It's African in it!!!

As we have travelled you see many types of travellers....

The Gortex Crew, who walk purposefully around towns in green.

The Gap Students, who seem to hang around the backpackers waiting to volunteer.

The Ethnic In Its, who seem to want to camouflage themselves into the local culture by wearing traditional fabrics and getting their hair braided.

I think you can see which gang we want to be in!!!!

Back to Dar

For the last part of Jems visit we headed back to the coast. Kippepeo village became home for a week, with its beach huts and chilled out atmosphere.

With clear blue ocean (apart from the seaweed) we headed out on a dhow boat to explore the local island of Sinda and check out the snorkling.

A perfect way to end Jems holiday with us, or should I say Master Snorkler as she now likes to be called!!!

More car adventures...

Time for another service… not too much wrong. A bit of welding here, bit more break fluid there… Just connect that bit with that bit… yes, yes... what about if you make the black bit touch the red bit?… TOTALLY qualified to be driving a Land Cruiser through Africa, la, la, la...

Jemma suggested we part exchange it for this heap of awesomeness parked in the same garage… She’s right, windscreens are well overrated.

First puncture with the new tyres... this time because of the hot tarmac. Hopefully not a sign of things to come!

Mikumi National Park

You may think that our days are spent walking with giraffes on the plains of Africa... we would be if you did not have to sell a small house to do it! Mikumi National Park south of Mororgoro provided us with our first budget game drive. The park itself is small but prides itself in a large amount of game for the viewing (you can see most of it on the main road that divides the park!). The blazing sun and Tsetse flies shortened our drive but we still saw our fair share of animals. Alongside elephants, giraffe, zebra, hippos we saw a lion and lioness relaxing in the shade of a tree. The lazy lions reflected the mood of the day….hot…hot…hot!!!

Click on the photographs to see short clips of the animals we filmed for school... Move over Sir David!

ZEBRA... apparently we don't think zebras are worth taking a photo of... only a video

Gemma with a 'J' comes to visit...

Nadine’s sister Jemma came to join us for three weeks in Tanzania, and when we weren’t making her work, which wasn’t often, we found time for a couple of lovely trips!…

Morogoro Project

Morogoro International School in Tanzania was our next project stop.

195km east of Dar es Salaam, (along what is referred to as the HIV highway), this bustling little town sits at the foot of the scenic Uluguru mountains

MIS had set up a Friday school in the 2008 / 9 academic year as a way of helping some children from a local primary to learn some English before they went to secondary school, where they are taught for the first time in English. The main idea was to help with some understanding of basic vocabulary so that the children could gain a head start for their move to secondary. It was also identified as an opportunity for children to gain some ICT skills and to have access to the swimming pool – an experience that most would never have otherwise.

The Friday school project had been set up with the intention of being run by GAP students that visit the school each year. While offering enthusiasm and good ideas, there was a need identified for some experienced teaching and learning support in order to effectively plan for language acquisition and pupil interaction. After discussions it was decided that our time at MIS would be spent working on developing a planning folder to support the organization and running of the Friday school sessions.

Click here to see a video showing what some MIS pupils think of Friday project...

We facilitated a teacher INSET to help gather an ideas bank to support planning sessions for future GAP students, as well as to make sure all teaching staff are aware of the project, its intentions, issues and future plans. A member of staff was selected to act as a co-ordinator and point of contact for support in planning and evaluation and to keep the project moving forwards.

We delivered of one of the Friday school afternoon sessions to demonstrate ways to work creatively with larger groups of pupils, showing interactive games while using minimal language and maximizing pupil involvement.

At the end of our time we handed over a folder offering a step by step guide to planning six week interactive language projects.

While the approach here was different for us, as we are used to being much more involved with the children, it forced us to look at the project from a different angle and to clearly outline and justify what elements should and shouldn’t be included in this type of pack. (A copy of the documents in that folder can be found in the staffroom on the Cairo to Cape Town area on Fronter.)

We still managed to find some time to work with children about Egypt!...

Click on any photograph to see more from the project in Morogoro

We remembered to take a photo!

Over christmas we had both had it mentioned that there are hardly any photographs of us on this blog! So... here is one of us sitting at the bar at Forty Theives after a hard day on Diani beach, Mombassa. Shiney, eh?!

Horus takes a dip

For those of you who thought we wouldn't carry an almost life size statue of Horus ALL the way through Africa... incorrect.

It was between Horus and the bike to go... no discussion needed.

Bobin, Neil, Mark... you guys are paying for his airfare back, right?

Kite surfing

As you have all heard many times before, Liza and I are prepared for every eventuality. These eventualities may not present themselves regularly but for the second time on our trip I was able to get out on the water. For two days, Diani Beach was perfect eight meter weather, with perfect flat water and only a few fishing boats insight...

No driving on the railway tracks...

The same short cut provided us with this perfect photo opportunity…

But not quite so perfect for Nades sitting in the passenger seat, as she hears the loud horn of the only train that week coming round the bend! What were the chances?!

