Mombasa and back to Nairobi

Hello, hope you're well. Here's the next installment!

So we spent two lovely relaxing weeks in Mombasa - sunshine, beaches and shopping. Also made a few potential contacts for SCI if it chooses to branch out there, as well as some lovely new friends! We had one funny evening when we were directed to a good local seafood restaurant, but were unprepared for the high prices - luckily we had brought much more money than we thought we needed, but even then we were 4 shillings short! And that was just having a starter and pudding!

Last Wednesday we boarded the bus again and made our way back to our 'HQ', Nairobi. The bus journey ended up being 10 hours long which was rather exhausting, but we eventually made it and were greeted by Fred, Isaac and Mike. After one nights' rest at Fred's house (which just feels like home now!) we started at Kibera on the Thursday. Spent loads of time chatting with the girls who had so so many questions on almost all topics you could imagine, from boys to the economy. The KGSA girls are just some of the most lovely girls ever, and we had great fun with them. The school seems to be more like a big family than anything else. All the teachers at KGSA are volunteers and the school runs every day of the week- it's so admirable all that they do and they're such a happy, enthusiatic group. We were told the average staff age is 25!

On the Friday we had the opportunity to take a walk around Kibera, accompanied by 2 of the staff, Jared and Victor. Really interesting to see what it's really like for ourselves, without having to see it through the eyes of the media. What surprised us is that we felt so much safer than we ever thought we would there. Obviously there are many problems and dangers, but walking around with the two guys there was absolutely zero hostility to us; everyone seemed pretty friendly if anything. We also popped into Victor's house and then Jared's house where we ate home grown sugar cane and watched a 4 year episode of Neighbours on the TV! But it's just so different to anything we've exerienced before, walking round the slum. Rubbish, waste and general dirt line the streets and there are filthy ditches of water everywhere. Even so, the smell of home made chips and bbq-ing maize usually fills the air and there seems to be such a strong community spirit, more so than anywhere else we've been.Our maths skills were put to shame on the Saturday when we were sent to help the F1 girls. (GCSE equivalent) They ended up pretty much doing it all themselves; we were only really useful as subjects for ahirdressing! They adore playing with our hair; combing, styling... What really struck us is how positive all the girls are ,no matter of their situation. And they have incredible ambition - we spoke to budding cardiolgists, actresses, economists.. When we joined the F3 girls fro lunch one day they were all hard at work as they ate - in their lunch break! So admirable. And it's so nice chatting to them as many are around our age anyway. Also on Satruday we headed to the Kibera soccer pitch as there were any 5 aside matches taking place, including some games that KGSA were competing in. It must be so difficult to play on the slippy, dusty pitch but they all played so well. We had one dodgy moment when the girls beckonmed us over to see a dance off that some cute young boys were doing - amazing bum wiggling! But after a little while we were pulled away and told to return to the pitch side - apparently some people had been planning to steal from us. Quite a wake up call. We went to Kiki's house on the Saturday night for Chinese and movie which was lovely. On Sunday we had the opportunity to see the SCI teams training in Umoja. Steve, who we're living with now in Umoja, is the main coach. We interviewed all the players and are going to make player profiles for all of them. Lovely group of boys who are obviously so so passionate about football. The only shame is that only one of them said he wanted to play for a Kenyan team - all the others were English or Spanish teams! But it was brilliant to see the charity's work in action.

We're thoroughly enjoying our time so far in Nairobi.

Speak soon Jess and George xxxxx