Our fabulous (?) vehicle that took us to the Maasai Mara national park.

Checking out a good view on the way.

The good view.

At about noon we stopped and were met by our guide, Sammy, our tracker, Albert and the lovely four wheel drive in which we were to enjoy our safari.  The part of the wild life reserve we were in was the Naboisho Conservancy.  You can find out more about this particular conservancy here: http://www.maasaimara.com/community-conservation/conservancies/naboisho-conservancy.  The nice thing about this conservancy is that they protect the reserve by limiting the number of people who can come to stay, and allow the guides to drive wherever they wish, even off the tracks.   I have heard that on some safaris they insist that the guides stick only to the marked tracks, which can make it hard to get close to the more elusive animals.  We were able to get very close to a number of animals we otherwise probably would not have seen at all.

The beginning of the Naboisho Conservancy.

We felt a little like we were in a scene from Out of Africa, and indeed a few weeks later, when we got together to watch the film, we realised that the scene where Denys takes Karen on safari was remarkably similar to our lovely experience!  We had a picnic lunch packed for us and ate it amongst the wilder beast and impalas, while dodging a little bit of rain.

Our fabulous safari vehicle!

At about mid-afternoon we arrived at our camp, the Encounter Mara camp.  You can check out their website here: http://encountermara.com/.  We were met at the beginning of an elephant dung track (an awesome form of mulch, by the way) by a group of Maasai men who escorted us through the bush to the tents.  There we were invited to sit and enjoy an ice cold glass of mango juice while the managers, a Kenyan/Spanish couple, explained how the camp worked.  The campsite is unfenced, which meant that the animals could wander through at will, and occasionally did!  To that end, we could walk around relatively freely during the day, but in the evenings we were escorted from our sleeping tent to the dining tent by our sprightly Maasai guard.  These lovely guards were also our housekeepers, and filled our showers with hot water, filled our hot water bottles and popped them into our turned-downed beds, brought us thermoses of hot water for washing in the morning, and zipped up our tents as we retired.  For the record, the tents had an en suite, so there was no need to leave the tents to go to the loo in the middle of the night!  The front of the tents had verandas with deck chairs and a day bed, which I managed to doze on very pleasantly on the second afternoon.

My tent. Not too shabby!

The view from my tent.

After settling into our tents, we reconvened in the lounge tent for a substantial afternoon tea before our late afternoon drive, which included a “sundowner” otherwise known as a gin and tonic (or other drink of choice) savoured as one watched the sun set over the African horizon.  And yes, it is very cool.  We returned from our drive in the early evening to shower (hot water was poured into a bucket above our tents by our lovely Maasai housekeepers) and then were escorted by them to dinner, which began with drinks around a camp fire then a three course meal in the dining tent.  We had originally planned to while the evening away by playing card games but were too tired and were in bed before 10pm.

We were woken at 5.30am, again by our lovely Maasia men to a light breakfast of fruit, cereal and tea and coffee.  It was weird at first to have these chaps waiting on us hand and foot… but eventually I think we could have got used it!  Then we were off on our dawn drive.  This continued until about 10am when we returned to “brunch”, an enormous meal that consisted of a buffet of hot foods, salad, juice and bacon and eggs.  So much food!  We had the afternoon free until 4pm and our late afternoon tea, so we chose to laze about at our tents.  Each had a lovely big canvas day bed which I stretched out on in the warm sun, and very nearly fell asleep.  I certainly had weird dreams involving an ex-boyfriend and a lion.  I won’t go into details, mainly because I can’t remember them, but I have an impression that I was on the side of the lion…

We again enjoyed a late afternoon drive, a “sundowner” and continued into the early evening.  Then showers, dinner and bed, then dawn again the final morning.  We enjoyed one last safari drive, then spent the remainder of the morning at a Maasai village that allows visits.  We visited a woman’s home.  Interestingly the women take responsibility for building the houses.  They consist of a wooden frame on which the mud and manure walls are formed.  Inside are small rooms and natty little shelves and cupboards.  There is a small cooking stove, and the women make little lamps from a glass bottle, a piece of twisted fabric and some fuel.

Our welcome from the Maasai women. Jen S and I joined in the dancing!

A Maasai home.

The inside of the Maasai home. I loved the nifty little shelves and stove moulded into the mud walls.

