Teacher, if I go to England, will I turn white?

My week has been hectic, filled of children, children, children and adults stroking my hair ("it is smart"), tropical rainstorms, getting soaked by waterfalls and yet more children. The small kids who live in our neighbourhood take IMMENSE pleasure in screeching 'howareyouhowareyouhowareyouhowareyouhowareyou' over and over and over again even once we've screamed back "WE ARE FINE THANK YOU!" and seem to have worsened since last year!

I've mainly been at school this week, teaching fun things like frisbeeing in P.E. ("is it a plate teacher?") and dull things like revision for their exams next week. The kitchen is getting finished this week and FOOD will come next. Horray! I feel so guilty seeing some of the children whose arms are so so thin, whilst I eat my lunch in the classrooms.

On Sunday we went to Thompson Falls (massive waterfall) and scrambled down the suspiciously boulder-like steps to the very bottom, getting absolutely drenched. I must go now to journey back through the maze of chickens, fish-sellers and eerily smiling men appearing from the darkness to go and eat my dinner of stew!

Singing, Dancing and the Smallest Woman in the World

It is SO GOOD to be back in Nakuru.

Saying hello to everyone again, from the 600 kids at school, who screamed "MADAM ZOE!! IT IS MADAM ZOE!!!", ran, hugged me and wouldn't let me go until one of the other teachers came and prised them off me, and the children at the orphanage, to the mango sellers and friendly parents who remember me. It's so funny to be here, after a year of gradually feeling that it was just some crazy dream.

So far I have just been at the school teaching, and watching my lovely class greet me with singing, dancing and poems about stepmothers (bizarre), seeing the children at the orphanage, and climbing the Menengai crater (big hot hill) with a class of 81 pupils who were determined to turn my hair into a garden by tucking all sorts of bright flowers into it the whole way up.

The orphanage was fantastic to see; some of the kids from the one that closed down have been moved to a stunning new one, where they are so well looked after, with lots of food, toys, clothes and beautiful bedrooms. I was so pleased to see the girl I was closest to, Becky, and just hug and hug and hug her. It was like something out of a film. She wouldn't let go of me the entire time I was there, and told me all about her new lessons and friends.

Today all the schools are off, because 'the show' is in town. This is basically a mixture of an agricultural show, with tents filled with samples of the best aubergines grown in Nakuru, and a fairground, filled with freak shows ("come and see the smallest woman in the world, with a mermaid!") and what seemed to be all the Victorian rides that England has long ago deemed unsafe. I braved one of these, spinning round and round in the air on those funny flying chair things, looking down on all the staring schoolchildren and chickens below. An invisible Moi Kibaki, the president of Kenya, also seemed to be there, crowds of Kenyans lining the streets to see him.

But aside from the absurdities of Kenyan life, the best part by far has been to see the smiles on the kids faces for the first time in so long. I missed them and their funny ways (including brandishing a dead flamingo at me like a sword on my first day back - apparently it had a fight with another flamingo on the school field and died!)

Yay for English Summer.

I am SO WET.

My trousers are sodden, my shoes, which are sadly made out of cloth, are like little puddles, and I am wearing a white shirt in an office full of men so I can't take off my damp jumper.

This is not summer!! I feel like gathering some buckets of rainwater, wrapping them in brown paper and and shipping them to Kenya.

What Fun You Can Have with Umbrellas, Ben and Jerries and a British Seaside

My two insane housemates and one insane banana-girl (Amy) who I was in Kenya with came to stay with me :) It was SO exciting to go and pick Annie up from the airport, Rebecca already sitting in the seat next to me and mocking my driving, and drive back to Bristol with them both in the car and bickering and laughing away at stupid things every few seconds.

The week:

-- Bath. A lot of sitting in a queue waiting for the carpark and trying to forget about the massive detour we made on the way, but also a lot of eating pizza, looking at Bath's nice grey architecture, 1/2 a litre of Ben and Jerries each, and then the resulting sugar high and a few hours of posing with umbrellas like Jane Austen.

-- Weston-Super-Mare. The day was sunny! We walked out almost until we could see the actual sea, and Rebecca discovered that bouncing around Baywatch style in Weston's lovely 'sand' is not such a great idea. She ended up with mud up to her knee. We ate chips and did the Kenyan shuffle dance on the sand :)

-- BANKSY and PRIMARK. Annie desperately wanted to see the Banksy exhibition, Rebecca desperately wanted to see the UK's second largest Primark. So we got up at 7am, sat on the street doing sudokus for two hours, then went around the Banksy exhibition (really, really good, I loved it), ate a tasty burger at Nandos for lunch, and then spent several hours in the new four-floor Primark! I bought clothes for the first time since being in England, because they were so wonderfully cheap that it felt like a good investment.

