Oh what a week....

This has been possibly one of the most eventful weeks so far. I have finally met a great group of people. The St Gorges dinner was wonderful; I met loads of wonderful people who have already been so helpful with advice about cars, helping to look for Swahili tutors. I am so grateful. The night was made even more wonderful by the significant number of “younguns” (24 – 35) and I ended up crashing at someone’s house after a night at Il Covo – one of the local clubs. I was then allowed to go home for the grand total of 10 min whilst I had a quick shower and bundled a load of stuff into a bag before being taken wake-boarding in the creek. Turns out I’m not bad! I managed to stand up every time after my first attempt and even crossed the wake in both directions (believe me this is very impressive)!

All scrubbed up for the posh dinner

 A group of us then headed down to Diani. Drinks and dinner at 40 Thieves was then followed unfortunately by a night in the hospital for me (unconnected I promise) – turns out I had a stomach infection that I’d had for a while which decided that was the night to make its full presence known. I was supposed to stay for 3 days, but as everyone was leaving the next afternoon, I had 6 sets of IV in about 12 hours. I left a little groggy to say the least, but the others looked after me spectacularly.

I then spent the week running errands (picking up material for my sister etc), going shopping and meeting new people. I have been out to lunch at a floating restaurant where we saw a swimming lizard (not an otter as I first thought very confusedly!). I have had a proposal of marriage in exchange for free dresses, and played volley ball – which I am awful at.

Not an otter!

 

I know I must be on better form as I have been spotting the delightful amusements that living abroad often offers, such as interesting product names, and even more interesting products in the local supermarkets.

Air freshener in the office toilets

Yeup - boob and bust enhancing creams - wow indeed

 

I have been cooking and relearning how to cook abroad. Need to remember to check for off butter before I buy it (it was green!) and the marge here does not make good icing – yuck! I had a very civilised home cooked meal with new friends last night – although my aim at mango and pineapple on a biscuit base definitely failed. It ended up and mango and pineapple with a biscuit crumble (not possible to bake and set a biscuit base on a hotplate), which was a wee bit sweet and sickly. But they did a great job at pretending to like it.

First attempt at Fairy cakes in Kenya: Cake good, icing bad - still ate them all!

And finally... Last but by no means least... Wait for it.... NMK have finally submitted my application for a research permit. Yes, thank-you. I know. A-MAZE-ING!!!! Or as Barney (for all you H.I.M.Y.M fans) would put it LEGG-END-ARY!!! So now I just have to wait 2 weeks (at least) for that to be processed, and then wait for more paperwork to be sorted, and then apply for my pupils pass which will take approximately 1 month and I will then be able to officially start my research. So only 2 more months to go J However, in all seriousness this is one hurdle I am so pleased to be finally over.

Hopefully the posts from now on will be just as positive and exciting.

Emma xxx