Today we went to Heri Junior School and Forrester Community Academy, 4 & 3 bus rides way, respectively. We left around 0800 and didn’t get there until nearly 10.

I was one of the first people to visit Heri, when we were assessing them as potential partners, and it’s really good to see how the school has developed over 4 years. They have new 2-storey classrooms – which are being praised as a “how-to” example following a recent tragedy in Ngando where a 2-storey school collapsed, killing 7 children and injuring over 40 others – rainwater harvesting and sturdier steps leading up to the container-classrooms.

We helped out with lunch-serving again, which was less onerous then yesterday in one sense as there were fewer kids – it was raining lightly, so all but the class 8s were fed in the classroom – but n another, there was no table, so we were squatting. At one point I nearly lost my balance, and pitched headfirst into the stew, which would have been …hot.

After lunch we went to Forrester, where we were all but mobbed in the playground – everyone wants a high-five. We gave out some donated/second-hand blazers to the year 6 & 7 pupils (Forrester have no class 8 – not until next year) and they were very well received.

We took tea, and then – given the several buses and major roadworks in the way – it was time to head back… for some reason we’re all really tired this evening, so apologies if this post isn’t up to my usual sparkling standards…

I’m in Kenya at the moment on a volunteering trip with Porridge and Rice, a charity I’m a trustee with. I arrived yesterday lunchtime, greeted at the airport by Teacher Mary, deputy head at one of our partner schools, and spent the afternoon relaxing at our accommodation. We stay at Wildebeest Eco Lodge, a hotel that’s essentially glamping on steroids. Among other things, while I’m here, I’m looking forward to essentially spending 2 weeks outside.

One notable thing that happened was wildlife interference at breakfast – it wasn’t actually *my* toast that was stolen, but as my Dad says, why spoil a good story with the facts? “A monkey stole someone else’s toast” doesn’t feel like it really works as a blog title… If you look in the tree here, you can see it clutching its prize.

Today we visited the two closest schools, Excel Emmanuel and Lizpal. Excel was the founding school of the charity, and we always get a warm welcome. They like to show their appreciation of what we do through giving us food. For instance, this is what we were presented with for a mid-morning snack, having been promised “just some tea”.

That’s mandazi (doughnuts, 2 packs between three of us), boiled eggs and sweet potatoes. Oh, and tea.

Maria and I went on a tour of the school, saying “hello” to every class. The baby class were very sweet – they crowded round, everyone wanting to touch our funny pale skin. Maria told me afterwards that some of them were trying to pull at her nails (which are quite long, and painted grey).

The school is doing really well. When we first engaged with them, they had around 300 students. Now they have over 400…

Maria and I spent some time sorting beans – digging out ropey ones, bits of grass, and small stones, then helped to serve up lunch. Today, then menu was bean stew/soup and rice.

After we had eaten some lunch (and been berated for not taking enough – I could barely move afterwards) we walked over to Lizpal – a 10-minute walk or so, where we were warmly greeted by Teachers Beth and Grace, and the rest of the school.

It seems like a strange thing to pick out about a school, but Lizpal have excellent toilets – they were built recently, and are spotlessly clean – the children use waste water from hand-washing to flush out the toilets after each use.

Lizpal is on an L-shaped plot, so it’s hard to capture much of it at once. This sums it up fairly well, though ~ the boards in the foreground cover what would otherwise be an open drain (no proper infrastructure here – use your imagination), the head teacher’s office is straight ahead. There are classrooms around the corner to the left, and down the passage behind me on the right. Behind the classrooms ahead are the pre-school classrooms. The flats you can see behind are a worry – the landlords are selling up plots of land for new buildings, and the fact that these flats, which were a concrete shell when I last came 3 years ago, are finished, makes it more likely that the owner of the land under the school will be persuaded to sell. We can only wait and see…

It takes quite a while to get to & from – it was getting dark by the time we were walking back from the bus. I was ready for a cold one and a warm wash, so …here I am. My fitbit has registered 14,000 steps today. That’s nearly a day at Alton Towers, eh…