It's moving, it's a film!!!

Final touch!

We came back home!

Dear all,
We did indeed made it back, all in one piece and happy. Eleven hours on the bus, one hour break, we entertained ourselves as we could:

We posed with the sleepers,

... made parallel lines with our necks,

... snuggled up comfortably,

... listened to music to find our inner peace,

... and were very patient!

Kids, you have been absolutely amazing and this is certainly a school trip I will remember. Your sense of humour, your joyful attitude, your constant effort, your ability to giving to others are commendable. Huge thank you to all of you superstars!
Miss E

Finally the deep sea!

Dear all,
Finally we made to the real sea, far away from the shore, to experience diving. What a great adventure it has been! We didn't quite all made it for different reasons but it will still remain a highlight of the trip. That's after loop-crashing a wedding!

Here come the bridemaids!!!

Diving crew number one, all ready to go deep!

Crew number 2 before embarking!

Those two divers loved it to bits!

Shall we or shall we not?

Kenny, our legendary bus driver, is thinking about
a career change....

All ok Mr Collins?

We finished off the week by having dinner at Fourty Thieves: how civilised!!! Pizza, burgers and soda, it was a real treat!!!

What shall we have? Everything looks yummy!

Can someone tickle Toby please?

That's it for tonight folks. Tomorrow, it's going to be bus, bus and more bus. We hope to be with you by 6pm but we'll keep you posted. Hopefully, a few funny snoring pictures will come out of our 12-hour journey up to Nairobi!!!
Good night to you all.
The Scuba crew

Let's go under!

Dear all,
What an exciting day again! We took our first breaths under water and learn how to be safe divers in the pool. The good news is: we all qualified to go and do two ocean dives tomorrow afternoon!!!! It has been fun to be in a hotel with a pool and we made the most out of it. It's been a water day indeed!

Before we could go in the pool, we had to watch and
learn from a video about safety under water. We now
know the 11 basic signs we will need in the sea.

Listening attentively to the instructors... Need to
take this skill back to school!!! We are about to
do our first 10-minute dive at 1.50m! Even Miss
Eudes could touch the bottom of the pool!

Getting geared up!

Water pyramid! We had fun in the pool
but the people having lunch might have
thought we were a bit loud!

Who chose the name of this bar?
Made us boys laugh!

Yaseen and Sam joined in this improvised game
until the football exploded! Forty thieves is definitely
a great place to hang around!

Dinner time! With all the running and swimming,
it was definitely nice to have mash and bangers!

As for our evening, it was pretty much a repeat of last night! We are all tired but happy and we are certainly going to enjoy our lie-in until 8am tomorrow. After that, cleaning, packing and sea diving in the afternoon. Bring on the colourful coral and the beautiful fish!!

Good night all.

The Diving Crew!

Camp Kenya does not want us to rest!

Dear all,
Today was again a day of action and we've now collapsed in bed, completely flat out.

It all started around 8.30am when we split into three groups: fingerling, potting and collecting seedlings of mangrove trees (paletuviers). We were helping the women in the community ensure that the environment is being protected and they can make the most of it.

Off we go net fishing!

Jean and a villager, dragging the net at the bottom
of the pond to collect small fish to be transfered.

The winning team, Kavi and Yaseen, collected 130!

Layla, the project coordinator, has certainly made
your little shrimps work hard!

We filled 300 little bags to receive the seedlings.

The walking group came back with over 500
seedlings. They did the final touch here...

... before we all started planting!

Bang in the middle!

All of us on the board walk we helped building

Last monkey pose before we left our co-workers.
Tears ran down many cheeks.

We sent the afternoon at the beach, exploring the sea bed and having sand fights. So much fun!

To finish this active day properly, Duncan, the site manager of our camp, organised a short football game with the local kids. Teams of 15 - at least - on a huge pitch and everyone ended up very sweaty indeed! Final score: 2-2.

Slightly patchy football ground but no-one cared!

Multi-tasking Duncan did a great job referring!

There was certainly a lot of running done!

After dinner, there was a succession of entertainement:

Mixing with Ken, one of the youth leader here,

singing and playing the guitar around the camp fire,

and Hangover 2!

We can promise it took us two seconds to fall asleep. We can't wait for tomorrow though as we are going to start our two-day diving course. We'll tell you all about when we get back.

Good night Mums and Dads.

The eco crew.

Mangrove mayhem

Dear all,

What a day again! It was time to give back to the community and we did that very well. We had to get up early and eat a big breakfast to ensure we could sustain our effort.

In the morning, we walked down through the village to get to the conservancy area: open beaches, mangroves and coconut trees were in the background. We dug to reinforce a fish pond, we made the board walk longer in the hope of attracting more tourists to this beautiful area.

Soldiers hard at work

Injured Alex does not care!

Kenny, our driver, is teaching the "four" girls
how to saw...

Bang, bang, bang!

We were certainly outclassed by the village ladies

Cheyenne + mud = only for charity!
The soft feet bribe worked!

Carl and his new hobby

This afternoon, we went around the village to realise the impact Camp Kenya has had. Then, it was our turn to help by planting 300 trees in the school backyard. Let's go green!!!

Kavi gets a booboo... awwwww...

From Ben's point of view...
All of us!!

All for one, one for the trees

Salwa gets right in there!

Ladies' fancy gardener!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go!!!

Speech time at the end of the planting.
Apparently, we are awesome!

Miss Zupan, she is taking her home!

We have no proof that we did it, but our swim in the mangrove was a brilliant final touch to our working day. We almost got Toby confused with a monkey and the splashes made everyone laugh.

After all this, we managed to finish all the yummy food and we coped with another evening without TV!

Tomorrow more community service in the morning and 40 Thieves all afternoon. This is going to rock!

Good night to all.

The Helping crew

PS: Mrs and Mr Nyang'aya, although not on the pics today, Hazel is still alive but slightly gone off stage!