James eats crickets in Thailand

James, recently in Northern Thailand, sent this report back to loved ones during his placement with us.

He writes:

So since my last message, we have been doing lots and lots of things. We went to the nightmarket where they close 2 streets and ate some food from the market stalls. Out here in Chiang Rai there are a lot of stalls that cook food, and you can pick up food whenever, about 30-50 baht (about a pound or less). We met up with the Changing World girl already out here (Fran who is 27) but doesn't look like it. There was also another girl called Jess out here, she came out last monday and is 18. Me and jess ate crickets from a stall, they were quite nice. Jamie wimped out. We had a look at different stalls - it so different to the UK, so relaxed and the food is very nice and fresh. Although at times quite spicy. Been eating rice and noodles, chicken and pork, sea food as well. Its very nice. We have been taken around Thailand by Paul, he showed us The Golden Triangle and the river where Thailand, Burma and Laos can be seen together. We have been travelling around in the back of the truck with Jess and Fran who wanted to see the sights and see differents schools. It was really good in the back, the wind in the face and just chatting to them. You can see the pictures on Claire's facebook now. We had drinks in the Elephant bar with Shirley and Fran that night after the market which was good. The people are friendly and you could watch the english premiership.

James and the crickets!

On sunday we arrived in Fang which is west of Chiang Rai close to the Burmese border and north of Chiang Mai (Google it if you want to). We are staying in a nice guest house behind a restaurant called the Ritzer. It was very nice have a hot shower (although it is luke warm), double beds, and a living area. We are staying in Fang until next monday when we actually moving into a village closer to the two schools we are staying in. We will have our own house, sqat toilet and cold shower. We wanted to get the Thai experience and will help clean up the house and paint it. Jilldou with her husband Ben (an australian) are helping us out and are organising everything with us. We are joking with them that they are our surrogate parents as they are giving us a 200 baht a day allowanace for food and water and drink. They are being helpful and we have mountain bikes to get round town from Paul. We will be staying in the village away from Fang for the next two months, so will be out of internet contact for a while. We will try and send emails from the school. We start teaching on thursday but are going out to the school tomorrow to help with their two day scout event.

Have to go now, as my hour is nearly up. I have uploaded pics on to facebok, so have a look.

Part of the Changing Worlds orientation

More to follow!

Swine Flu cuts short Sam's placement in Honduras

Hey David,
Just a quick message to let you know that myself and Hannah have decided to return to England earlier than planned. We are flying out of San Pedro Sula on monday morning and arriving back in England on Tuesday. Reasons being that the school is closed for at least two weeks which although may not sound long, is quite a long time when we have nothing to do. Swine flu has got to the school and so some of the children are ill so they have closed for a short time. We are also getting fed up of the heat as we have both been ill recently and that combined with the food is not making us feel any better and so we think that this is as good a time as any to return to England.

I would just like to say thank you for everything you have done, for getting me here safely and without hassle, finding us an amazing host, she really is lovely and has made my time here very enjoyable. I may even be returning in a couple years time to live with her for a year as part of my university degree, so thank you for giving me these opportunities. It has been great to be involved in helping people that actually need our support and seeing our hard work being successful. I have had so much fun working at the school with the children and also at the orphanages, its been a great experience and has confirmed my love for this type of work. Again thank you for all your support, we both really appreciate it.
Best wishes
Samantha

The Lake Victoria Sunset Birders need some help

A good friend and colleague at Lake Victoria Sunset Birders (LSVB) based in Kisumu in western Kenya has recently been in touch.
He writes:
Dear David,
Hope this finds you ok.
Has been long, thought you'll be in Kenya sometime early this year so you could pay us a visit in vain.
I have attached a few pictures to help you understand some of our new approaches to conservation in the lake victoria region so you could help.
EcoSanitation Concept
this is an approach we are ussing to prevent the alarming pollution levels in Dunga swamp through human waste and the croping up of more farmlands.
EcoSan toilets-as they are popularly called are toilet units which are constructed purposely in areas around Dunga where loose soil cannot allow for sinking of pit latrines thus causing major pollution problems in the wetland. the waste here is disinfected using ash and then used as manure on kitchen gardens (another new concept in the area).through these two ideas, we are managing to pull people out of creating large farms in the wetland at the same time curbing the pollution thus protecting the bird area.one family has completely stopped farming in the wetland through this project.
This is a project that was supported by Friends of Lake Victoria (OSIENALA), a local NGO which is an LVSB partner.

