It’s chilly out

My sterotype of Africa before I came was that it’s basically the Sahara desert, savannah grasslands and heat continent wide, despite knowing from geography lessons past that there’s rainforest (green) too.

Well I was wrong. There are places where it’s cold and Kijabe is one of them, I also presume that the top of Kilimanjaro is pretty cold too as there’s white stuff on the top.

Place of the wind is the translation for Kijabe – the name of the town where RVA is. Logically I guess that means that the windchill factor is high especially at the altitude it’s at. So it wasn’t a smart move leaving my coat and hoodie in another bag in Nairobi, clothes I didn’t have to use very often in Kahunda! I'm sniffing and typing this with a blocked nose...I think I've got a cold, the first for a long time.

Masanga means someone who brings people together (meaning given from the guy who gave me the name).

RVA – Rift Valley Academy

Little America

An unofficial name for RVA, as far as I’m aware it’s used because the school is American therefore American teaching, food and language despite no American football pitch. It’s this way so that the students will be able to adjust easily back into school or ‘college’ (uni) in America. But there are two full size Rugby pitches at RVA, Rugby alongside ‘soccer’ (football) and basketball are the biggest sports here. This year there hasn’t been an opportunity for the titchies (grades 1-6) to learn and play Rugby. My total time here will be about three weeks with a few training sessions a week for these young guys.

RVA – Rift Valley Academy

So long & farewell

The last day was a weird feeling, half knowing that I’m not returning anytime soon and the other half looking forward to a break from Kahunda and a change of scenery. The night before I left Kahunda I went and said goodbye to a couple of the families I’d been close with. And took some pictures in the dark, it’s hard to know where to point the camera if you can’t see anything through the viewfinder.

Goodbye Party

Giving a short talk on Luke 21:34-36

On the 21^st May Arne and I had a farewell ‘party’(Tanzanian version, a very formal occasion) at the secondary school. Arne and I both gave talks mine slightly briefer than Arne’s. We gave out tracts to the students including a Johns Gospel each. There was singing from the Ukwata Choir – Tanzania Youth Christian Fellowship Organisation. And speeches from the headmaster and deputy plus a few other guys that we had invited. We understood a little bit, as they spoke in Kiswahili. There was food afterwards, and on the whole the event went well despite sitting through some rain.

Arne and I - near the end as we have just eaten

Scurrying Salamanders

A live Salamander

So it was a standard evening, Regan and Dan were over (two of our secondary school sfriends), cooking rice. They then went outside for a second and told us to come out as they had a surprise for us. Arne and I went out and they had dragged onto our doorstep a dead salamander, it had been killed up at the school, and they bought it down for us...lovely. It made us jump out of our skin when we saw it! This episode came after we watched a live salamander hide out in one of its holes below our kitchen window.

Salamanders (in unscientific language) are like huge lizards, huge as in about 4ft in length.

A dead salamander... I just happened to be brushing my teeth.