A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF IRISH MUSIC – Its been a very busy time over the last month, perhaps the busiest since I have been here, but I was expecting it mainly because for the USA and UK this is holiday season so loads of visitors. In my house I have been at the stage of having 9 guests... crazy! Anyways a few weeks ago we had visitors from Ireland, they have been here many times, sponsoring some of our kids and they are professional musicians, one of them performs with the Celtic Tenors. They came to do a number of concerts around Nairobi at various venues with the kids from the home in the choir also singing a few songs. It was a busy week but the kids loved the experience, it ranged from performing in some very posh restaurants around the city to a Hindu auditorium and the old Muthaiga Club. The nice thing at the restaurants was that people basically had a diner music evening, so after the kids performed all the places provided some food for the kids. The first place was Lord Errol restaurant in Runda (where all the diplomats live) the kids had dinner in a private room, served by waiters etc and got a full meal. The funniest thing was getting the bread rolls at the start. The kids were not sure what to do so trying to do the right thing they picked up the rolls using their knives and forks, and proceed to try and cut them open using their knives and forks and then adding butter. It was quite a display, and they were really struggling so I stepped in to show them they could just pick up the rolls with their hands and rip them open, no need to be so formal. The whole thing was a great experience and it was fun to see them being waited on with lots of fresh juice etc. Not all the places were so accommodating but the best places were Lord Errol and also the Rusty Nail, the owner was so excited seeing the kids perform and really wanted them taken care of well. The songs they sang included Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (or spelt something like that) also Happy Talk, Something inside so strong, Happy Day, Amazing Grace and some Swahili songs. At the end of the week the irish people spent a couple of days in a school hall we borrowed to record the kids singing, hopefully a CD will be produced soon, so they will be a great thing to buy and use to raise money. The whole experience was awesome for the kids, and every audience loved hearing them sing. The Irish guys did such a fabby job and it was wonderful to see how much they cared for the kids and also the encouragement they gave to us was great! Good times had by all (Although a little tired by the end)

15 MINUTES – Kind of related to the story above, for the concerts we had a friend organising some promotion for us. On the Wednesday before the start of the concert some of the kids and James (the Celtic Tenor) were invited on to Capital FM, Nairobi’s biggest radio station. They were on the programme for an hour, one of the coolest programmes on the station targeted at young people. There was a great response, normally on the programme they talk about relationship stuff but loads of people called in and emailed asking about the home and saying it was sooo good hearing about the work Cheryls was doing. A couple of the kids told their story and the presenters were really moved by it. Musa did a rap that he wrote a couple of years ago (he is only about 13) but the DJ’s loved it and invited him back to record it with the DJ. Everyone at CAPITAL thought it went really well and are very keen to support us in the future. When we begin fundraising for the High School project hopefully Capital FM will help us out! After the interview there was a small media buzz about us and we were invited on to the Citizen TV breakfast show. Unfortunately they didn’t invite the kids to come they just wanted me a Samuel, which I thought was a shame, because I always think its best to hear straight from the kids, they have such a big impact on people. But anyways was fun to head down to the TV studio for the interview. I was very nervous.... not sure why but I guess the pressure of getting our message out. We had a 15 minute interview by a nice lady called Kobi, which was mainly focusing on the music and the concerts but we tried to say a bit about what we were doing. Afterwards I was a little dissapointed we didn’t get to discuss a few of the things and also disappointed we didn’t have kids there but still at the end of the day it was free publicity! And well I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame!

