Great Rift Valley Trek and a project to promote sustainability.

2nd July 2017

Another broken night with our poorly student.  He still has diarrhoea and feels rotten.  He remained at our camp with the other teacher today while the rest of us walked.  A 'phone call, via the sat phone, to the operations centre resulted in us giving him antibiotics - let's hope he turns the corner soon.  I have to admit that I have really found it hard watching him suffer - bad enough to be ill at home, but this far away, living in a tent and having such basic toilets must be pure misery.  At one point this afternoon inspiration struck, and I taught him how to breath through the pain which seemed to help. Our expedition leader has been amazing, calm and reassuring throughout.

The rest of us walked to the Great Rift Valley.  This was a much gentler trek than yesterday, but longer.  The photo below shows the mountain we climbed yesterday (on the right hand end of the ridge) - it looks tiny! 

 

The horizons were vast and the weather was fantastic.  The inclines were gentle.  The boys were in fine form for the first half, lots of chatter  and laughter and admiring of the views.

 

The views over the Great Rift Valley did not disappoint.  The photos do not do it justice.  

 

The walk back was not quite so easy for the boys!  11.5miles in temperatures over thirty degrees was quite challenging.  Much encouragement was needed to get the boys back to camp for lunch.

 

After lunch a small group of us walked down to Monduli Juu village to visit a Canadian couple who have set up the Masai Bakery.  They encourage the locals to work sustainably.  They have been supplying us with bread rolls and our main aim was to buy some 'Happy Accidents.' These are rolls made with ginger rather than cinamon when Happy, a local girl, reached for the wrong spice jar.  We didn't get our rolls today as they had sold out, but we did order some to be delivered tomorrow.

What we did get was an insight into the rest of the work that they do, from rainwater reclamation (there is no mains water here and the locals have to buy in water) through finding alternatives to buying plastic and glass beads that have to be bought in from China, bee keeping and of course the bakery!  The rainwater reclamation set up is amazing and inspiring.  The boys who came with us to see them all commented on the amazing and innovative ways they were finding to help the locals become self sufficient.  This really is a case of teaching them to fish rather than giving them a fish.