ocean camp

saturday morning we depart muhaka for the last time.. packing is a nightmare. so much stuff to fit back into my oversized backpack whilst trying to make sure i haven't forgotten anything.. its so weird knowing this is probably the last time i'll be seeing the thatched-roof dorms that have been my homestead for the past 3 months.. i'm not feeling sad in the slightest though - muhaka was great and i've really enjoyed the program but it's been a while i feel it's time i moved on. we all do a quick check-over around the property, say goodbye to our darling chefs and eustace, then pass our heavy backpacks up onto the safari truck roof and pile in. as the 'camp muhaka' sign disappears down the dirt road i feel a bubbling of excitement inside of me - the muhaka era has come to an end, i wonder what lies ahead..?

we drive along diani beach, past forty thieves, past the camp kenya office and further still until we're passing by nice ocean-front villas and gorgeous hotels.. eventually we turn off and down a rocky track that takes us closer and closer to the ocean.. and then we see two camp kenya staff standing outside a palm-frond fence to greet us!! you've gotta be kidding me.. we're practically ON the beach!! everyone is so keen to see what this camp looks like and we run in like little kids only to discover the cutest little set-up: tents lined up on the sand, palm-frond showers with open roofs under swaying palm trees, a little beach bar, some masai jewelry stalls near the shore, a volleyball net and finally a long beach of pristine white sand spilling into the azure sea. i could not imagine a better way to spend my last five days in kenya!!

after a brief orientation we're given our program for the camp and then it's free time until monday (: we spend the day basking in the sun, drinking ice-cold beers with the staff who are all absolute legends and playing volleyball both in the water and on the beach. it's such a nice way to end the trip - quality time for us to chill out and enjoy each other's company. later, rinsing off the sea salt we discover the shower water tank has warmed up in the sun, effectively the first warm-ish shower since our arrival!! bliss. it's only been a day and i'm in paradise.

~

the rest of the week takes a similar pace.. during the day we alternate between sea, beach and the shade of the bar.. during the night, seb, joe, george and i systematically wander down to the beach where a camp kenya staff member kindly helps us set up a fire using dried coconut husks. the stars are incredible and we spend a few hours there, chatting and swapping stories, watching the husks crackle and spit as the flames lick the furry hairs off them.. life here has such a relaxed, breezy rhythm.. whenever there are no pre-organise activities, we're free to do as we please and have the beach as our playground..

~

the ongoing project at ocean camp is a flip-flop recycling project whereby garbage is removed from the beach and the rubber from discarded flip-flops/sandals is used to make art. there is a large model whale-shark being currently patch-worked with the rubber which we try to contribute to, as well as some people making their own bracelets, beer holders, balls, etc. i think it's a fantastic idea - camp kenya has already created a giant sea-turtle from flip-flops which is displayed out the front of the Diani Nakumatt (supermarket) alongside a sign reading "it took 10,000 flip flops to make this turtle, it takes only one to kill it.. don't let it be yours!" as well as my treasured flip-flop lion in tsavo and they honestly look fantastic.

~

early monday morning we head out for a fishing trip with some local fishermen. we climb into these rustic wooden boats which we're told are hollowed out mango tree trunks and set sail. unfortunately the weather is pretty cold and drizzly and quite a few people end up being seasick so we return to shore earlier than planned. one of the fishermen decides to teach us a little about basket traps for lobsters and the such but unwittingly manages to insult three of the girls in our group within the first 30 secs of his speech which is unfortunate.. i suppose it's with mixed feelings we left the place but i personally was still glad to have experienced traveling on the fishing boat and trying to imagine what life is like for these men.

we also have a group of visiting school kids arrive on wednesday to join with us in a beach clean up. we set out for a walk carrying big garbage bags and picking up whatever rubbish we come across, separating plastic bottles from flip flops from general trash. the children seem excited to be by the sea and a few of them are really eager to make conversation. i befriend a 14-yr old boy called peter who's english is impressive and who asks me to add him on facebook when i get home :p so cute.. once we reach the end of the beach, we then end up playing a big game of duck-duck-goose on the sand.