INDIANA JONES TAKES ON LARA CROFT – Last weekend I managed to sneak away from the house for a night and David and myself headed down to Bisle to visit Mo. She has I think about 180 acres set out in the bush. She has a basic house set on top of Lorry Containers, relying on Solar power and borehole water. The land is just virgin bush and although a little dry its beautiful. She has an amazing view over this massive valley, just stunning. It was nice to get out of the city for a night. We arrived at 6:30pm just in time for some quick sundowners, ate dinner and slept, very exhausted. The next day we decided to go on a walk around her land and also the next door land. I was thinking, ok a short walk around the land, see the sites, all good stuff, maybe last an hour??? So 4 hours later there we are crawling on all fours and climbing through the bush, with no food and water... hmm not the best planning I’ve ever done! I just hadn’t thought really, you know, its virgin bush, there are no real paths, and at times it was thick bush. Mo, David and I had on our bush hats, which tend to be brown and styled a bit like Indiana Jones’ hat. They are fantastic for keeping the shade off but also as you are moving through trees and bushes they keep the branches and stuff from flying in your face. We climbed up to see some old Rock Art by tribes long long ago. It was funny at times I really felt like Indiana Jones as I took of my hat off to wipe the sweat from brow and place the hat firmly on my head, but just don’t think I’m as cool as him, and well we didn’t find any buried treasure! But a fun time was had by all, we got back for lunch and then hit the road back to Nairobi. That evening I was back again at the airport picking up visitors, and it just felt surreal, that morning I was really in the Dark Continent, exploring through the bush, and then in the evening in the big capital picking up visitors at the busy busy airport.

NAME DROPPING AGAIN??? – SO I happened to go to the airport early one morning (arriving at 6am) only to figure out after 3 and a half hours of waiting I had come on the wrong day... its a long story. But it was not all in vain, as the various flights from around the world came I happened to spot someone I recognised coming through from customs. Now it took me a second to realise who it was, mainly because you just don’t expect to see him here. One of my all time favourite programmes.... ok actually THE all time best programme in the world ever ever ever is ER. I love it and have all the seasons. And of course one of the best characters from ER was Dr Green played by Anthony Edwards. Well he walked into arrivals escorted by staff and with his family. I was like NO WAY!!! How cool. He pottered around arrivals getting money from the machine, sorting stuff out and it was funny because basically no-one else knew who he was... but being one of the few Mzungus there I knew who he was... yes Dr Green... or Goose from Top Gun! How bizarre, but also cool. I assumed he was here on holiday, but decided to google search him and Kenya (is that really sad? Perhaps) and turns out he supports a project called Shoes 4 Africa and he is on the board in the USA. I think he has helped build a childrens hospital in Kenya. So awesome, much respect Mr Edwards... and welcome again to Kenya!

WOBBLY WHEELS - Recently I’ve been cruising down the Nairobi roads.... or should I say bouncing down the Nairobi roads and I’ve noticed a high number of cars with back wheels that seem to be falling off. There are so many bad roads and I’ve had a number of slow punctures and one particularly bad flat tyre, but it seems some people don’t quite put the wheels back on properly, and everytime I see one of these wobbly wheels I pull back a bit expecting the wheel to come flying off and the car collapse on the floor! And then in fact just the other day i saw a car at the side of the road, with the back wheel off fallen off!

AND THE WINNER IS... – Today on the way to work on Capital FM they did a mock Oscar award ceremony, and the prize was for the government organisation that takes the most bribes. In the running was the ministry of lands, ministry of immigration, social services, health fund, prisons etc etc. The winner this year, at the number 1 spot was: THE POLICE! As I got to work I quickly glanced through the paper and spotted an article covering the same thing, and in fact it was official, they actually do research into this each year and they have a league table for the worst corruption in the government. I think the Police force have retained the number 1 spot 2 years running! To be honest if I had to guess which was the worst I would had said the police... how can a country function without an honest, reliable police force, without the rule of law... in truth it can’t.

