2 weeks to go...

Hey everyone :)

Sorry we haven't updated this for a while, but here is a little taster of what's been going on in the Jones household over the last month...

Life at school has been very hectic. We've had one weekend off so far since half term, which was pretty awesome really - we went to Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate national park. We had a wonderful time with some friends exploring the place where Tomb Raider was filmed - pretending to be Lara Croft etc - and also seeing giraffes, zebra and lots of deer. But since then school's been pretty full-on. After Orchestral weekend, we began report writing and since then we have been preparing kids for nativity and Christmas carol services, along with and normal teaching and planning which have kept us very busy. We're feeling a little run down and ready for the holidays, but feel we're really getting to know the kids more now and  have got to grips more with the day to day life at the school.

Deer running across the road in Hell's Gate.

Climbing in the Rocks at Hell's Gate.

Kind of speaks for itself!

Rachel being a monkey...

Rachel has just returned from Guide Camp at a farm in Naivasha. It brought back many memories of Duke of Edinburgh as we put up tents in the rain, cooked in the rain, went for walks in the rain, cooked again in the rain, gave children medicine at 5 in the morning (in the rain) and wore damp clothes for 24 hours. The girls had a good time though and it wasn't all bad as we were entertained by monkeys, zebra, waterbuck, wildebeest and giraffes roaming wild on the campsite. Rachel's finally learnt the names of all 56 guides now and had a great time chatting and giggling with them.

Still smiling after a very wet weekend...

Dan's been put forward as head of Elgon house and head of the club committee, starting in September. Elgon is the name of the house we're in (all are mountains with the others being Kilimanjaro, Kenya and Ruwenzori). He'll have to organise inter-house competitions such as swimming, music, athletics and other stuff. It's encouraging that he's already being put forward for more authoritative  positions. Head of club committee means he has to organise the events for staff on Friday nights. It's where staff let their hair down a bit and catch up. So far we've had a Bollywood themed night, pub games, a jazz night and a pub quiz, but if you have any suggestions pass them this way!

So there's 2 weeks left before term finish, and we're gonna keep ploughing on til the end, with lots to look forward to over the Christmas hols. We're going straight to the coast - Mombasa - to visit Jonny Shaw and Sam Boyes from Dan's church in Nottingham. Spending a week down there on the beach and then on safari in Tsavo National Park. Then back to school for a slightly different Christmas from usual with other staff, eating together and then probs playing ultimate frisbee in the sun or something. Dan's family arrive on 26th and then we're off exploring with them.

We're sad not to be returning to England this Christmas but feel it's too soon and too expensive to do so right now. We have, however, booked our flights for next summer so would love to catch up with as many of you as possible in July and August next year. We'll let you know dates nearer the time but really looking forward to a trip home to see you all.

It'd be great to catch up with people over the Christmas hols though too. We have quite a few free days so will try to keep Skype on and see if we can catch people, and it'd be lovely to hear from you via email or facebook too.

Well that's all for now. We'll aim to update again in the week before Christmas but sending lots of love and warm wishes at Christmas time. Hope you have a fab festive season.

With love,

 Rach and Dan xxx

Back on home soil...

We've just returned home from all our travels and wanted to put up a couple of photos to give you a taste of our half term break. If you want to see more and have facebook, they're on Rachel's facebook page... Sorry is takes loads longer to upload them here! Enjoy

We finished our holiday with some friends on a private island at Lake Baringo called Samatian and it was paradise...

Uganda

Dear all,

Hope you're all doing well. Thank you for all the lovely messages you have been sending us on facebook and email etc, they are much appreciated.  We will certainly respond to them all soon but for now here's a little flavour for what's been going on in east africa...

We are currently in Jinja, Uganda, enjoying the half term break with Rachel's friend from school and Manchester, Nic Samson.  We have been exploring the area going to a local rainforest, exploring the source of the nile, looking at monkeys, swimming in a beautiful hotel pool with in-pool bar (a favourite of dan's...) and today an epic white-water-rafting adventure on the nile.  It was an incredible, adrenaline-fuelled experience and we will add some photos to the blog and facebook soon.  It was particularly scary given that one of the guys we are staying with dislocated his arm doing the same activity just 2 days before but it didn't deter us and we live to tell the tale with nothing more than sunburn as injuries.

For the rest of half term.  Tomorrow we will visit and teach a music lesson at the charity which nic heads up called S.A.L.V.E. International before the gruelling 10 hour coach journey back to nakuru on thursday.  Then we are going to stay with friends for a few days in nakuru before staying on Samatian on saturday night; a private island on lake baringo we have hired with some of our friends-paradise :-)  Then on sunday we head back to school to catch our breath before starting school again on monday morning! 

