November 2011
12 posts
community, thoughts, your next step
An early start and we set off back up the dirt track towards Mombasa. The long dirt road, the dodgy main road and then a ferry trip back in to the city.
At one point we had a stop off at a resort. We drank smoothies, someone parachuted in and landed on the beach and a man was offering camel rides on the postcard perfect white sand. The change in surroundings from the roadside poverty to the...
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dolphins, sharks and lots more dolphins
I woke up, had breakfast and took my Malaria tablet. We met up at the gates of the complex, met up with the volunteers and headed to the pier where the boat picked us up. It was a very bright day and the open water smelled of salt, by 8.30 we where cruising along at great speed. The team onboard was made up of a Spanish phd student – Sergie (he had spent time all over the world monitoring killer...
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forest, children are children and fish
I slept straight through and was up all excited for the day ahead. Breakfast was fruit and coffee, we met the team at the gates of the resort. I was assigned to the south forest group, apparently I look ‘big and strong’, hmmm, what would I be doing? It took about 40 minutes to get to the edge of the forest, and then an hour and a half of climbing, crawling and walking to get to our destination. We...
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Watchroad tripping in Kenya!
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the real Kenya
The next day I met the group of people that I was travelling with, a couple of Americans, Brits, a Swiss, Swede and a Dutch guy. We where all excited and enjoyed the hotels pools and bars in the glorious weather. The group was a well travelled one; every continent had been checked out – although this was all of our first time to Kenya. At about mid day we climbed in to a small battered 9 seater...
departure
5am start, why can I never go to bed early pre-flight? Very excited and Sophie drove me to the airport. First flight to Paris, not too bad – then off to Nairobi. 8 hours, luckily I got economy plus so I had plenty of room. Flying over Europe the sky was pretty clear – I spotted Naples and Mount Etna. After a couple of hours I saw the African coast – a huge expanse of desert disappeared inland. We...
Travel books have arrived
Lots of books have arrived and I have started to learn all kinds about Kenya – its neighbouring countries and national parks. From huge flat lands to mountain ranges, stories of dolphins and lions. I have spent a lot of time on the FCO website trying to figure out what is and what isn’t safe out there. At the minute I believe that the best advice is to stay away from the north and away from the...
trip idea settling in
Sooo…. I had some crazy dreams last night – as soon as I awoke I jumped online to see all of the programs we work with in Kenya… the answer – lots of them. My background is in youth development – so any programs that work with children will definitely be of interest to me. There are programs that work with communities, conservation and more. The dolphin conservation program looks interesting,...
Kenyan Opportunity
As a member of the Smaller Earth staff, I have been given the opportunity to head to Kenya to visit some of the voluntary projects that we work. The aim is to understand what they do at these projects and what they strive to achieve. I found this out recently and I am very excited! Taking a step back – this emotion is not something I am used to dealing with. I am a 29 yr old male from the North of...