ONCE UPON A TIME – there were some Irish people, tall ones, thin ones, big ones and all with very strong accents which the lovely Kenyan people struggled to understand. The strong Irish people travelled on a long journey, across many lands from their home land to a far off distant country in deepest darkest Africa. The Irish people were not alone though, others travelled to the same destination, from America and the Netherlands. It was an international gathering of hero’s ready to take on a big task, completing the building of the most finest classrooms, library and computer room in all the kingdom! The workers were only given 1 week by their mighty leader... Sir Basil Love. They put to the task with great earnest and constructed and built, and built and constructed each day until the sky was dark. The week went by in the blink of an eye and as the days passed by the international gathering worked harder and harder, the sweat dripping off them day by day. The young children from the kingdom looked on in awe and the building grew bigger and bigger and looked more and more finished, like a palace, fit for royal children. On the last day the international gathering pressed hard to do all they could in the final moments, with Sir Basil directing things, finding the resources to get closer to completion. By the last moment, the team had done all that was possible in a week, but unfortunately there was still a little left to do. The wise knight, Sir Basil was able to stay a few more days and set about to engage the local craftsmen to complete the work as the international gathering of Irish, American and Dutch prepared for their departure. Before they left they gathered one last time for a big feast... a feast of every meat known to man in the kingdom, a good time was had by all! The gathering left for their various countries satisfied they had worked hard and given all they could, the people in the kingdom celebrated their achievements and the knight Sir Basil completed his work of organising the craftsman, and he headed back to the irish land with a smile on his face. The servants in charge of the new building now set with the task of furnishing the library and computer room were pleased as 5 laptops had already been donated and some funding from a school in the distant land of England was promised to come and help buy book shelves and materials for the library. The quest was now set to find as many books as possible for the children from the kingdom, books they could enjoy reading, hopefully sat on a carpeted floor or bean bags. The King knew that if all the children could read many books they would grow up to wise and successful, he also knew if they could learn computers they would become creative and be able to use them for the rest of their lives. The King and his followers have begun to search the land and far overseas for help with this final quest, knowing that if successful all the children in the land will live happily ever after....THE END

TOSPY TURVY – Well if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know we are trying to buy land for our future development. A few weeks ago and after much work we got very close to signing a deal. I had worked really hard to get everything together, did some negotiating and it seemed we were almost there. Then just at the last minute our lawyer was doing some final checks and found there was something wrong with the documentation. Its a long story but it seemed the deal was about to fall through. I was gutted, we had put so much work into it and at the last minute it was about to collapse. However Samuel and myself talked it through and agreed if its not meant to be its not meant to be, we will just find somewhere else. So last week I set off up to Naivasha again to find some land. I met the land agent and we checked out a couple of places. They seemed good, but the locations were wrong and also the price a little bit more than the other land. I was a little sad, feeling that the land we were about to buy was so good and wondering if we would find somewhere as good for that price. I was planning to go back to Naivasha this week to see more land, but yesterday we got a call from the lawyer. She has been working hard to get things into place and see if with the vendors help we could get the land deal back on track. It seems that that could now be a possibility. So having felt that deal was over, it seems its back on the table. We will have to make sure everything is in place and proper but in the end we could be back at buying this land. We still need £50,000 but we have enough to pay the deposit and get going. Its been a really difficult and stressful time, my emotions have been up and down about it, but if it all works out then we will be very pleased!!!

COUNTDOWN TO VIOLENCE – Amongst all the busyness and tiredness working here at Cheryls something bigger is happening in Kenya which is playing on my mind a little. Kenya is trying to change its constitution and there will be a referendum on 4th August. This will be the first election since the violent elections back at the end of 2007 which brought chaos to the country. There is deep division over whether to approve the constitution or not. I feel the tension in the air as everyone is talking about it and wondering what to expect. Most people are just hoping it all passes smoothly, but there is worry that 2 of the tribes will start fighting over it. Its constantly in the news and in the papers and each time we meet up as a bunch of friends we are talking about it. I guess the reality is that for white people we shouldn’t have to worry too much as we are not involved in it all, but obviously what happens around us affects us and the staff we employ etc etc. We all need to pray hard that this referendum will go smoothly and will not see the violence as of last time, but each day the whole country seems to be watching the clock tick down... hopefully its not a simmering pot ready to boil over! For those with friends and family over here, please don’t worry, everything will be fine for us, but it will be sad if parts of the country start messing around, it will be sad because once again the tourist industry will collapse again, and really the country can’t afford that. The good thing is the government has deployed huge security forces to the areas that may see violence. The good thing is Nairobi doesn’t seem to be a hotspot. I guess I feel apprehensive but at the same time sure everything will be ok. We will see.... tick tock... tick tock...