Pole pole

Hope all is well with any readers out there!

The Nairobi sun continues to shine gloriously this weekend, and so with a little bit of relaxing time on my hands, I thought I should share the S&J news …

Wedding preparations have been taking up quite a bit of free time recently- it was a mammoth task to organise a wedding from another country with intermittent internet access, regular evening power cuts and unreliable skype phone calls, but ‘pole pole’ (Swahili for slowly, slowly) we appear to be getting somewhere

Work has been good for both S and I, and the weeks seem to be flying by. I have been elected vice-chair of the PTA, and I have co-organised our first event which will be on Saturday. We are hosting a quiz for parents and staff, with a small entry fee to help begin a PTA fund. I am one of the quiz masters and I have written the questions, so now I just need to turn up! I have also been co-chairing the Student Council with the Head teacher of the secondary school and its going well- with the children coming up with lots of ideas of how to improve the school.

S has been assigned a shadow teacher to his class, she will be helping him with a student who has special educational needs. He is having an easy year with only seven kids in his class!

S has been particularly sporty, with his football (he scored the winning goal last week), plus his Taekwondo (he training towards his green belt), today he also played golf as part of a tournament in Limuru outside of Nairobi. The team was made up of a few people we know from school. He has been also taking advantage of the beautiful weather here and regularly wakes up early to go for a run and some bird watching!
I started physiotherapy this week for my leg that was injured when I was hit by the car, and I received ultra sound and electric therapy which should help to repair the tissue damage. I have two pieces of equipment which I have to practice on for five minutes a day, so that hopefully my leg will soon get better. S and I both played in a friendly match of netball on Friday after school with the other teachers, and I want my leg to get better so that I can keep playing.

We had to work this Saturday as it was part of the school training- but luckily it was only for a few hours and we got a free lunch afterwards at a really nice place called the River Café. Lunch always tastes better when its free! Then, we received complimentary tickets to a charity fashion show at uber trendy ‘Tribe Hotel’ because I support a student whose mother was organising the event. The tickets should have cost £55 each. P, S and I went- dressed the best that we could, and we were sat on seats on the balcony overlooking the catwalk. Imagine our surprise and shock when one of the fashion designers ran out and said the hairdresser hadn’t turned up and begged me and P to help do the model’s hair! I was going to say no, but P roped me into it, so whilst S supped on free passionfruit cocktails- P and I started desperately to do something with the models. Lots of hair spray later- no one seemed to complain and we appeared to be successful! Whilst we were doing the hair, photographers with huge lens and video cameras started to film me pulling one models hair into a pony tail, so I just had to smile and pretend that I was supposed to be there! The evening was really interesting with free canopes, and the models outfits were spectacular. When we left, we were given free goody bags- mine included a beautiful bronze keyring and a brown African chunky bracelet, and S was given a pair of bronze cufflings! I just love getting things for FREE!

We have booked our flights home for the 3rd July- fingers crossed British weather will be sunny this summer!

We are making the most of our Africa-British link, and we have decided to have a hen do and stag do here in Nairobi as well as back home in the UK. We are both looking forward to them. After all, we only plan to get married once and so we should enjoy the experience as much as possible with our friends!

That’s all for now- take care everyone

S&J xx