Imperial Hotel Kisumu

... for, in many ways yes but perhaps not in my Out of Africa sense. I think that could only be satisfied if I could walk across the plains and camp under the African stars.

We stopped quickly in Narok to drop off Tammy, Walter, Lisa and Shaun who were leaving us but joining us were Evan and Jess from Melbourne.

As we headed north we passed through more rolling plains reminiscent of the not too far away Mara but here it ...

... are friendly & open-minded, & seemingly proponents of new & alternate technologies. Hurricane lamps litter the roads at night, & the sky is so clear that the nightly lightning that precedes the thunderstorms are a show in and of themselves. There are little pockets of paradise in the most remote corners of the world, & I'm so lucky to have stumbled upon so many.

... boiled over in the closing ceremony as a KVDA board member had come along but nothing was really achieved beyond a lot of muttering. It seems a really sad way to end the project although the volunteers and the community took the time to finalise things more amicable without the KVDA around and we have promised to stay in touch and help where we can.

When I look back over the last three weeks I wonder just how much we achieved. Some things did get done ...

... friend". The secret friends are people you are meant to treat well for a week in secret and see if they guess who it is. As I wandered the streets I found a hawker who was selling a DVD compilation of various animals mating alongside the typical pirate dvds of Mission Impossible and Desperate Housewives. The DVD contained no less than 40 different animals getting it on and I couldn't resist making it Amanda's present. I didn't want to be seen buying it though and ...

... cone shape like a miniature volcano rising from the surrounding plain. We are only a few kilometers from Lake Victoria and the small towns of Homa Bay and Kendu Bay are both visible from the top of the hill. On Sunday we were dragged to church which meant another three hour service in a language I don't understand - this time in Luo.

The two groups of volunteers for the Samanga and Oluch projects began the week working together at a communal tree nursery that was being ...

... groups to discuss issues specific to the projects we are working on. There was of course the usual (and intensely annoying) set of games designed to make us remember each others names but besides this it was all pretty useful. We ate lunch in the park and I sat in smug contentment watching so many people picking up lumps of ugali, wondering precisely what they should be doing with it. Needless to say, plenty of it didn't get eaten!

In the ...

Up at 5:30am to go for an early morning game drive. Errrrrggghh hate early mornings. Bundled in a sleeping bag with headphones in we trundled towards Lake Nakuru National Park. If anyone has seen 'The Constant Gardener' it looks like the place where they were killed. For those of you who haven't seen it, no one gets killed, it's a great movie, go rent it.

Not far in when we came across a lioness strolling through the lush green undergrowth then passed the truck. If I were a lion ...

... with Mother) Theresa; I met a Congolese woman; we had a flat tire in the bush; I talked with a tatooed Indian businessman about post-election violence; I went out for espresso with a local councilman; I made faces at and laughed with orphans; I observed the AIDS epidemic firsthand... Due, however, to both my tiredness and fondness for brevity, I relegate these events to the category of etcetera.