Blue Mountain..........
on Emma in Nairobi (Kenya), 15/Sep/2009 17:28, 34 days ago
Forgive me folks but it has been 1 month since my last confession ... I mean update!!!!It has been a busy few weeks leading up to the Annual Mount Longonot Schools Climb which is a big fundraising event for the Kenya Society for the Blind each year. So last Saturday it eventually happened with a lot of the usual last minute PANIC which I have become accustomed to here!!! Preparations were still going on the Friday evening in work... counting out all the T-shirts for the schools ... what is it about charity events revolving aroundT-shirts..... ????Been there done that and GOT THE T-SHIRT craze!!!!But.... I have to say the day actually went off pretty well and we had about 500 students, parents, teachers and individuals taking part in the climb (including some VSO ers supporting a fellow volunteer and their fundraising attempts which was great).Early start on Saturday when we met at 7am for the convoy of coaches to the Park about 1.5 hours north of Nairobi. Mount Longonot is an extinct volcano which makes it a tough, steep and dusty climb to the top but the views of the Rift Valley from the top are just amazing.I had Henry Wanyoike on board as our guest of honour to flag off the event. Henry is a blind Kenyan marathon runner who runs mainly abroad with his co-runner guide Joseph in competitive events and he is the ambassador for the Standard Chartered Bank“Seeing is Believing” international campaign. He was a great guy to have at the event as all the kids wanted his autograph as he is very well known here and he is willing to work with us again to promote our organisation.... So I must be doing something right!!!By 9.30am all the climbers were lined up and rearing to go but the speeches dragged on and on and on.... again what is it with speeches here.... everyone needs to say more than their fair share.... they certainly deviated from the speeches that I wrote out for them... (I know ME a speech writer.. what next!!)... So eventually the event had a green light and this mass of blue ascended on Mt Longonot..... snaking up to the top.Needless to say a few well deserved Cosmos were consumed on Saturday night afterwards with the girls to de-stress from an eventful but succesful day...!!!!