We have had the most amazing start to the academic year; the kids are fab and we're loving the teaching.  We made it through an OFSTED - style inspection, without either of us being observed, and the inspectors we're very pleased with the school (partly because they were flown to Kenya from England, wined and dined in beautiful sunshine and then headed home...).  A particular favouite of ours is the bible study we run in our house which is such fun and the kids really love, praise the lord.  There was nearly a riot when the study had to be cancelled on thursday because of another school event!  It's really exciting to see the children grow in their faith, and we have built some deeper relationships with members of staff, who encourage us in our faith.

We would love to hear from you all, it's so nice to hear of all your stories from home, we miss our friends a lot :-(

Sending lots of love to you all,

Dan and Rach xx

A month in...

So it was a month ago today that we arrived in Kenya, and it's amazing how many things we've squeezed into the time here. Here's an update on what the last couple of weeks have brought us...

We've enjoyed the teaching so far and have had some good, encouraging feedback. Rachel's settled into teaching violin and viola pretty well, and was chuffed to have the most gifted student in the school saying 'it's nice to have a viola teacher here' the other day... I had to burst his bubble and explain I'm really a cellist but it's nice to know I don't seem like a complete fraud. Dan's enjoying teaching maths, and had a drum and juggling student performing in assembly the other day to demonstrate what achievements persevering can bring. It was nice to see how much they've learnt even in 3 weeks of lessons.

Other than that we've enjoyed getting to know the staff better and the students too - names are beginning to stick in our heads now, and we feel that between us we know the majority of students at the school, thanks to the variety of responsibilities we have. We've been warned, however, that all the girls return after 1/2 term with their hair a different length and braided completely differently, so it's going to be pretty much back to square one with name learning... joyful joyful!

This weekend the students' parents have been here camping on the school site (a very funny sight as there's so many tents in one area of the grounds it looks like the circus has come to school)... but it's been nice getting to know families. There are informal consultations, chapel services that the children are involved in, and there's also a lot of really good food. It's so nice to have a variety after eating beef stew over and over again. Sadly though, as soon as they left we were served 'sweet and sour chips', an intriguing dish concocted from the weekend's left-overs... 

This week we're excited about getting our work permits (I know it's a little late but they have this annoying rule that you can't get them until you're in the country). These clarify that we're Kenyan residents, meaning we'll get much cheaper access to national parks and hotels, which is exciting, and we're hoping to celebrate by going to see lions next week!

Some people have been asking how the boys' Bible study is going - we've been having a great time with the 15 year 6 boys. The first week we were literally in the dark as we had a power cut here, but the boys are good fun and look forward to it - it's their one chance to go to a teacher's house so they're often very excited and hyper. We're looking forward to getting into it more as we study who God is, why Jesus came, and look at their identity as a child of God.

We're also looking forward to leading the music at an all age church service half an hour away next weekend. Most of the churches are in Kiswahili so one of the guys at school wanted to serve the white English speaking Kenyan community here through a church service twice a term at a farm down the road.

Well anyway, I think that's enough for now. As we say, we love hearing about what you've all been u[ to so don't hesitate to send an email, facebook message or even snail mail :)

Sending lots of love,

D and R

Hakuna matata...

Hey everyone,
hope you're all doing well. We've just arrived back from a wonderful weekend away with another couple who teach French at the school here. We ventured over the equator to lake Baringo, which is a beautiful place 2 and a half hours North East of Turi, where we saw hippos, crocodiles, monkeys, ostriches, lizards, kingfishers, fish eagles and loads of other cool birds and wildlife. It was so amazing - we stayed in a beautiful 'banda' (hut) on the lakeside and were quite surprised to find two enormous hippos grazing noisily just outside our window at 3am this morning! It was so wonderful to see a totally different part of Kenya, with no rain and proper heat... We travelled in our friends' minibus, which was quite entretaining as it looks a lot like the matatus that are small buses that travel around picking people up and dropping them off on their way, so we got flagged down a lot, until they realised it was full of mzungus...

We did actually do some work this week too... Dan's loved teaching maths and music to the years 4, 6, 7 and 8, and Rachel had a great time playing music games with the 'turitots' - nursery and reception, and also years 1-3. The week goes by very quickly as there are so many different rotas and duties - dishing out breakfast and lunch, supervising homework time and boarding duties in the evenings, but it's great fun and the kids are very warm and loving.

