Will Dig Life

Our return journey day started with a 3.30am wake-up call - that's 12.30am UK time - which would have been ok if we'd had an early night, but if course we didn't... so, leaving the house at 5am we arrived in very good time for our flight and even found time for a spot of breakfast at the airport. The flight this time was a daytime one, which I was a bit apprehensive about because the kids wouldn't be sleeping, but they did have a bit of a kip and the rest of the time they kept reasonably occupied with the inflight movies. And Emmanuel showed D(3) some Greek islands and boats on the water when we were above those, which D found fascinating! Coming home to a clean and tidy house, left so by our German house sitting guest, was the best - but we were absolutely finished and went straight to bed. It is nice to be back in our own beds!

Guest post by the Mr. The Mombasa leg of our trip began in a sad note - it felt like there was a big hole where N(5) and my lovely wife should have been. They were staying behind in Nairobi at the hospital to make sure N recovered from her pneumonia. As with most outings in Kenya the journey was a long one on the train that ran through the national park to the east coast. As it was just D(3) and Daddy going on the trip it was a rare opportunity for D to bond with the other little girl in our party. It was sweet to see how their relationship developed. We kept our eyes peeled to see if we could spot some of the nig game wildlife... we saw some elephants, gazelle and wildebeest. They were a little far away but it was as close as we would come to our own safari! The trip would also be provide the longest time that D and Daddy had spent exclusively together. Time for the boys to have fun! I was a little concerned that he might struggle without Mummy cuddles but it turne

I cannot believe it's our last full day here tomorrow! For today we had planned to visit the children's home in Nairobi that the church has been supporting for years, but that has now been moved to tomorrow so we decided to actually have a look around. First, we went to a hill within Nairobi where you could look at the city. Beautiful, but unfortunately the children outright refused to cooperate. To be fair, they've had to go along with everything is adults have wanted to do, so today we did something just for them: we went to a wildlife place and saw some animals. We saw a rhino pee (forever!) and even fed an ostrich! We finished with a posh lunch at a restaurant, where for the first time here we saw a few white people. Apparently there are some here after all! And then the kids needed a nap break, since we never get into bed before 10 here...

The past 24 hours have been a blur of awesomeness and blessing for me. After we were released from hospital (following a 4 hour long discharge ordeal trying to deal with insurance) we went to pick up the others from the train station. I knew that after this we were going to Shawn's house to celebrate his graduation. What I didn't know was that they had organised a surprise birthday party for me there, so it was a double celebration! They totally got me, I had no idea - there was cake for me, my name on the wall... I was utterly blown away. This isn't my family but they embraced me completely as one of their own, and my heart was so full. Even though they did call me Suzy. N(5) was absolutely in her element, after four days in near isolation with just me for company, she loved party time with so many friends! The next morning was Sunday and we went to the church through which the school is being built. A long service, very good though and they sure

I haven't posted in a few days because days just flowed into one another with my hospital stay with N(5), so I thought I'd post now to share my impressions of hospital care in Kenya. Hopefully Mr. will be along another day for a "guest post" on this blog, because he's spent four days in Mombasa with D(3) and the others in our group! So he'll have to post about that. Now, hospital in Kenya. Keep in mind I have virtually no experience of British hospitals other than maternity (I was in hospital for 24 hours following N's birth, and only 3 hours after D's), so I'm not comparing, just describing. We arrived on Monday, near midnight. This isn't an A&E Department but a small suburban branch of a major private Nairobi hospital. We walked into an empty reception area and were seen within minutes. A doctor checked her over a few minutes later, and diagnosed pneumonia. Blood was taken for a lab test, and half an hour later we had the results.