After a final brunch we were driven out of the conservancy by our lovely guide and tracker and were met by our minivan and the return trip to Nairobi.  That evening we indulged in a curry (so good) and started considering our all-important shopping lists for our final day in Kenya.  We hit the souvenir shops early, buying small things for family and selves.  Then, somewhat more importantly, we hit Nakamutt!  On the top of our lists were cheese, bacon, butter, chips, Cadburys chocolate and nice shampoos!  The cold items were frozen for safe travel and the rest were stuffed wherever we could fit them in our cases.  In the late afternoon we drove through the traffic congestion to the airport and finally boarded our flights at about 10.30pm.  Back in Addis and home by 1.30am, we collapsed into bed.  Now if you actually want to know about what animals we saw, you will just have to wait until I write the next blog…

Our little group: Laura, me, Sammy (our guide), Jen S, Alfred (our lion-killing tracker), Tessa and Jen C.

Crowded into a Kenyan taxi with Laura, Tessa and Jen C.

So at 1.30am, the morning after most of us had been on retreat (me with Grade 7s, Tessa with Grade 9s and Laura with Grade 11s), we dragged ourselves out into the car park where Clare had valiantly agreed to drive us to the airport. I really don’t know why it is, but most of the flights in and out of Addis seem to be at “stupid o’clock” in the morning. Jen S was already in Nairobi, having gone a few days earlier for medical tests.

Divine iced tea, served with a little jug of sugar syrup.

We were in Nairobi by dawn and Jen S was awaiting us at her mission’s very nice guesthouse with bacon, eggs, croissants, orange juice, tea and coffee! So nice!  We decided to hit the town and I confess that our first stop was the Nakumatt supermarket at the Westgate shopping mall. What a sight to behold! The shops were so shiny and full of things to buy, and as for Nakumatt supermarket, I think I may have truly experienced culture shock! It never seemed to end… there was so much on the shelves… and there were chips and bacon and cheese and… Well, you get the idea! We shopped for snacks and breakfast food and scoped out all the things we planned to buy, freeze and take home to Ethiopia! We also indulged in such delicious iced tea, you know, the kind where they make it fresh and serve it with a little jug of sugar syrup to sweeten it! So nice…

We had a lovely lunch at a café called Le Rustique which was set in lovely gardens. Check out their website here: http://www.lerustique.co.ke/.  Having lived in Ethiopia, we were all a little bit obsessed with food which meant, of course, that we needed to photograph everything! Java House became a favourite spot for coffee and we took advantage of restaurants selling both seafood and Indian food. Just lovely! I’ve realised when looking through my photos, that I took almost none of Nairobi itself, and an awful lot of the food we ate…

My lovely lunch at Le Rustique: the antipasti platter. Delicious!

On the Sunday morning we went to the International Church to check it out. It seemed to consist mainly of Americans, although we met people from other countries. The church meets in the auditorium at Rosslyn Academy, which is a Christian international school. The academy has very beautiful grounds… we were almost jealous, but we do love our little campus in Addis!

My lovely seafood starter of crab.

However Tessa's meal was much more dramatic, and very tasty by all accounts!

Overall I do like Nairobi (mainly because of the supermarkets and food, I think) but it seemed so very different to Addis Ababa. You rarely see the poverty you know exists in Kenya; the slums are neatly tucked away far from the city centre, so you can pretend they don’t exist at all. I can’t make up my mind whether it is better to have slums and poverty in your face as it is in Addis Ababa, so you never forget it exists, or whether it is better to keep the city neat and tidy and perhaps safer… however despite their efforts, I think Nairobi is renowned for being quite unsafe, especially in the week we visited, a few days after Kenya declared war on Somalia!

On our way to Embet's Place.

Our walk was a pleasant one, but it reminded me that Kolfe, the part of the city in which we live, is very poor.  There are ramshackle slum dwellings just a couple of hundred metres up the road; my Year 12 Studies of Societies class from last year would recognise the type of dwelling from our Slum Survivor simulation camp last year (See TEAR Australia’s website for more information:  http://www.tear.org.au/education/slum-survivor/).  The difference was, of course, that we could chicken out and sleep in Quicky, the high school groundsman’s shed when it got too wet that night; these people have no such choice in this wet and muddy rainy season!   We passed many shops and a large vegetable market.

Shops along the way.

A fruit and vegetable market.

Embet had everything prepared for our arrival.  The little stove on the right of the photo below what filled with hot coals and she began to roast the raw coffee beans.  It was a slow and methodical process that was very relaxing!  In the meantime she served us freshly popped corn which is usually served with traditional Ethiopian coffee.

