Travelling tales: first glimpse of Kenya

I remember the first time I went to Kenya - it was my first big adventure, and like all adventures, I was prepared to take some risks. I didn't want the normal safari tour; I wanted to see life as it really was in Africa. I certainly didn't want to do the volunteer tour either - what is, essentially, an extension of the game parks but involving a lot of bleeding hearts gawping at the 'poor starving Africans' and building schools that never have enough funding to actually run. No. I wanted to add some value, and do something that was actually going to have an effect on the small community I was going to stay with. I just didn't know quite what that would be.

To cut a long story short I made it there and back, not without my adventure and not without starting something that was going to make a difference. I met a whole host of wonderful people, not least the Kenya Aid team with whom I travelled back to Kenya with in December 2007. And from my experiences the first time round I was able to tell a whole host of horror stories that I used to terrify the new volunteers we were taking with us.

Oh the joy of retelling my first arrival in Kenya; the bus that took 8 hours over a dusty, bumpy road only to turn up to an even more dilapidated 'taxi' that lost a tire, was missing seatbelts and an intact windscreen, and that ended up crashing us into a tree when the brakes finally failed on the long road to Shikunga. Or the lean days between harvests when all we had to eat was ugali and sukomowiki. The special stories I got to share of malaria and violent stomach bugs that left me dehydrated and exhausted after a week's worth of illness, and crazy matatu drivers that knew neither road markings nor speed limits.

To say I left some of our party a little shaken pre-departure might have been considered an understatement until poor Mike turned up with half a suitcase full of canned food and some serious concerns about the prevalence of malaria. We all laughed until the smell of 2 minute noodles or spaghetti and meatballs wafted over our tents. It was a laugh I very nearly choked on when, having paid him out about his mozzie hat, I managed to get malaria for a second time and he walked away disease free.

But, like the rest of us, Mike has is own arrival story to tell and his own memories of his time in Kenya. We'll talk to him next week about his first impressions of Kenya, and whether he is crazy enough to come back with us next time!