Today was the half-way point for the group’s stay at Oronkai. After spending so much time painting and digging it must have been quite a refreshing change to get the opportunity to explore the local countryside and meet more people – all of whom continue to be so friendly towards the group …

Day 12 – July 27th 

  “Today started off with the longest accounts meeting since the plane; we are now completely up to date and everything checks out.

I walked out of the classroom to a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky. I headed out to the pit to carry on digging and spent the morning hewing the baked earth with a pickaxe for Matt and Chris to shovel out. I also took a turn shovelling when I was too tired to swing the pickaxe properly; we were really going for it and the ground was like rock.

Eventually we finished, and I found a wheelbarrow to cart some old bricks up to our hole in order to make a solid border. The wheelbarrow had to be emptied first however – it contained two live tied up chickens.

After the hole was dug, we were taken on a tour of the surrounding farmland and given an insight into the real Kenya.

One man owns somewhere in the region of 150 acres of farmland, which is kept by his wives. He chooses a wife to eat and sleep with as he pleases, and sires as many as 15 x children.

While we were out, we made the decision that the 3 biggest people shouldn’t be sleeping in the same tent, so tonight as a trial Gavan is moving in with Josh and Simran, leaving Chris and I with a lot more room and a more bearable temperature having lost our hairy radiator.

It turns out the 800 m world record holder, David Rudisha, lives a stones throw from where we were exploring.

An interesting tradition that we learned was how Masai men choose a girl; they find an adult girl who they like and simply take her, throwing her over their shoulder and taking her home as property.

Today I got the chance to call Kate and celebrate our anniversary (even though we disagreed over the exact date – I am fairly sure we are both wrong!). It was great to hear her voice and catch up, but it also really hit home how much I miss her and I have thought of little else since. There is so much I want to share with her and talk about, but it will have to wait a few more weeks.

After my phone call I carried on painting for about an hour and then we wound up the day with a game of volleyball which we finally won.”