Embet roasts the coffee beans over hot coals.

Once the beans were roasted, they needed to be ground up by hand, in Embet’s mortar and pestle which she had inherited from her grandmother.  We all had a go at grinding the coffee, but none of us were as efficient as Embet!

Tessa grinding the coffee.

The ground coffee is placed in the traditional coffee pot with fresh hot water, and then allowed to brew over the hot coals.

Placing the ground coffee and water in the coffee pot.

What results is a lovely strong, black brew of coffee, which is served in tiny cups.

Embet pours the coffee into tiny cups.

I generally avoid coffee; as a rule it makes me quite ill with an unpleasant case of nausea and a headache.  Apparently Ethiopian coffee has no such effect!  Yes, it is very strong, and I confess I added a generous helping of sugar, but I really quite enjoyed it!  I’m not saying I will be suddenly drinking lattes from the Bakehouse in Clare, but if there is freshly-made Ethiopian coffee to be had, I will indulge, I think!

O., M., Christina and Tessa savour their coffee.

After several hours of talking with Embet and her teenage and adult children, we made our way back to Bingham for a late lunch!  It was a wonderful way to have spent a morning!

Taking our leave from Embet's house.

My Amazing Team!

Above is my amazing team: Meseret, the Ethiopian wife of Jari, who is second from the right and is one of our new music teachers, from Finland.  In between them is Brett, the husband of Kathy, the new Year 2 teacher.  Brett and Kathy are Australian, from New South Wales.  Brett is a pastor, and here is the Grade 9 Homeroom teacher, is overseeing the Middle and High School chapels, and is playing househusband, enjoying a much-deserved break.  On the right is Jason, who is American and a new lecturer at the Evangelical Theological College (ETC).  His wife, Emily is part of our little learning support team and is an elementary school reading specialist.

An Addis Taxi.

We were all driven to Bole, near the airport and pretty much on the opposite side of the city from Kolfe, where Bingham is located.  We were given our first clue and were expected to catch the Addis taxis to complete the challenge.  Taxis are actually blue and white minivans.  A small taxi as we would know it is actually called a “Contract” and is much more expensive than sharing one of these taxis with a group of others.  The young man in the door way calls out the destination of the taxi and takes your money when you get on.  When the door is shut, he leans out the window to keep calling to potential passengers.

Local lads cleaning shoes.

One of the tasks we needed to complete while on our way to various locations was to collect or photograph various items.  The first one was to photograph at least three “typical” Ethiopian sights.  These are some of my choices!  Above, you can see young boys cleaning shoes, a frequent sight throughout the city.  Below is a typical road-side shop selling various small items and a fruit and vegetable stall.  There are several veggie stalls just outside the gates of the school where we can pop to get avocadoes, bananas (waaaaay cheaper than the jewel-encrusted ones we have had to buy in Australia this year, post-Queensland cyclone!), onions, potatoes and other things.

A local shop and fruit and vegetable stall.

Below you can see a fairly normal sight: scaffolding on a new building, Ethiopian style.  Yes, that is wooden scaffolding!  It looks rickety, but I suppose it is sturdy enough…

Scaffolding, Ethiopian-style.

Part of the fun of travelling around Addis is the truly entertaining things one can see on the road.  A heavily-overloaded ute is a normal sight now.  This week I have noticed live sheep with their hooves tied together lying placidly on the roof of a taxi and a dozen dead chickens hanging from the roof of a van.

A ute loaded up Ethiopian-style.

Another of our challenges was to have our photo taken while playing Foosball.  It is easy to find a group of lads around a foosball table.  This group (below) were beside one of the city’s stadiums.  They let us play briefly while I took the official team photo.  Then one of the boys insisted on dragging me into the game and very kindly placed the ball at the feet of one of my “players” so I could actually hit it!

Playing foosball with local lads.

We had to dress up one of our team members in traditional Ethiopian clothing: Brett was our “willing” mannequin.  Not exactly a traditional outfit, but close…

Brett in traditional clothing... sort of!

We had to find someone selling “Ethiopian toothbrushes” which are pieces of soft wood, the ends of which can be softened so you can clean your teeth with them.  We found someone on the street selling them and bought one.  Below, Jason is demonstrating how they are used!  The man we bought it from is on the right.

Jason brushing his teeth with a local toothbrush.

