Week one

We made it to Kenya last week and thanks to all our friends and family who helped us get here. With our 230kgs of luggage - a few life essentials till our main shipment arrives in a couple of month's time - we squeezed into various people carriers and navigated airports pretty successfully, not losing any child or bag along the way. And having landed on Monday morning and spent the day gently acclimatising, we got straight into the swing of our new life on Tuesday with Tim going into work and the kids heading off to their new school - a British school in sw Nairobi where the similarities (same syllabus, biff, chip and kipper books, big write on Friday - Matthew is gutted - football dominating break times, school lunches which could be nicer) only highlight the differences (kites swooping down to take unbeaten snacks at play time, sun hats mandatory for all outside time, friends from completely new parts of the world, contact rugby in 25 degrees full sun, houses named in Swahili after 4 of the big 5). But the school has a very gentle vibe and the kids have all settled in straight away - the journey home (through truly grim Nairobi traffic which everyone warns you about in advance but probably has to be experienced to fully understand)is full of news and things learnt that day. Lessons we have all learnt in week 1: ~ the tooth fairy DOES come to Kenya ~ homework is done much more quickly when it's followed by an afternoon swim ~ that diary of a wimpy kid is the most popular book with year 5 boys at our school here as well as in London ~ N'duvo means elephant ~ matatus (the minivans that provide public transport) are best avoided on the roads but quite fun as the name of the game year 1 plays in pe ~ there are some amazing butterflies here - we have yet to go looking for other wildlife ~ how to get BBC World Service ~ the difference in cost of DS games here compared to London - James is now quite proficient with currency converter and amazon browsing ~ a little bit about the geography and demographics of Kenya - with thanks to year 3 for Matthew's fact book So much more to learn in the weeks ahead....including how to upload photos onto this blog. But that's for future posts.