Kenya
How can such exquisite beauty and abject poverty exist so closely together?
I have seen the beautiful colours, flowers, tress, hedgerows. I can appreciate the wonderful fertility of the land and have eaten the delicious fruits and vegetables. I have been on Safari to the Mara, home to a great many of the majestic Masai tribe, an amazing people, living even more amazing lives so closely with the many wonderful animals and birds. I have been shown the Rift Valley, Lake Naivasha where ‘Out of Africa’ was filmed, the flamingos at Lake Nakuru, the tea plantations at Limuru and the ladies picking the tea leaves.
This venture was undertaken with three other friends from Ewelme, our hostess was Mairead, who lives in Kenya and is the sister of Gemma Benoliel, known and loved by all who know her in Ewelme. Mairead and her husband Michael and their houseboy Liverson welcomed us into their home. Mairead had organised for us a non-stop week of visits to all the delights of Kenya that have to been seen for one’s self, words do not seem to do justice. I know all four of us would say thank you to them for all the thought and effort that must have gone into the planning for this incredible week. It is not possible to ignore the poverty, how can this be solved?
It was lovely to come home to Ewelme, but I would not have missed this wonderful opportunity to experience an incredibly different part of our world. I drew the short straw to write these few words, but I do know how much the experience meant to all of us.
Cynthia Winfield
Miss Marple, as Cynthia became known, sadly left us after the first week of our tour. Melissa, Gemma, Vicki and Mairead continued on to Mombassa. We stayed in a beautiful hotel looking onto the beach. Melissa dived, we all enjoyed our regular beach walks, relaxation and the heat and very quickly got ourselves into the routine of stealing bananas from breakfast so Gemma could get her daily fix of feeding the monkeys! A little message from Gemma to the bird watchers among us, the birds were amazing, the kingfishers were many and varied and all at least 3 times the size of our lovely creatures.
Gemma, Melissa & Vicki