Nairobi

A really cramped plane, a small Boeing 737, and it was only a four hour flight so we didn't get much sleep. Arrived just as the sun was coming up, and went through typically inefficient customs and immigration - 'join the Kenyans Only line, it doesn't matter' we were told after waiting for half an hour in the foreigners queue.

It was far too early to go to the lodge, so we had coffee and wandered around the airport for several hours. Eventually took a taxi out, and sat around the gardens for much of the morning, booking future accommodation and catching up on mail. The Lodge is wonderful, an old stone house with large, lush gardens where lots of tents have been erected for guests. They start from standard two man tents for the budget conscious, and go through to large tents with double beds and en-suites (yes, in the tent) for weary travelers like us.

Walked down to the local supermarket for lunch. You can buy everything from groceries and fruit, beds and plasma TVs, through to lawn mowers and chicken wire. Kind of like Coles, Harvey Norman and Bunnings all rolled into one.

Made contact with William who came to pick us up about 5. He took us to visit the church and primary school which was a few kilometres down the road from where we are staying. Like all Kenyan buildings, it is surrounded by a high fence and permanently locked gates. They employ both a day security guard and a night guard, though they haven't stopped all of the break ins.

About 200 students attend the primary school. We toured each of the classrooms and the church, which also doubles as a teaching space, and worked out the logistics for the next day. We were proudly shown the two huge wood-fired pots that the children's lunch is cooked in, then we went to their nearby secondary school which has about 100 students, and teaches very practical subjects as well as the traditional core ones. We looked at the library and laboratory, the classrooms and the administration block, even the toilets got a (very brief) visit.

Next it was the nearby house of the caretaker who, along with his wife, also looks after the dormitory for girls who come to the school from a long way away. Well, dormitory may be overstating it - it's more an average size room with beds crammed in.

We all then shared a pizza on the way back to the lodge, where we were so tired from the all night flight that we quickly fell asleep and didn't stir till morning.