From Stonehenge to Shimoni

From Stonehenge to Shimoni.

From Stonehenge to Shimoni! The last 8 days have been a real whirlwind since we touched down in Mombasa.  We began our expedition on the “party bus” which took us from the Mombasa ferry to the lovely village of Shimoni via C. I head office and the infamous giant flip flop turtle. Some students practised the art of bartering straight away and we’ve all tasted some local delicacies including: chapatis, mandazis and bakoras, and goat curry!!! Mmmmmmmmhh!!!

We are proud to say that ALL students from Stonehenge are now fully qualified PADI open water divers. The experience has been incredible and thanks to Yatin, Ali G, Ben, Rashid & Mohammeds  AKA Mohammed X3 and the team…. Even the most nervous of us managed to complete four open water dives!!!! This is despite Lucy’s panicked exclamation of “Argh, why are bubbles coming out of my mouth?!” and Shelley’s revelation, “I knelt on a lemon salt!”

We were brought back to reality when we visited the local primary school where we ran a crazy P.E lesson for nearly a 100 extremely excited children!!! It was both fantastic fun and incredibly rewarding to see the smiles on their faces as we taught basic games of frisbee, catch, rugby, and of course duck duck goose!!!! We donated lots of school equipment and hygiene essentials to the very grateful head teacher and were moved by the school choir’s “welcome/thank you” song performed us in front of the entire school.

Since then, we’ve kept very busy with evenings around the camp fire, walks in the local village and producing very ethical souvenirs from recycled flip flops we cleared up from the beach with the school children.

Our students really outdid themselves with their hard work clearing the bush and shrubs and plastering the banda in Shimoni using local tools and techniques. John surprised us all with his super human strength and the whole team worked like trojans, making huge progress on the project. WELL DONE!!!

We now have only one full day until we head to Kaya camp and are all looking forward to getting stuck in to the environmental conservation work. ASANTE SANA to Salome, Kennedy, James, Paul and the team at ocean camp for making our stay so memorable. Hakuna matata, Stonehenge!!!

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Posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2012. Remember to leave a comment!