evening with 10 extra bags/tubs and boxes full of stuff!! Including 70 beanie babies to share with our friends in Kenya and Rwanda! Our first stop is London for a 24 hour stopover and a mad dash to see as much as we can. Mackenzie's goal is to make the guards at the palace laugh! After that we will be heading to Nairobi and spending a week at Tumaini Primary School! Can't wait to see all of our friends there!! Please follow our adventures on this blog! Start blogging by creating a new post. 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