This week we're looking forward to starting the peri teaching - violin, viola and cello for Rachel and piano and drum kit for Dan. We're also taking our first children's bible study, which we'll be leading together in our house, and would appreciate prayer for (they're all year 6 boys so Rachel's a little daunted!) And then we finish next week with Dan's first juggling session and my cookery class... (more prayer required!) We're so thankful to God for his provision of everything so far, we love our jobs and can explore and travel in our free time, it's perfect!

We'd love to hear from you all and hear how things are going back home, miss all you friends and family lots.  If youre on skype please add us on either rachelclarejones or danojones65, we'd love to chat.

God bless and speak soon

D & R x

ps photos of this weekend to follow...

Saturday 3rd September

Hey all :)
Just a little update on what we've been up to over the last week...

We're feeling very settled here now - the other teachers and staff feel like family and it's hard to believe we've only been here just over a week. Many thanks for birthday messages for Rachel, I had a slightly strange birthday but it was really fun too. We spent the morning shopping in Nakuru, which turned out to be quite stressful as we only had about 1 hour 45 mins to buy everything we needed to set up a home... A little different from when we spent a day zapping things in John Lewis for our gift list! We managed to buy quite a lot of stuff though and got a computer dongle, which means we have unlimited internet in our house and have skyped some friends and family already, which has been lovely.

After that we had a cup of tea with the headteacher and his family, and then the deputy head hosted a party for me... pretty amazing as we'd only arrived on Thursday morning (my birthday was the Saturday)... People are so welcoming.

Since then we've been in crazy amounts of meetings... pool safety, fire safety, child protection, boarding house duties, games coaching (Rachel's teaching rounders once a week, and Dan's teaching juggling!), departmental meetings, full staff meetings... the list goes on! However... we're feeling pretty prepared now for the start of term and excited about meeting all the kids tomorrow.

We've got time off next weekend so are hoping to go to lake Baringo with some other couples to see some of Kenya, but we don't have a car yet so have got to work out exactly how that's going to work out.

Well anyway, do let us know what's going on where you are.
Many thanks for all your support and prayers - we're feeling very blessed to be here.

Sending lots of love,
Dan and Rach
xxx

PS afraid we're not quite sure how to get told about updates. I think if you change settings on your google account it might let you know... sorry!

Jambo!

Hello from Turi in Kenya!

We hope you're all well back home. We have arrived safely at the school which is amaaaaazing! Staff are lovely and we have had a fab lunch. We then got shown to our house which is...phenomenal... A three bedroom house with beautiful front garden (with allotment for growing veg!) and a beautiful back garden full of flowers, a perfectly mown lawn and an amazing view out over Turi and the hills.

Our 'staff' were waiting for us at the house and Leah the house girl and Jackson the gardener are absolute beauties so that's gonna be great getting to know them and she has promised to teach us swahili too and her local language which is so exciting!

The countryside on the drive over was absolutely stunning, rolling green hills, zebras, flat  (bizarre) trees, can't wait to explore which will start on saturday (Rach's birthday too of course) when we're going on a shopping trip to Nakuru.  For the time being we are just settling into our house, enjoying the heat and hopefully gonna get Jackson to build us a BBQ in the garden so we can get some parties going soon... We'll send through lots of photos onto the blog when we've managed to get them off my camera.

Right, having just had lunch its now nearly time for dinner-we love it here!  Feels like home from home, they drive on our side of the road, signs all in English etc so feel really settled already.  We are so grateful to God for his provision of these jobs and all the many blessings so far (not least of which that all our baggage arrived safely straight to our door with no cost whatsoever :-)

We'd love to hear from you on the blog (email and facebook should be working soon but not quite sure yet!)  Please let us know how you're doing and we'll be in touch again soon.

God bless!

D & R x

3 days to go...

Just a little message to say we're very excited and feeling pretty ready to go now.
Looking forward to taking 7 suitcases plus musical instruments to Heathrow for our flight... fortunately there's others flying with us who may be able to help us out a little with our baggage!


A couple of people have asked me for the address of the school so I thought I'd put it below - 
St Andrew's Prep School,
Turi,
Private Bag,
Molo 20106,
Kenya


And the web address if you fancy having a look is http://www.standrewsturi.com/


We'll update this as soon as we get there. Love to you all,


D and R xx

Up and Running!

Hey all!  Just wanted to let you know that we have now set up our blog so that we can share our photos and comments with you and you can share yours with us!  We leave on 24th August so will arrive on 25th and update the blog when we arrive.  Up until then we are just chilling out with family having moved all our stuff out of Manchester (leaving us homeless!)

We hope you enjoy reading.  Please keep us updated with what's going on back at home :-)

God bless

x