We have decided as a group to do joint blogs for the first two days whilst we are doing the same activities.

We began our journey by meeting at Gatwick Airport at 4pm (UK time). Our first flight was at 8:25pm to Dubai which took roughly 7 hours the plane was a huge double decker seating over 500 passengers. Luckily there were loads of films to keep us all entertained. We then arrived in Dubai where we had a 2 hour stopover. The smoking room was a new experience for us. We flew to Nairobi, which took 5 hours. The plane was slightly smaller this time and even though we were full of food and coffee we were really starting to lose energy.

Once we got to Nairobi there was a slight panic after we got through the visa control as the time on our phones hadn’t yet up updated from Dubai time. We rushed though the airports running with our cases because we thought we had 10 minutes to check our bags in, but in fact we still had over an hour… thanks Sam. The flight from Nairobi to Kisumu was only 30 minutes for which Katie slept through the whole flight. Once we arrived it was great to be greeted by Halima, Mercie, Charluf and Eve. They picked us up in the mini bus and drove us to Rongo University which was 4 hours away we finally arrived here at 9:30pm (Kenyan time). It was fascinating looking out the window and seeing the sun setting over Kenya and watching them going about their lives. Once we got into the Uni we had a great dinner and then drove back to our accommodation and crashed into bed.

This morning we drove to Kisi in a small 15-seater van and were all glued to the windows as we watched the amazing difference in culture and lifestyles pass us by. Once we were there, we bought SIM cards, withdrew some money from the bank, and bought some snacks and supplies from the supermarket. Including Toblerone ice creams!

Had a lovely lunch back at the university before doing ice breaking activities. First, we played concentration, it was clear that the Kenyans had played it before and we hadn’t! After we played What’s the Time Mr Wolf and then we played bulldog which was great fun but it left us very sweaty. Afterwards we all sat down and chatted, mostly about Katie dressing up her dog, which amazed our new Kenyan rafiki’s.

Lastly, we had dinner before saying lala salama and heading off to the accommodation.

P.S. Pete said we had to keep rude and vulgar postings to a minimum so … Bowel movements are still regular, for now.