From my phone at JKA airport. All text in the title as my phone won't edit the main text. Made it - have posted every day from Kenya!

More mzungu musings

As this was my last whole day in Kenya I thought I’d make the most of it by getting up really early to drive down to Lake Victoria to watch the sun rise. I hadn’t remembered how dark it is at five in the morning, but it was a nice trip. Our visitors left today and we had actually planned to do the visit to Lake Victoria a couple of mornings ago. Unfortunately rain stopped play at that particular time. The sunrise was slightly disappointing but we did arrive at the Lake in time to see the fisherman setting off for the day’s fishing. It was a very timeless scene. The same kind of boats must have been sailing out at this time of day for hundreds of years. We had a few offers of a ‘trip around the bay’ from the fisherman, (who clearly think they know a gullible catch when they see one). Fortunately time and common sense prevailed and we remained on dry land. At least one of the boats seemed to have almost as much of the lake inside as out.

It is always sad to say goodbye to visitors, especially when they have worked as hard as this team did. Massive thanks to Madeleine, Nicky, Catherine, Alan, Mathieu, Mike and John from the ‘European team’ and also to Ida and Siv, (who are still with us but deserve a mention in dispatches).

It’s always a pain finishing up a trip to Kosele. On the one hand it is great to anticipate being home and on the other there is always the job left behind that is slightly unfinished. That said this has been a very good couple of months. We have made as lot of progress in key areas, especially in relation to Farming God’s Way, (FGW), and starting the Agriculture College. Despite the weather our farm is in good shape and the harvest on the FGW plots is still looking promising.

My DIY skills continue to develop. I think it fitting that I had to do another minor repair on one of the solar systems on my last day in Kosele this year, (actually very minor – fitting a plug to two bare wires that had been poked into one of the inverters in the classroom system). I must be improving - I managed not to give myself an electric shock this time. I am trying to decide what tools to ask Santa for this Christmas, (having got fairly into the whole ‘right tool for the job’ mentality). I actually covet, (which is, I am sure, a major sin), a carbon fibre Leatherman multipurpose tool gadget, like the one Alan, (one of our visitors), brought out with him. Having previously blogged about how heavy the economy version that I brought to Kenya is I was amazed how light and usable the carbon fibre variety is. The only downside to it that I could see was needing a degree to work out how to actually open it up to get at the tools. This could, I guess, be a test of the user’s commitment to gadget geekiness and completing the job at hand.

Anyway, I digress. I’m not sure how easy it will be to blog from Nairobi airport tomorrow but I will try. If that fails I’ll have to wait until I get home on Saturday before the next instalment. It would, to be honest, be a major disappointment to miss the blog for a day. It’s mildly obsessional but is also a very therapeutic activity.

At this point it seems appropriate to thank God, the staff, the children, my family and followers for being so willing to put up with, (even encourage), my antics over here again, and to look forward to a very exciting New Year as our work in Kosele hits another gear.

Talent night

What an amazing day. It started badly with torrential rain that put paid to a planned early morning trip to Lake Victoria. It finished brilliantly with a ‘talent night’ put on as a team effort by the Cisco team and the children. In between a huge amount of classroom painting was completed. It now looks like we have a new school all over again.

All of the planning and preparation for a visit by a team from the UK brings you to a point where you wonder if the visitors will enjoy what has been planned and worry that something, (or things), will go wrong. Despite the weather this week has flown past in a blur of activity accompanied by a spirit of determination, fun and hard work. We have been so blessed by our visitors. It has been great to see the children who often stay in the background getting involved in new activities, relating well to new people and developing their practical skills and talents. Now that we are building visitors’ centre It will be fun rising to the challenge of keeping it as fully occupied as possible. The children learn so much from being around ‘mzungus’ and I know that all we visitors to Kenya learn a lot from them.

Tomorrow is my last whole day in Kenya for a while. I’ll be flying back to the UK on Friday evening and returning to Kenya towards the end of January. I think I’ve got most of the jobs I need to do in hand, (though you never know what will come up to knock you off track for the day). It will be good to be home for a bit, (though I’m sure the plotting and scheming for the next steps won’t slow down while I’m away from Kosele). At least it will give the staff a chance to catch their breath.

Too much of a good thing

I can't believe how fast this week is racing away. I shouldn't really be surprised, the last part of a visit to Kenya always rushes away with me. The Cisco team have, yet again, come up trumps in the hard work department and we now have five very smart looking classrooms. The second coat of paint will go on tomorrow. Weather permitting we should also do a version of the Farming God's Way training with the team, (I don't like to miss out on an opportunity to evangelise about our no plough, no nonsense solution to the world hunger problem).

We have only had a small amount of rain today, for which I think many of our neighbours will be grateful. It is hard to believe that we could have too much rain in Kosele, but a number of our neighbours are complaining about the effects of water logging on their crops and on their houses. It's easy to understand the problem of too much water running across the fields and spoiling the crop, (it has happened to us on a small part of our new land). It is more difficult to imagine what it must be like to have water rising through the floor in your house. Ian was out visiting in the community this afternoon and he reported on two cases of houses being badly affected in this way by the rain. For the families involved this is no joke. This is a tough enough place to live in at the best of times.

I keep meaning to get an early night but have so far not managed to get to bed much before midnight. Tonight is going to have to be an exception as we have an early start in the morning. We are planning a visit to Lake Victoria for our visitors and hope to be in time to catch the sun rising. All being well it should be a good way to start the day. Kenya really is a country of great contrasts. Great wealth side by side with grinding poverty. The destructive power of nature accompanied by great natural beauty. Optimism in the least promising circumstances. As our friends from Cisco start their last full day with us I hope that they will have been moved by their experiences of rural Kenya. They have been a great blessing to us. I hope that we will have had the same effect on them.

