Special Meal

As you have probably guessed by our lack of blogs recently life has become busier here.  John is cracking on with home school as well as teaching some lessons here and getting stuck in with other aspects of school and church life.  Lynda is working more in the office and beginning to have a clearer role and responsibilities.  It is a great office to work in with good laughter at times along with a lot of hard work.  It has been great to have Sam arrive (a friend of ours from Nottingham) and he is busy in the office as well as project managing a new toilet block.  The boys are enjoying discovering new fun with doves, football, catching crickets/gekkos and David had great fun being dragged around on a massive branch from a coconut tree!  David was talking about what would have happened if we hadn't have come here and said "I would never have known how to make so much fun for ourselves".  It brings us great joy to look out from our balcony and see them having a lot of laughter with their friends here.  It felt like Christmas here yesterday as we had a delivery from some visitors of a package of gluten free treats, a real treasure!  The temperatures have really increased, 32 in the shade so we are learning that we have to function at a very different pace than at home!  The following is from Mikey about his day on Tuesday 21st February.

 Hello Mikey here

I hope you are all having a nice time at home. And guess what Me Dad and David have been helping the cooking Mamas cook because for the first time in Tumaini School they have been making meat. My job was pealing the garlic and Dad’s was peeling/cutting carrot’s. After that, we went home and at 12 o’clock I went back to help serve the mysterious and majestic lunch to the children of Tumaini. 

We always knew that the Cooking Mamas worked incredibly hard but after spending a morning with them John and the boys had a new admiration of their work.  The heat of the big cooking pans is unbearable to be by and the weights of massive quantities of food they lift is unbelievable. Please see educationforlife.net for more details where there are more great pictures of the special meal day.

“It will never be the same again…”

3 February 2012 

What an amazing experience to go on 2 Matatus across to the other side of town. I loved the music, the way the driver and conducter work together, being with African people, the sights, the smells… so much I love about this place.  We spent a gorgeous and relaxing day off in a beautiful hotel resort on the north coast.  So good to have fun in the pool, eat a delicious meal and I could gaze out at the coconut trees and ocean for hours.  It struck me that for many holiday makers the hotel resort is the sum of their experience of Mombasa.  A 2 week package holiday to enjoy sun and relaxation and go home and say they have been to Mombasa.  Yet many will not really venture outside of the hotel.  They won’t see the true Mombasa.  They won’t spend time getting to know incredible local people and see their different way of life.  They won’t know the story behind the ladies who make their beds every day in a town where so many people don’t have beds.  They won’t realise the water they use so freely is a commodity people here have to work so hard to acquire.  Don’t get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed my day at the resort and did not want to leave.  But would I trade it for life in Tumaini?  no way. If I stayed there I would have missed out on conversations with local mamas who work so hard to feed the many local children and then go home struggling to maintain feeding their own.  At the resort I would never hear of the mama who washes peoples clothes as much as she can but can barely afford to clothe her own children.  I could not trade a week at a hotel for seeing the faces of the many children being fed a meal and coming to school for a much craved education.

So as I go home on the Matatu and read the slogan “It will never be the same again” I realise how true those words are.  

Lynda