-- Getting mocked by comedians. We went to a comedy club on Friday night and I was mocked for being a vegetarian. Annie was mocked because the comedian asked if anyone was from far away places, and she's from Holland. Rebecca was mocked because when the comedian asked if anyone was from further away than Holland, Rebecca offered 'CAMBRIDGE!' Bless her.

-- Curling up in giant duvets watching Cinderella at midnight, eating dutch-snacks on toast, leaping on Annie simultaneously, teasing everyone for everything, fruit salad, and general LOVE.

I had such a good time. I really liked being able to show them where I worked, where I lived, what my friends and family were like, so that there felt like there was some kind of connection between my life in Kenya and my life here. To be able to talk about the last 6 months of my life, and KENYA in proper detail again was so good, and just to see them and sit around laughing with them again. I missed waking up and seeing them.

And the Similarities to Apes Continue...

A photo Amy took of a gorilla whilst trekking in Uganda:

A photo Sid took of me whilst eating sugar-cane in Nakuru:

The gorilla looks ultimately cooler than I do.

It's a Job a Monkey Could Do...

But unfortunately I am that monkey.

Work is boring. I have to get out of bed, and it's COLD, and sleeping in a giant jumper and a masai blanket doesn't help. I sit at a computer mindlessly clicking things all day. BUT it's money and that money will be made into a classroom roof and so that makes me happy :) Plus, it's something to do all day (as mindless as it is).

I did some much more exciting 'work' on Saturday, waitressing at this beautiful wedding in a big white marquee with all my friends :) We dressed up all posh, in black-and-white, and wandered around balancing plates of canapes ("chilli pineapple?"), serving huge white plates of guinea fowl, and trying to minimise the number of shiny forks sliding onto the floor every time we had to clear everything. There was a ton of pudding left over so we all ate some AMAZING chocolate torte and fruit tiramisu, and gleefully harvested all the posh chocolates the guests had abandoned. Then, when we finished at 10pm, we joined the dancefloor with the live band, bouncing up and down and screaming the lyrics to 'Mr Brightside'. It was awesome, and we got paid.

Then yesterday there was much excitement as it was SUNNY for the first time anyone could ever remember in the history of being in Bristol, SO, we all went up to the downs and played ultimate frisbee, with the setting sun casting long tree shadows over us all :) We gained a player from the Bristol University Ultimate Frisbee Team, who stopped, stared, asked "do you know what you're playing?" and thankfully joined our team. We're useless, all running around and knocking each other over, but it was hilarious.

Sun, Castles, Art Galleries and 40,000 Skeletons.

Prague was really pretty :) It was a beautiful city everywhere; even away from the traditional old town all the buildings were lovely pastel shades and decorated ornately. It made a difference from all the agricultural shops smelling of grains and chickens lining the street in Nakuru.

Pragueness:

-- The castle: long walk uphill but compensated for by the amusement of seeing some famous window out of which someone was 'defenestrated' (i.e. thrown out of it, and I think this is a word that should be used more often in modern english) causing some big war. Seeing a medieval torture chamber complete with spiky chair was interesting but gruesome, and we spent ages queing to get into quite an impressive cathedral.

-- A chapel filled and decorated with the skeletons of 40,000 plague victims. Well weird. There were bones all strung up like streamers across the gloomy stone room, and enormous pyramids of skulls, not to mention a huge chandelier made from every bone in the human body.

-- An art museum I've been wanting to see for years, AWESOME, I should do more art.

-- Pretty old streets with little open air cafes where you could get a cold drink, and gardens with fountains and peacocks creeping up behind you.

-- A fascinating day spent in the National Museum because it was raining, consisting of several million rock specimens, 10 of which may have been interesting, the other 999,990 being the kind of standard lumpy grey rock you find in your back garden. A scary exhibition on pregnancy filled with photos of mutated babies completed this wonderful experience. Yay.

-- Watching street artists drawing quick portraits on a very old bridge, eating evening meals in the sun with my family, eating CHEESECAKE and TIRAMISU for the first time in 6 months, and burning my nose because I am just that cool.
Oh my God I want that much tiramisu.

Now I am in Bristol, where I am SO UNCONVINCED about this summer thing. This place is just one big ball of grey mist. And my umbrella is broken so looks ridiculous, metal things dangling in front of my face when I use it. Work is the dullest thing ever but well paid. I need to buy new i-pod headphones because I hate the radio station that's permenantly on in the office.