A Communication Media for Schools near Dunga swamp
we have also started an environmental magazine for 10 schools around Kisumu town through which we hope schools will start networking to advocate for environmental conservation in the town thus involving young people in the town in environmental conservation.
OUR REQUEST
we currently are in need of partnerships that can help sustain these programs.this could be not only in terms of finances but most importantly linkages that would provide avenues for knowledge and experience sharing.
If you have any knowledge of small groups in the UK or elsewhere that might have not necessarily similar projects but have related interests and any donor interested in supporting such programs would you link us up or sent us contacts so we see what we can do.
we also believe this new approach will inspire more young people to join LVSB initiatives thus promoting conservation in the region.we have seen what experience sharing through exchange programs can do to conservation through young people that is why we are trying to expand this so that those who come behind us experience what we did to bring LVSB to this level.Hope to hear from you.Thanks. more about LVSB on our website at http://www.lakevictoriasunsetbirders.org/.

As you can read LVSB are doing some very valuable and worhwile conservation work in this reion of Kenya. This is not the 'big game' conservation that demands most of the headlines here in the West but grass roots stuff.
If you feel you would like to contribute in any small way then do let me know. Drop me a line to david@changingworlds.co.uk. I am particularly interested in finding help for the schools project - this really would be a great volunteer experience for the right type of person.

Matt and Kelly buy mattresses for the children

Kelly and Matt, out in Nakuru in Kenya last year, discovered that the children in the orphanage slept three to a bed! They also discovered that the children slept on the wooden slats...they decided that something needed to be done... They contacted their local church group in their home town of Colchester, UK who kindly made a donation for mattresses. This is the story of what happened next!

Thanks to Matt, Kelly, Nyree and Becky for all their hard work.

The Headmaster at Baraka Primary school, Nakuru, Kenya says thanks.

On behalf of Baraka Primary School Kenya, I wish to thank you most sincerely for giving us two volunteers; Amy and Ellen to teach in my school; They are surely God sent and excellent teachers who love children. Hope to receive more volunteers from you.
Wish you well,
John K. Ngugi.

St Stephen's orphanage in Nakuru, Kenya sends thanks

James Mogondo, the director of one of our orphanages, in Nakuru in Central Kenya sends his thanks to Changing Worlds volunteers.

He writes:
'Hi David,

Hope you arrived well. The volunteers are doing well despite the long drought.

We welcome volunteers to the orphanage and regard their support to the less fortunate children. So far, it is a warm acceptance of their goodwill, for supporting the orphanage as individuals or as corporate groups. St. Stephen has various need s ranging from basics to medical care because we have children who are HIV +ve. The volunteers have bought mattresses, bicycles and other scholastic requirements that have afforded a smile to the faces of the little ones.

Following the recent post-election violence witnessed in 2007 the plight of orphans is on high rise and St. Stephen has been approached for the support of the children left vulnerable.

As a charitable institution we welcome all visitors with open mind and call for team work as we aspire to achieve the vision of reaching the unreachable and voicing the voiceless.

Thank you
James

St. Stephen'

Thanks goes to James for making our volunteers so welcome and more importantly, working so hard for the children.

James reports back from Ghana - it's not all fun...

Hey David
I have only got on to the internet today so do not worry as I wouldn't have noticed a late reply if you had not said anything!Its good to be feeling well again and with that has gone any of the homesickness I was feeling last week. This week has been a bit of a mix.

We decided to go to the lake in the end and I am very glad I could make it. The place was beautiful, surrounded by small hills the small circular lake is the crater of an asteroid that came crashing to earth long ago. The tro tro dropped us off a little away from the hostel we were planning to stay in and we had a pleasant walk though we were carrying a bag of water sachets that was about 15 litres of water and therefore was quite hard work. The lake when we got to it was a lot bigger than I thought, apparently it is 90 metres deep in the middle and gets steadily shallower towards the edge. The resort had its own private little stretch of beach which was lovely and peaceful and had a great view. The water was unbelievable! It was like walking into a bath, only on a huge scale, the water was so warm and smooth and it was a very clean bottom of soft sand so it was pleasant in all aspects. We sent the first day just lazing around by the lake which was a welcome break from lying about at home feeling ill. The food that night was awesome, I had prawn Masala and noodles. Quite expensive by Ghanaian standards but the whole trip worked out at about 20 pounds for everything over two days.