Running out of time

The to do list is shrinking, thank goodness, but it could still be touch and go whether I get everything done that I need to before flying back to the UK on Friday. It's been a useful but very administrative kind of day today – signing new teachers' contracts, preparing next years' timetables for school and making sure all the presents that sponsors have sent over have been received by the children and thank you letters have been written.

The Cisco team have been working like Trojans again, finishing the last part of a house build in record time before starting on preparations for painting classrooms. There is a really good atmosphere on the compound tonight. All of the children got involved with sanding the classroom walls before they get painted tomorrow. I can't imagine children in England singing and dancing while working the way our kids have this evening. All credit to them and the Cisco team for getting them going.

Listening to the place close down for the night it strikes me how much of a privilege it is to be here. It's going to be strange being back in England again. I'm sure I'll still find it just as hard to switch off at night and get to sleep. After it has rained in Kosele the noise of frogs, dogs, mosquitoes and overflowing water tanks can keep you awake for a while. At other times, like tonight, the place goes very quiet. Stepping outside at night, when there are no clouds and no electric lights to be seen the stars fill the sky. It is an awesome sight. It makes you feel very small. There are lots of things that I miss about Kenya when I am in England. The tranquillity and the sky late at at night are fairly close to the top of the list. They are a reassuring reminder that God is in His heaven and that whatever else happens there is a plan.

Three wheels on my wagon

What a day! We seem to have had a bit of everything Kenya can chuck at you one way or another. I think our visitors are getting a full taste of life out here. The day started off with a light drizzle, (not too encouraging), but, fortunately, this didn't last long and we actually had a really hot sunny day until about 4 pm. As it's Sunday today we went to church and I'd like to think that it was the joyful sound that we all made singing and praising God that turned the weather around.

The practical part of the day for our visitors involved putting mud on the walls of a house that is being built for a widow in the community. The 'smearing' part of the house build is always a popular activity and the team made a real go of it this afternoon – finishing two walls. The houses that members of the community live in would be described as 'wattle and daub' in Europe. Properly built they are an impressive testimony to local people's ingenuity in making the most of available resources, (principally wood and mud).

Taking our visitors to the site of the house build and later bringing them back again provided some 4x4 highlights for me. The journey to the site involved a shortish stretch of driving down a narrow, bumpy dirt track. After dropping the team off I had to make a three point turn and managed to drop one of the back wheels of the Landrover over the edge of a ditch, (it was a very narrow road for three point turning!). Engaging the low gears for the four wheel drive fortunately enabled the three wheels that were in contact with solid ground to pull us out of the ditch but it was a bit touch and go for a few minutes. The LR doesn't have a handbrake so doing a hill start out of a ditch on a dirt road was a bit of a challenge. Good old fashioned British engineering triumphed, (thank goodness).

The journey home was also memorable for a different reason. At 5 pm the heavens opened. It was the most severe rain I have seen for a while and it quickly filled the ditches at the side of the 'road' and turned bits of it into what looked like a small river. As I waited for our visitors to reach the pre-arranged rendezvous point I heard the most explosive lightning blast, and watched an electricity pole being struck full on about half a mile away. Some of our visitors were even closer to it than me – about 5 minutes walk away. We drove back along the rapidly growing floods across the road with the Landrover packed in classic Kenya style – three guys and me, the driver, packed into the front and fourteen people, (at least), in the back. It was a fitting end to a very African afternoon – the kind of thing that you don't forget in a hurry. The Cisco team and our two new friends from Denmark have been marvellous so far - it promises to be an interesting week.

Full house

Kosele is full of visitors now that our friends from Cisco have arrived. I have a feeling that we are in for a very busy week. The day got off to a slightly worrying start, as it looked suspiciously like it might rain again first thing. Fortunately the sun kind of sputtered into life eventually and the rain stayed away. We are all now praying for a return to the normal weather pattern of rain at night. It would be a shame if our visitors were subject to the Noah's Ark version of Kenya while they are here.

One of the nice things about having visitors is that it helps you to see Kenya from a different perspective for a while. It's easy to become so accustomed to your immediate surroundings that you stop noticing the small details. Having to stop and explain places, events and people provides a bit of space for reflection and, sometimes, reassessment.

The Cisco team flew from Nairobi to a small airstrip about an hours drive from our place. It was the first time that I had been there and I was surprised to discover a perfectly serviceable airstrip down one of the rough red roads that we are so used to driving on. The arrival of the plane turned into the usual spectator sport with a large crowd of people of all ages gathering to watch the landing and to weigh up the largish number of mzungus, (white people), that disembarked.

On our way back to Kosele in the Landrover John Appleton, (one of our UK trustees and the leader of the Cisco team), and I noticed a guy by the side of the road scooping something up off the ground and eating it. On closer inspection we could see that he was eating flying ants as they hatched. A freshly hatched flying ant is a real delicacy it would appear. I do remember the same thing happening on our compound when we first came to Kenya. The flying ants hatch in large numbers after heavy rain then burst into life and fly upwards in a great swarm. When it happened in Kosele we had a Kenyan girl who became my daughter Ellie's friend staying with us and she happily chased around after the flying ants, enjoying every, presumably, juicy mouthful.

During the journey back to Kosele from the airstrip we encountered the usual road hazards – potholes deep enough to break your suspension, other drivers suicidal overtaking and vindictive speed humps. Having moaned previously about the state of the last seven kilometres of the journey from Oyugis to Kosele it was really good to see that the earth moving equipment had been in action and scraped off the worst of the potholes, significantly speeding our journey up. It would be expecting too much to expect the road surface to be tarmacked but it does make a change to be able to get as high as third gear on the last leg of the journey home. Let's hope it is a sign of good things to come in the days ahead.