(i unfortunately didn't bring my camera out with me on either of these activities but i know george has a few snaps of the beach cleanup i'll be able to show you at a later date)

colobus trust

i'd forgotten to mention - on wednesday morning we were taken to the colobus trust. after hearing so many gappers voicing disappointment with the advertised kaya 'monkey sanctuary' and it's lack of monkeys, dipesh organised for us to go visit the monkey sanctuary on diani beach. there we briefly got to meet the longest-living hand-reared colobus monkey who was the most gorgeous little devilish ball of fur and were then taken on a tour of the sanctuary site. unfortunately due to the weather being awful the monkeys were hiding out and we didn't get to see any of them in the trees around the place (just the ones in the rehabilitation clinic).. but it was good to get out of camp and hear a little about the work they do to help protect the severely endangered colobus monkeys.

we then headed out with the colobus trust team to plant trees by a small lake. the landscape was absolutely beautiful.. local women washing their colorful sarongs near lilly-filled ponds, girls carrying buckets of water back to their homes, little boys splashing each other in the swampy grass.. despite the drizzle we managed to plant quite a few trees then were taken on a brief tour of their sacred kaya forest where a group of locals re-inacted a medicine man invoking spirits to heal a sick man. it was pretty entertaining albeit strange.. all in all a nice addition to the program (:

finishing the toilet

with one week remaining before we leave muhaka we all want to complete our two ongoing projects, the toilet and the mud hut. we start by completing the doors to measure and fitting them onto the building, only to realise that only one of the doors is the right size.. yaya unfortunately didn't measure each individual door space and given the toilet structure wasn't properly measured out either, we now find ourselves having to saw up and re-construct our carefully made doors. furthermore, once the doors are nailed into place they're too narrow and there are big gaps on either side that need to be filled in and plastered using broken chunks of bricks. it's quite frustrating work but eventually all 4 doors are in place.

some of us start cementing a slanted step around the entire building, scattering gravel and stones for structure and concreting them into place. this is to prevent rain from seeping under the toilet floor and ruining the foundations. joe's mission becomes installing locks on the doors - nailing them into place and hand-drilling holes into the door frame for the bolt to slide into. yaya and chris decide to try and fix the wonky toilet hole by cutting out another one in the middle of the cubicle floor and cementing the useless one closed. we also decide to install a ventilation pipe and cut a hole both in the toilet floor and in the roof to slot it through.

a few people take charge of landscaping - digging, raking and filling in holes to level out and the area around the toilet. then it's time to paint!! the entire building is double coated in white and the bottom half of the building + doors painted blue. the damp door wood soaks up so much paint we keep having to go back over them but eventually the colour holds and we paint the final men/women signs onto the walls. the final touch is scrubbing the cement step free of as much paint as possible and we're done!!

~~

to step back and look at what we've accomplished since digging the pit 3 long months ago is pretty awesome. what previously was a random patch of dirt is now a functional, freshly painted pit toilet the whole community can use for years to come.. and although it might seem like a small contribution given the poverty in the area, it's definitely something. i'm sure it'll be a little more pleasant for the locals than having to relieve themselves in the bush.

come friday afternoon, the time to officially hand over the completed projects arrives. we all make our way down to the toilet where members of the community have gathered for the ceremony. a local man opens with a muslim prayer and we then exchange a few words: joe speaks on behalf of us all and thanks the locals for the time we've spent in their community, then the local tailor speaks on behalf of muhaka village and thanks us for our work, saying he's very pleased to not have to poop in the bushes any longer (; we all shake hands and the toilet is no longer ours. we then walk down to the mud hut the 1-monthers have been working on (where the puppies have grown so much!!) and a similar ceremony takes place. it's pretty impressive that what started as a bunch of sticks in the ground is now a completed house for a local mama to live in (:

i guess now that it's so close to the end of my stay in camp kenya, it's rewarding to see the product of our hard work.. though there were times i was bored of making bricks for a week straight or mixing concrete or just being at same projects day after day after day, it's payed off in the completion of what we set out to do. i think we were all quite proud of seeing it through til the end and it's cool to think that for the rest of my life i'll know there's kenyan kids in the tiny village that is muhaka using a pit toilet i dug and built when i was 18 (with bricks bearing the names of my friends and family!!) (:

mwaluganje departure

on friday we all decide to wake up to watch the sunrise given it's our last morning at mwaluganje.. it's slightly chilly and so still, birds chirping away in the valley, and although the sunrise is a disappointment due to the thick cloud cover it's still nice to sit as a group and watch the elephants roaming down below.