The following morning was Monday and luckily it is African Union day and my school was off so I was able to spend some more time at the lake. We started the day with a climb up a mountain but in the end we got a little lost in the forest and never reached the summit and had a bit of a struggle getting back to the path again. The rest of the day was spent at the lakeside until we packed up and headed home about 4pmish. Jus had an early night to prepare myself for school the following day.

Tuesday is my early start day with my first lesson at 8am but it went really well and though the subject was a bit boring the kids do seem to make an effort to understand it. After this I walked to Ashtown were the orphanage is and spent the rest of the morning with the kids there. I am trying to spend as much time with Seymour before he gets adopted and I really will miss him when he heads of to his new home! I spent the rest of the day at the orphanage and then headed home to bed.

Wednesday classes again went well and I managed to set my first homework though I wasn't sure if they quite understood what I wanted them too do and now that I have had a chance to mark it I have come to the conclusion they deffinitely didn't get it. Today my usual trek to the orphanage was interrupted today as a new volunteer has arrived in the country and is coming to share my room. I am therefore losing the pleasure of a room and ensuite to myself however it will be nice to have another boy around as the two who live down the road maybe gone by next week. We just spent the evening chatting and getting to know each other as we were going to have to live together for the next few months and it would be better if we got of to a good start which thankfully we have. His name is Robin and he seems very nice and he has settled in quite quickly to the way of life here which is so different from home.

Thursday is my day of mixed classes were my two classes shuffle around and it is a bit chaotic as I try to work out who has been taught what. We started number lines today and I went round the class and gave the kids a number each from -20 to +20 and then took them out to the playground and got them all to line up in order. As easy as this might seem to you and me the idea of negative numbers has not quite settled in them yet and I ended up with 0 to 20 being right but the next number after 0 going down was -20 then -19 all the way to -1. This was very amusing and in both lessons today the same thing happened. The kids think just because the number is big it must be a large number instead of being a large negative number. On this logic -20 is bigger than -10. Anyway after a lot of laughing and sorting out with managed to get the idea and got lined up properly and wasted an entire period in the process. After this I headed to stadium with Edward and Robin to play hockey and we ended up playing 5 vs 6. The three of us and two ghanians against a team of local kids and one of their dads. We ended up losing 3-1 and not surprisingly as me and Robin are not hockey players and the kids are exceptionally good for their size. All the same it was great fun and we deffinitely had our work cut out running around in the heat of a full size hockey pitch without a fullsize team to use it.

Friday was again school and orphanage and similar to the other days, however Sat was a bit of an experience. Robin and myself headed to a wedding with Francis to see what a wedding ceremony is like here. Well I can definitely say its not a dull affair. There is a huge amount of singing and dancing and clapping and celebrating and it was all quite exciting. We even got fed at the reception though out of takeaway cartoons and plastic bottles instead of our usual hotel style meals at home. It was good fun and next weekend we are going to a different sort of wedding. This one was a church one but next week is a Ghanaian style one using the traditional ways. I am quite excited to see it and I am sure it will be very different again from the one we have been to.Today I headed to the orphanage in the morning and the kids were all outside so we played a lot outside and I had to do a lot of lifting and swinging of the kids. They had rice balls and soup for lunch and it was sooo messy. Most of the kids were covered in it by the end and one kid especially called Ben had managed to rub it all over himself. On his head in his ears on his legs up his arms over his neck. He had to be thoroughly washed afterwards which just made it even funnier. I was left to do all the changing and washing of the kids myself today. When you have 10 excited toddlers this is no easy feat and it took almost an hour to get them through the potty into fresh clothes and all into bed before I could head off. I spent the rest of the day in a local hotel by the pool which was really nice and relaxing.

The days have certainly got a good routine about them now which is quite good and means I'm not stressing over what I am supposed to be doing next all the time. I am grateful to be feeling better again and this week has been an improvement on the last.

Anyway maykwaba (I am going) I hope your all well
James