We had to buy a postcard and post it.  We found someone selling them on the street, bought one, then I wrote on it, and we went to the nearby postoffice to buy a stamp so we could actually post it.  I sent it to Mum and Dad and a couple of weeks later it arrived!

Buying a postcard.

Addressing the postcard to my parents.

Posting the postcard. For the record, it made it to Australia!

Of course, in amongst all of these little tasks, we were also supposed to be following the clues to get ourselves to various destinations.  Our first clue was to go either to “Lime Tree” or to a certain cinema.  We accidently went to the wrong cinema and kind of got a bit side-tracked!  Luckily the Ethiopian Amharic teachers were secretly tracking each team and they contacted the teachers organising the race to let them know we had gone off track!  We got a phone call from Dave telling us we were “lost” and we needed to make our way to the SIM headquarters for our next clue!

Collecting the mail from the SIM mail room.

While we were at SIM HQ we had to take our photo in the mail room.  This is us posing suitably!  When mail is sent to me, this is where it arrives.  We need someone to collect our mail every week and bring it back to Bingham.  After that we took a taxi to the Norwegian Lutheran Mission, or NLM, where some of the Bingham staff are living.  From there, we were completely out of time, so we were instructed to get ourselves to the Sheraton, which we did via contract rather than taxi since we were so short of time.

Jari scores the groovy hat of one of the Sheraton's fine employees.

The Sheraton hotel is a whole other world!  It is precisely how you would expect a high-end hotel to be: marble floors, quiet inoffensive music playing, vast swimming pool and extensive gardens, and nice clean toilets with the best smelling handsoap ever!  Our first task was to take a photo of one of the staff members with the groovy little hats.  We were supposed to take a photo with one of us wearing the hat, but were then told by the staff members who gave us the clue that they probably wouldn’t agree to this.  We, however, succeeded!  Jari is wearing the groovy hat!

Being "British" at the Sheraton.

Then we had to go out into the gardens and find the red phone booth near the Gnome Garden (which was a little creepy…).  Once there, we had to take a photograph of ourselves doing something “British”.  This is us lining up, British-style!

Having missed the first clue, we never really caught up, and sadly came last in the race.  We did, however, have a jolly good time, so it really didn’t matter!

The next day our drivers took most of the new staff to the Licence Bureau to help us get our licences.  Their job was not just to get us there, but also to help us to complete all the paperwork, including a form that must be filled out in Amharic script… We would never have managed it ourselves, so these men were such a blessing to us!  I now have a beautifully laminated piece of paper that states that I may drive a car in Ethiopia.  Of course, SIM will not actually let me drive a car until I have had a driving test to ensure that not only can I manage Ethiopian road rules, traffic and pedestrians, but in my case, also that I can handle driving on the wrong… er… right side of the road.  Time for me to retrain my brain and hands; I think my feet will be able to largely do the same that they usually do in terms of clutches, brakes and accelerators!  I intend to practise in the safety of the compound before I actually take my test some time later this week!

In the meantime, I was also busy having last coffees with dear friends and catching up with people.  I celebrated my 40th birthday on 22 July and had a lovely dinner at Glendalough Estate, a new gourmet pizza place in Armagh, just out of Clare.  It was such a pleasant evening, and I felt much loved by my dear family and friends.  Sunday morning was my commissioning service and Alan and Geoff from SIM in South Australia came to support me.  Tuesday was “hot chip nacho” night with some of the crazy kids I teach with.  If you’ve never tried melted cheese on top of hot chips, then topped off with salsa, sour cream and avocado, well, you just haven’t lived!  Genius idea, Emilie!  That was followed by Toblerone fondue into which we may have dipped Mint Slice biscuits…

I finally wrapped up everything at school, including handing over the International programme (at its busiest time of the year) to Melissa and Rachelle, who will do a fantastic job.  I may even let them keep doing it next year!

It was quite frantic at times, and I really did wonder how it would all get done.  However, as my dear friend Carolyn reminded me when she sent me an SMS with Isaiah 40:28-31, “…those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagle; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

So finally it was all done.  I am exhausted, but starting to relax enough to enjoy the journey, and not just feel a little panicked!

After checking in we decided to get our bearings and go for a stroll through the old town. The first port of call, as always, was somewhere selling a map. Prague was crowded with tourists – like every other place we have been so far, the price for travelling in the summer peak period. However the winding streets and beautiful architecture were still interesting. We found a lovely restaurant for tea, and collapsed in our room at about 10.30pm.

