Day 24: Sagalla

Today we woke up before sunrise in order to climb Sagalla Hill. We made it up before ten o'clock. At the top Paul played his guitar and sang for us. 

We then went to Emmanuel's family's house, where they cooked us the first ugali a lot of the team had ever had. 

Both Emmanuel and Paul's families were very welcoming and we had a lovely afternoon sharing stories and relaxing together. 

On our walk back down, Winkie, one of the camp dogs, went to catch a monkey, when the monkey didn't run away, Edwin jumped  to grab Winkie to stop her attacking the monkey which was trapped in a snare. He let the monkey go and is now deemed hero of the group. 

The team are now exhausted but have accomplished a lot today and we are all very proud.

Day 23: Finishing the garden

We continued work in the morning on the permaculture; digging holes, weaving and meshing the area for the compost heap. 

It's finished now, which brings an end to our group work on the school.

Another intense ultimate frisbee game left us all tired, so after a few games of bananagrams we're all going to bed early ready to climb Sagalla Hill at 6am!

Day 22: A normal day in Africa

So the day is finished, as most of the weekdays are, by going to a farm with a beehive fence. 

The harvesting period is over though and these trips are to add 'supers' on top of the hives, giving the bees more bars and space. 

This morning monitoring continued, as did the work on the permaculture garden. 

One thing to say about this trip that has been learnt- only made more poinient by the fact that todays blog is being written from the back of a very well packed landrover- is that there really is no limit on the amount of passengers this vehicle can take along these dirt tracks ... theres always space for one more!

Day 21: Monitoring the fences

This morning two groups went out to monitor beehive fences and take down notes on the conditions of the hives and fences as a whole. 

Three of one team and one of the other got stung... Enma is the first of the Exeter five to be stung with our Inspire leader Chris being hit an impressive total of four times. 

This afternoon, the kids at the school got an important life lesson- they learnt how to play frisbee. 

An epic game later and the kids didn't want to let the team leave. The day was topped off with a huge meal of spaghetti bolognaise and some home made garlic bread. Not too bad a day.

Day 20: A sad day

We've got a sad story today. This morning we got a report that there was a dead elephant on the side of the highway not far from our  camp. 

The staff at Elephant and Bees went down there so they could take some measurements and when we got there we found that the Kenyan Wildlife Service were already there. 

The elephant had been hit by a truck during the night. The KWS had already removed the elephant's tusks. It was a bit of a shock for the team but a good experience to witness some of the really not fun sides of animal conservation. 

Tuesday is shopping day. We get most of our supplies from the supermarket in Voi and our fruit and veg from the market. 

The market is a really good experience, there are loads of stalls selling anything and everything and hundreds of people who are really friendly and want to talk to you. 

From what we have experienced of Voi it seems to be a really friendly place. Work on the permaculture garden is still continuing and nighttime honey harvesting has turned into general beehive maintenance.

Day 19: Chilling and Fencing

Last night half the team stayed at Voi Lodge in the evening where they used the sauna. We watched the sun go down and the bats come out and whilst we were in the sauna we spotted a giraffe, this was the closest wild giraffe we have seen so far.  

Today we got back to work, we went to Wabongo's farm to repair beehive fences and in the afternoon carried on building the fence for the permaculture garden.

Day 17 and 18; The weekend

This weekend begun with us finishing the world map murel at the local primary school. All the countries have now been labelled so the picture can be used as a learning tool in classes. Pictures of human teeth, parts of a flower and an elephant were also painted on the school walls. 

Saturday afernoon consisted of odd jobs such as honey processing, cutting down sticks and started building the fence for the school garden. 

Sunday was a relaxed day at Voi wildlife lodge, watching a variety of wildlife use the watering hole, swimming in the pool and eating buffet food for lunch.