Life on the farm

We stopped at Thomson's falls on the way to Nyeri.  There was a great view from the top and some of us even ventured to the bottom.  It was amazing, but the path felt a lot steeper on the way up than it had going down - we felt we'd really earned our sodas when we got back to the top!

Nyeri is higher than Gilgil and cooler and wetter - perfect for growing tea and coffee. On Sunday night, we stayed at a farm homestay to get a taste of rural life.   We arrived to a log fire and cups of tea - a lovely welcome. 

The next morning we went for a walk around the farm.  Our guide showed us the different plants and explained their uses.  We also tried our hand at milking a cow and picking some tea.

 This was followed by a cooking lesson.  We learned how to make the perfect ugali (the staple dish in Kenya made of maize flour) which we'd tried (not very successfully) at one of training weekends.  After the lesson, we ate the results before heading back to Gilgil.

Crossing the equator (again)

 The road from Gilgil to Nyeri crosses the equator.  Some enterprising individuals have put up their own signs to encourage people to stop at their shop.  This meant we apparently crossed the equator three times!  This is us at the official sign (we hope!)

If you're happy and you know it

Saturday had a  'friendship' theme. We split the children into three groups, one in the classroom, another making friendship bracelets, and the third doing team building games outside. 

 In the class we did activities about happiness and friendship. We talked about things that make us happy and what makes a good friend. Some of the main sources of happiness were friends, playing football, eating, and having a safe home  (something they wouldn't have had before coming to Restart). The main attributes of a good friend were honesty, kindness and being a good listener.  The sessions ended with lots of high-fives and hugs all round to show how happy we were and how we are all friends.

 

They also enjoyed making friendship bracelets and every last piece of thread was used. The team games involved various things including working together to stand up in a circle and sit down on each other's laps at the same time. They also had to cross a very large hypothetical river (the width of a football pitch!) using only paper as large rocks. This was made harder by the goats in the river and the wind blowing the rocks around (not challenges normally encountered by guide groups when we have done these games before).

After lunch, they practised their dancing and performances, which we joined in with a bit (to learn some Kenyan dance moves), as they had visitors coming in the afternoon. We headed to town to buy some paint to help decorate the new Restart centre whilst they entertained their guests.  When we returned we were welcomed into the hall to join in. Whilst the guests were shown around we loaded catapults with water balloons and had a fun half an hour with the children trying to catch the balloons before they burst. There was lots of laughter and wet children! All in all a great day had by all.

Highlights from a busy week

We've had a busy week at the Restart centre, here's a roundup of the team’s highlights:



Hannah: “Just interacting with the children and seeing how happy they are having people that can run different activities for them”

Zelma: “having a group hug with the nursery group in the session on friendship”

Sarah: “I enjoyed watching the children prepare their dances to greet the guests”

Lizzie: “doing silly races with balloons, bean bags and bags of enthusiasm"

Linz: “making the peace birds and seeing them all hung up, brightening the classroom.”

Ellie: “my favourite moment this week has definitely been playing with water balloons.  It was amazing seeing how much the kids enjoyed it, knowing that we were making a difference to their daily routine”

Megan: “I just love all of it and playing with the children”

Make new friends - sharing songs with Kenyan Girl Guides

Around three o’clock on Thursday we headed back to the school to meet the Girl Guides. All the children appeared to still be in school when we turned up even though the bell seemed to have already rung.  When we finally rounded up the Guides (all sixty of them!) and the teacher who is the leader, we stared with some singing.  We chose to sing Alive, Alert, Awake, Enthusiastic, and This Little Guiding Light Of Mine. The leader was extremely enthusiastic and made us sing the songs through many times until the Guides had definitely learnt it.

 
Following on from this we made a 'promise tree' for their promise, which is very similar to our old one. We drew up a tree with five branches, one for each part of the promise. Each of the Guides had to fill in the leaves with how they would keep that part. 

 

Afterwards, we went outside and sang some more songs – Good Evening Friend Brownie, along with Taps. We finished off the session with the Guides singing their end of meeting song and national anthem. We also gave each of them a badge, which they really appreciated.

Sanata's women's group and a designer bag

 

On Monday we visited Sanata's women's group who make clothing, jewellery, leather goods and accessories.  The group provides employment and an income to support them  and their families.   The project works with an ethical fashion label and produces items for big labels including Vivienne Westwood. 
 
 

 


We met some of the women and admired the beautiful bags and jewellery.  We were also measured up for some African skirts which the women are going to make for us. We're very happy to be supporting the project and also getting our own designer skirts!

Our First Full Day at The Restart Centre

Today was our first full day at the restart centre, we arrived at Sanchat around 9am, after a lovely breakfast and a good nights sleep.

 
The children were divided up into three groups of school ages, the youngest nursery children, the middle age group and the biggest children. We ran three, hour long sessions and the children rotated round them throughout the morning. There was a maths class run by Hannah and Zelma, a craft session run by Lizzie and Megan where the children made pom-poms, and a games session run by Ellie and Linz. Sarah floated round the groups and helped the nursery children as they required the most attention. The morning worked really well, we were very pleased with how it went and hope to run similar sessions for the rest of our time at the centre. 

After a bit of free time playing with the children it was lunch time. We were served up a massive portion of ugali- a very common starchy dish - and some cabbage type stew. 

After lunch we had some time to read with the children. Again, they were divided up into smaller groups, each of us had a table and a few books each. The children seemed to love it, listening intently and enjoying having our full attention (though some of the littlest ones fell asleep!)

The rest of afternoon was filled with more playing and hair salon run by the restart girls; they loved to plait all our hair into tiny braids. We also played a massive game of rounders with all the children that are at the centre. This went down very well until it started to rain. Luckily we had some colouring sheets as a back-up! The oldest boys stayed out in the pouring rain playing a very competitive game of football, competing in their very own tournament for the Sanata Cup. 

Very soon it was 5pm and time for us to leave the restart, it did not seem that it was nearly eight hours ago that we had got there, it had gone so quickly.  Overall it had been a very enjoyable day, but quite a lot of hard work. All the children definitely appeared to like what we had organised for them.