wales

it's early saturday morning. the house is silent. the little welsh town i grew up in seems to still be asleep. i look out the window at a view almost the same as the view of my childhood bedroom window - small mountain to the right, little town below and beyond that the sea. the sea is grey and the sky is grey and they blend into one another, but i'm nice and warm.

saw my grandma and grandad yesterday. love them so much. when we were staying in the orphanage in Kenya i thought about grandma alot. when she was 2 her and her brother were put in an orphange in London. they lived together until they were 11 when they were separated and no longer allowed to see one another. grandma said that broke her and from then on she was a naughty girl. one of her jobs in the orphanage was feeding the babies. they weren't allowed to show any love or affection to the babies, but she didn't care about the rules any more and would sneak them off and cuddle them.

austria

sitting in the hostel, using the free internet!! casey's watching germany verses costa rica in the first game of the world cup. the score's germany - 3, costa rica - 1. our next stop is munich (back in germany). apparently the whole city is completely booked out with soccer nuts and there's no way we'll be able to find accomodation - except for our trusty camping gear which is going to come in very handy.

the last 2 weeks have been a whirl of partying, site seeing and bus trips. quite a change in life style after staying in the children's home. we've met loads of fantastic aussie's that we've become good mates with virtually over night.

we're loving this type of travelling but it's become really obvious that people are kidding themselves if they think travelling around western europe is going to open their mind to what's going on in the world.

perhaps i'm being to harsh? if we actually listen to the history of some of these places we might manage to stir ourselves from our consummerisitic money mindset. education is truth, and traveling is definitely education. i quess it just depends which bits of truth you want to learn. some are much easier to swallow than others.

independence

a thought hit me many years ago that at lot of rich people live with the illusion that they are very clever and self-sufficient, certainly (and this bit is probably unconscious) more so than poor people. but of course rich people are far more dependent on 'the system' (trade) than their poor counterparts, generally speaking.

how long do you reckon you'd survive if money suddenly became unusable?

since i was about 11 it's always kindoff bothered me that we all so dependent on people we've never met to provide ourselves with basic things like clean water, food and electricity. looking back these thoughts were probably inspired by strange rumours i'd heard about the second coming and the tribulation and christians not being able to use money.

at MCF the children wash in the river, the grow 95% of their own food and cook it using fire wood they collect. they do have electricity but it goes of so often you could hardly become dependent on it. there are no fridges so the chickens go from running around their pen to being served for dinner within 2 hours, and yes i learnt the whole process! (and i feel like i've taken my first steps to independence.)

step 1. place chicken between your feet, one foot on it's legs and the other on it's wings.
step 2. gently bend it's neck back, and cut of head with a sharp knife.
step 3. try and recatch chicken which is now running around with no head on (no joke).
step 4. hold chicken above hot water up-side-down to drain. submerge neck into water which will cause chicken to 'drown' and stop running around.
step 5. submerge whole chicken in hot water and then pluck the feathers.
(chicken will now look like it came from supa-value)
step 6. remove intestines taking special care not to puncture the little blue one (the guy i was helping only new it's name in swahili, so i'm not exactly sure which bit it is. they eat every other bit of the chicken except for that.)
step 7. COOK!

debriefing the MCF experience

The school in MCF (Mully's children's family) is one of the best in Kenya according to national examination results. i asked the headmaster what factors he thought contributed to the students success. he gave the following;

- the children get three meals a day so they don't have to worry about finding food and can focus on their studies.
- there is a doctor on site so they don't fret about getting sick.
- they get plenty of 'spiritual nourishment' which calms and inspires them.
- they know what it's like to be a 'destitute' and they are determined not to be one any more.
- they have more lessons per day and less holidays per year than other schools.
- if a child does muck up in class they are sent to visit the school councilor (an ex student and beneficiary of MCF) to work out the underlying issues. he makes sure the child feels heard.
- the teachers are really committed (even though they are not all trained) and because they live with the students they know them really well.
- they have a dad (Mr Mully) who says to them 'work hard and make me proud'.

african animals

spent the last three days on the Maasai Mara. We saw elephants, giraffes, lions, warthogs (which have the same attitude to live as our dog Jarra), hyenas, vultures.........

we were expecting our accommodation to be really budget camping, so we only took old grotty clothes and our sleeping bags. the 'camp site' turned out to be a luxury resort, which rivaled where we stayed in Bali for our honeymoon. the 'tent' had polished floorboards, a huge comfy double bed and gorgeous private bathroom. we ate a delicious buffet three times a day and drank 'tuskers' with rich Indians around the indoor log fire in the evenings.

it was quite strange being unexpectedly emerged in such luxury. We both loved it, but concluded we loved the MCF (children's home) experience more.

back to civilization and the (relatively) easy internet access of Nairobi.

Africa has been none short of an incredible experience. We have a sense that we've learnt far more than we even realise.

can't even begin to some up all that is swirling in my head.

leave for London on Wednesday.

Love to you all x

ndalani

currently living on a little slice of heaven right down here on earth.
m.c.f ndalani children's home.
we spend our days planting beans, eating ugali, teaching english and attending daily devotions.
the children are remarkably polite and disciplined.
they hardly whisper a word in classes, which i (charlie) sometimes find a little frustrating.

the devotions are a highlight of the day. the singing is incredible. most of the songs are in swahili, so it's taking us a while to cotton on. casey's been getting into the african dancing too. we've snuck in the mp3 player to record the acapella singing a few times, coz i know i'll miss their singing.

we're writing this from the post office in Matuu - the nearest town with internet... it has 2 computers. Matuu is about 15kms from Ndalani.

one cool thing about Kenya is that Christianity is huge. As i'm writing this the post office radio is playing This is the air i breath by the parachute band. radios are always playing worship songs and belting out american sermons. most of the businesses seem to have some sort of biblical reference in their name.

bought some hair extensions today ($3) one of the girls is going to put them in for me on friday and saturday (it takes 2 days).

one of our favourite past times here (at the orphanage)is just wandering around and finding a little cute kid to pass time with. they find our hairy arms and freckles fascinating and seems to be able to make a 15 minute game out of bending our funny white fingers.

caught up with one of our sudanese friends big brother last night which was great. neither of us have met our nieces, both born in perth.

we are currently at Ndalani Orphanage. There's about 400 kids aged 7 to 23, a school, a farm and the home where they all live. case and i will be both teaching and helping out on the farm. there's no phone or internet here.

so we'll catch you all later.

egypt

this morning we went to the church that sheltered mary, joseph and Jesus when they arrived in egypt as refugees.

i can not quite put words how this felt... other than i felt very close to Jesus.

tonight we fly out to Kenya.

egypt

just spent 3 days in Alexandria, on the Afican side of the Mediterranean coast. this is the place where it was decided which 27 books would make up the new testament. the bishop of Alexandria (i think his name was Athansius) had the final word in about 260AD (i can't remember exactly but it was about 65 years before Constantine made Christianity the official religion in Rome).

i wonder how he decided which books to pick?