Jambo rafikis

I hope you are fine, we are all fine here. 

Here is today's top news:

Spiders, spiders everywhere, but don't mention that near Riggs!

St Andrew's student uses Portuguese toilet! That was Ben and there was no toilet paper!

Filling Rhys with 2 litres of water and then walking round Mombasa Old Town is a VERY BAD idea!

Cheesmur also can't hold his water!

So had a lie in this morning, whilst 12 of the Kenya 15 got up early and went for a swim, I did think about going for at least a second before deciding that our Head of PE could handle it on his own.  Then it was up for breakfast and the morning Malarone check (all this mention of Malarone makes me think we should be Getting some advertising revenue). Some were sent back to get theirs, but Rhys lost all of his! Luckily Mrs Farmer was on hand to lend him one of hers. I sent him back to his room to get his Anti-inflammatory and that is when he remembered that it was all packed together, soall is well.

At 10am 3 very nice safari buses arrived totake us on our tour. We firstwent to a wood carving factory to see how the locals make most of the tourist merchandise.I have been to Mombasa a few times, but even I was amazed at the poor condition of the main roads with huge pot holes and scores we seemed to be forever banging up and down. We arrived through big metal gates on to a dusty track and there before us lay hundreds of wooden shacks with half completed lions, elephants and giraffes( yes mum I will remember the giraffe!) amongst other things. All was progressing well until one of the kids spotted them. Now first of, I am not afraid of spiders ( you can ask Mrs Straw for proof) but these babies arcan steroids! Their webs are gargantuan and spread through 2 or 3 trees and have maybe 30 spiders on, I cannot imagine what it's like there during baby season! So that was the start of all the running and the screaming and the touching of legs saying look out etc. It might be worth mentioning that Riggs and Watkins are afraid of spiders, so Watkins was especially jumpy....and loud! Josh Smith and I met an old man, but he wasn't very chatty and a bit wooden, but we had nice photos with him. Everyone then had a look round the shop. Straight back into the safari buses and then off to Fort Jesus.

Lots of the blogs tell you about Fort Jesus, so I will only say that it was hot,really really hot. The kids were fascinated at the history, mainly as it involves a lot of fighting, big cannons (made in Scotland) and awful lot of cannibalism! Apparently 1600 Portuguese lived there and we're under siege for 33 months, in the second year they ran out of food, I think you can work out the rest. Only 15 were left in the end, but they were quite full! Sorry, bad taste! Pardon the pun. Lots of lovely photos. We left Fort Jesus and walked through for lunch. Rhys was feeling quite unwell so we stopped for lunch. We bought everyone pizza and soda ( fizzy drinks) or water. So here comes my moment of the day and this one goes to Rhys, but please don't tell him. He was feeling quite down as he has been bitten 13 times (though what makes him so tasty to the mozzies is beyond me) so we filled him full of burger and chips and almost 2 litres of water. He was really quite down, but still hardly moaned, was keeping everyone else's spirits up and was a pleasure to have around. We made lots of jokes about the water consumption, but we kept force feeding him more. He did feel better after though. 

After lunch we all went for a guided tour of Old Mombasa and saw many sights. The poverty really hit some of our students hard, we do see it on TV, but actually seeing it for yourself is always very different and it was a very sobering time for them. Lots of grime and dirt everywhere, rubbish lined the streets as well as dirty water. What struck me though was the overwhelming feeling of community, everyone was out chatting and cooking and getting on with it. Puts me to shame really. I explained to the kids that our kids actuallylive iworse conditions as most of the houses and buildings there are permanent. Where the Victory School is most of the buildings are temporary. Though you would never tell on the faces of the Victory students as at home they endure such hardship, but at school all you see is smiling and laughter, it really is an oasis of loveliness!

Back to the buses for a quick trip to see the Mombasa ferry, which reminded me of a scene from war of the worlds with Tom Cruise. That bit where they are escaping over the river and the ferry is overloaded with people. Well that is exactly what it was like today there. Crazy!

Lotes of swimming and lovely food back at the hotel and now it is bed time.

It just remains to be said that Mrs Straw won the blog competition last night and so a small Kenyaprize is on its way. Tonight's competition is :

Which continent will win the house sports day tomorrow, Asia, Europe, Africa or The Americas?

Answer revealed tomorrow, best of luck all.

Kwaheri rrafikisI