My new home!

Soooo I left the last blog as I arrived in Kisumu, which is a "city" though feels far more like a town as it's pretty small and is located on Lake Victoria. My place is about 15 minutes from town on a matatu (taxi minibus/deathtrap) so in a small local area which backs out onto an amazing green landscape of fields and hills and has enough small stalls to feed all my needs and has a couple of places to go for food/a beer :)


26th: Arrived at my new place where I was welcomed by groundsman willie (his actual name's oscar) and my landlady's sister's daughter (think I've got that right). The house itself is really lovely and far too big for just little ol me! It has a medium sized living room (with some brand new handmade chairs, sofa and table), 2 good sized bedrooms - one kitted out with a new big mattress :), a large kitchen and a indoor flushing toilet! In the week leading up to my arrival the landlady put a tap in the kitchen sink, a sink/tap outside the bathroom and a shower in!!! Without these little things I would've been retrieving water from the tap outside in buckets for everything so feel very lucky :) The biggest things of change compared to the other places I've lived (not including the obvious mosquitos etc..) is no tv (a good thing!), no hot water (not so bad especially considering how hot it is here!), no drinking from taps (lots of boiling and filling bottles!) and no fridge (will be shopping from locals daily and not eating much meat/dairy :(! ). My place is attached to the landlady's house where she lives with some family -  we also have 3 cows, a dog, a tiny kitten and there are constantly chickens running around but these belong to the neighbours. They also own a goat that sounds like a bloke going "mate, mate, mate, mate, maaate".

27 - 28th:Thunderstorms ahoy - in the evenings so far the weather has turned into something out of a dodgy american tv series called "stormchasers" or something. The lightning (which at times hits nonstop every few seconds for a good while), thunder and rain is amazingly intense. If you're caught in it it's a bit liked being pelted by hailstones whilst listening to white noise. Powercuts are pretty common, mostly due to the weather although I found out at the weekend the power goes off all day on sat or sunday for some reason as well.

Made myself try and feel like a bit more like a local by going to the nearest bar - "the estate" (classy) and having a few beers whilst watching the footy. They are football MAD here (the electricity was off in the area allday so they wound up the generator just for the match!) and it's an easy way to get into conversations with the locals, especially when watching Man U trounce Arsenal 8 - 2. The majority of people here support one or the other so the pub was absolutely rammed and rowdy and as per usual the locals were pretty interested in the Mzungu (white person) being as there has not been a white person in the area for at least 4 years (since the last volunteer) and some may never have interacted with a foreigner before but regardless I was treated like a local by many of them with only a few quizzical looks. Also - never have "extra foreign guiness" - it's foul.


Met my landlady Veronica who is an absolute sweetheart and an ex special needs teacher so is well clued up on the work I'll be doing which is lovely!

First day being introduced to work stuff tomorrow! Excited but a little nervous!!

Top 3 songs on Itunes shuffle whilst writing:

1. Young american - David Bowie

2. Cigarettes in the theatre - Two door cinema club

3. The greatest man that ever lived - Weezer