the journey back to muhaka is pretty standard - long, dusty, bumpy road.. it's nice to settle back into our rooms and find our sheets have been changed and our beds made in our absence (: nothing much else to report.

de-worming goats

today was definitely amongst my favourite of kenya work days. we headed out to villager's homes in the hills, joined once again by the village elder, and proceeded to de-worm their goats. it's an initiative camp kenya started up to help the local community as they depend heavily upon goats for survival and many of the beasts die or become useless due to illness..

every goat had to be dragged out and immobilized whilst one person wrestled to get its mouth open and the other plunged the syringe full of medicine down its throat. although it might sound simple, it's harder than it looks to get a stubborn goat to open wide!! it was pretty chaotic.. goats running amuck and bleating at the top of their lungs, kids calling to their mothers and getting tangled up in our legs, some of them trying to spit the bright green liquid out again.. the dosage was 2, 4 or 6 ml depending upon the size of the animal so there were people running around with various syringes trying to find an open mouth. we all threw ourselves into the challenge with enthusiasm and, with the help of the local children, managed to get every goat medicated (:

we had two households remaining on the list and the more goats we medicated, the bolder we became (: by the end of the morning, i was wrestling big crazy-eyed goats into submission and prying their teeth apart as opposed to merely squirting the liquid into their mouths as the village elder held them in place. at the last homestead we ended up also having a handful of sheep (absolute nutters) and a cow to de-worm. it was so much fun!!

something that really struck me was that at one of the households a little boy was playing outside and as soon as he saw us walking towards him he just broke down into hysterical crying and sprinted towards his mum, absolutely petrified. he was inconsolable and spent the entire time inside the house waiting until we'd left. it was explained that we were the first white people he'd ever seen and he simply didn't know what to make of us.. it really made it more apparent how isolated these scattered village huts are from the rest of the world..

~~

after lunch, another game drive.. half of us stayed back at camp but i was happy just sitting in the back of the bus listening to music and watching the landscapes around us. once we returned that afternoon we were all pretty restless and eventually out of our boredom arose a strange 'fight club' where we convinced a few pairs of people to wrestle and see who could pin the other down first. it was pretty hilarious.. jasmine vs chris, seb vs joe, matt vs david, seb vs chris, matt vs gerry.. nobody got hurt and it was all fun and games but the mood was incredible with everyone cheering and all the wrestlers getting incredibly dirty (: a few members of the kitchen staff came to watch and stood there laughing, totally perplexed as to what was going on. unfortunately for me none of the girls seemed to want to verse me but i had a great time regardless :p definitely an afternoon to remember..

road maintenance

wednesday morning brings road maintenance. our two groups combine and drive out to one of the more problematic sections of road and we unload the tools and get to work. erosion and rainwater has carved a deep trench all the way down a hill and our mission is to find large stones, organise them in the trench and fill in the rest with dirt. we work hard and fast, sometimes moving huge rocks that take 4 people to carry, wheeling barrows full of earth up and down.. eventually we run out of the designated red dirt and start digging to collect our own. after 3hrs of work we were pleased with the results, especially when the van test-drove over the section we'd been fixing up and noticed a big change (:

~

after lunch, our group headed out to a local school. it was built on an un-strategic slope and during the rainy season, the grounds flood. our job was to help dig a trench designed to trap the flowing rainwater and divert it past the buildings and down the hill. it was a solid afternoon of digging and the number of bugs, spiders, millipedes and scorpions we unearthed was pretty impressive. sebastian had hurt his hand shoveling in the morning and i teased him about being lazy until joe suggested he and jasmine become our cheerleaders which was probably the best idea of the day (: (thus explaining the photo of them below)

all in all a good enough day.. it was definitely nice to be doing some physical work once more, i'd surprisingly missed digging!!