We decided to get a relatively early start and try to see something of the old town before the crowds decended at about 10am (which appears to be the magic time for tourists, particularly day trippers on coaches). At 11 am we joined a walking tour we decided to do. We found the brochure in our hotel, and the walks sounded really interesting. We chose a 3 hour walk that took in the main features of the old town. They advertised that they took only small groups, and we were pleased to discover that this was accurate. Our group had only 8 people in it: ourselves, plus two other Australians (Shaun from Sydney, and a Perth girl who had been working in Melbourne, managing a chain of Witchery stores), and four English tourists (three students and an elderly woman ‘addicted to travel’). Our guide, George, was really interesting and a lot of fun. It turned out that his English teacher had been an Australian man, who was also a musician and had played in a band which was a side project of Rob Hirst, a member of Midnight Oil. As a result, George had become a huge Midnight Oil fan, and had attended their last ever concert! We got along really well together, and most of us ended up having a very late lunch together.

When Jan and I left the group, we made our way to the train station to book our tickets to Krakow in Poland. This done, we did some last minute shopping (I allowed myself a wooden marionnette puppet of a bird) then had tea (I had a lovely grilled whole trout – and managed to remember how to eat it without getting any bones, thanks to my training at Lucindale Area School, which has an aquaculture department!).

On our last morning, I rose early to try to get some photos of the Charles Bridge and the old town without any tourists in it. Of course, at least another 30 tourists had the same idea, and I didn’t quite manage as many photos as I would have liked. Our train didn’t leave until 11am so we had a leisurely breakfast (did I mention how good those breakfasts were?) then stopped at the post ffice on the way to try to send a package of things I had bought to my mum and dad. Unfortunately their computer system was having problems, so I still have the parcel with me – will try to send it tomorrow from Krakow!

But for now you will have to be patient with me! I leave this afternoon for my two-week holiday to Ireland. I am driving to Holyhead today and catch the ferry to Dublin tomorrow morning. I will spend a couple of days in Dublin, a day in Mountmellick, two days in Galway and then will spend a day visiting St Joseph’s Secondary School in Spanish Point, Clare, which is my school’s (Clare High School) sister school. From there I will drive to Kilarney to join my Peregrine walking tour through the Ring of Kerry. It does look like I will get to use the waterproof pants which were in the ‘Very Important’ part of the recommended gear list! Oh joy!

I promise all will be updated soon after my return!

I began my journey north, and enjoyed wandering slowly along the twisty ‘B’ roads. The sweetest thing I cam across was a little rickety wooden toll bridge! It cost me the princely sum of 50p, collected by a little old man, for the privilege of having just crossed his bridge – a little cheaper than the Dartford Crossing!

As I was driving along I came across a sign advertising a nearby castle managed by English Heritage. Not holding our much hope that it would be open in February, I turned off and made my way to the car park. To my pleasant surprise it was opened and I made the first use of my English Heritage membership to get in for free. Stokesay Castle was very small and virtually ruined, but enough of the interior woodwork remained to make it really interested. It was snowing lightly which made it pretty cold (enough of the numb ears for heaven’s sake!). The nearby church was open and I quite enjoyed wandering through it.

I arrived in Chester late in the afternoon and again made my way to the tourist information centre to find a map. Chester was the hardest of the places I visited to navigate, but I found my way to my guesthouse eventually. I hadn’t really planned to see much of Chester as I was really only here so I could pop up to Liverpool on the train the next morning so I could see a performance of Dr Faustus at the Liverpool Playhouse.

I left Bath late in the morning and headed towards Wales. Hay-on-Wye is in England, but is very close to the Welsh border, and the most direct and interesting route was through the Black Mountains. This town had attracted my attention because it is full of second-hand bookshops! Richard Booth, who proclaimed himself ‘King of Hay’ and is the owner of Hay Castle, set up the first bookshop in 1961. He claims it is the largest second-hand bookshop in the world. Now there are over 30 bookshops, plus a few antique and craft shops. I really enjoyed wandering through the winding streets, but didn’t buy anything as I had well and truly blown my book-buying budget in Bath at the Jane Austen Centre!

I stayed in a really comfortable and beautifully decorated B&B called Clifton House with very welcoming owners. It was situated in the centre of town right near the clock tower that let me know what time it was every 15 minutes… all through the night!