Cue hysterical nervous laughter… Don’t try this at home kids!!!

River Crossing

Whilst at home for Christmas we had missed some heavy rains in Kenya… and our previous roadside tarp application had done the job and kept our stuff dry through it too fyi!

Before and after our trip back to the UK we stayed in Nairobi with some old friends from Zambia days, Scilla and Fin Davey. They were wonderful hosts, providing us with food shelter, cold beers and some mechanical tweaking for the car... thank you for everything!!

Driving down to the coast, on Fin’s advice, we took a diversion to miss out the congestion of Mombassa. The dirt road rat-run we took to avoid the ferry led us into the bush on recently flooded and dried roads criss-crossed in gulleys and mini gorges.

One such gorge had a ‘wee bit of left over rain water’ making its way to the sea. Assured it was hakuna matata, we got by with a little help from our friends.

Christmas...

After lots of debates over flight costs of transporting various Uprichards and Bogans to or from Africa it was decided that it just made good fiscal sense for us to fly back to the UK for Christmas...

So we swapped this...

For this!...

We were both thoroughly unprepared for a 'cold snap' and spent two weeks wearing all our clothes at once!

Nairobi

For us, gladly, Nai-robbery didn’t live up to its name as we explored the city in a day. The newly renovated Nairobi Museum was impressive with a range of permanent and visiting exhibitions. Scales in the mammal hall informed us both that we are the same weight as a warthog...

We then headed up to the Conference Centre to get the 360 view of the city from its tower. Clear skies allowed us to try and develop some geographical sense over the sprawling city. The great African highway could be seen in the distance, the same road we have travelled, on and off, from Cairo.

Walking over the railway tracks through the industrial area, passing factory workers and buskers, we made our way to The Go Down Arts Centre, which was described as the hub of new young artists in Nairobi, we arrived to a colourful but quiet warehouse but the walk itself was worth the diversion.

Making our way back home we found ourselves in the middle of rush hour and gridlocked traffic. Oh no! Standing on the street we met Vincent, an off duty nurse, who offered to show us a backstreet dash back to our starting point. By the time we got back to the museum, we had walked the entire breath of Nairobi and Vincent still had a 40 minute bus ride.

For Lucy Scott

Keep collecting lady, we know where you need to take it! Oh how we laughed...

Time to get wet!

So far we had been lucky with the rainy season... the roof rack and its contents had managed with only a few light sprinklings. We had bought plastic sheets in preparation and thought we'd chance it, but as we crossed back into the rift valley we could see the rain obscuring the scenery in shades of grey... Lucky no more! After a quick stop on the side of the road, a military style operation to get the tarp on and alot of bemused passers-by, (Mzungus AND women??!! Eh!), we were back on our way to Nairobi.

Time to lose the bike...

The time came for a sad farewell to my bike...

We had come a long way together... Given to me by my boss Kurt in London, we had lived through university, triathlons, more than a few falls and most recently the dicing with death to and from school in Cairo for sponsorship (just)... but love wore thin on the road, as loading and unloading the b***ard from the roof rack pinched and scraped us one too many times. Laters bike.

Edward is an orphan and lives in Marsabit. We talked about the things he could use it for to help him make a living and he is planning collect and deliver supplies for the local hotel. It's definately gone to a grateful home....

Back into Kenya, stop over in Eldoret

The fun of arranging the new tyres to be sent up to northern Kenya had involved a network of people who helped with deliveries, handovers, price wars, currency exchanges and bank transfers!! A spin off of this was that we found ourselves with an offer of a place to rest our weary heads in Eldoret on our way back across western Kenya to Nairobi. Far from just a place to crash, our night out on the farm with Andrew involved sundowners by the dam and a night in a beautiful old colonial farmhouse in the most stunning setting... Shame we had to move on so quickly!! Thank you for having us!

Nadine goes to the Chimp island

Ngamba Island is a chimpanzee sanctuary on Lake Victoria. A day trip there was well worth the visit to watch our close relatives in close proximity. We arrived for lunch time and were transfixed as the many characters ate, peeled and played with their food. But a few excitable chimps meant we had to be careful of the flying rocks!!!!

Trucks on the road

Anyone seen Final Destination?

When we crossed into Kenya we also crossed over to the left hand side of the road... in a left hand drive... Eastern Africa is serviced and supplied by trucks which clog up the roads on their way in and out of the continent. Landlocked countries like Uganda rely almost entirely on goods brought in by road and getting in and out by car means constantly overtaking - a job that for the most part requires both driver and wing man to be on the ball!

At the market

The sights, sounds and smells of a busy African market are a feast for the senses... More than half the fun for me is watching Nadine barter the shirt off some poor marketeer's back! At a village shop in Ethiopia I watched her battle with the shopkeeper over half a penny for the price of the bag to carry her stuff in... she got her way, but we later found out that the bag she was buying was bigger than others and was indeed worth the full penny!

A favourite market find was this miracle cure... a would be helpful addition to any first aid kit!