and I have twice already and am planning another trip soon.
If you go to Kenya, dont go with a Western mind-set expecting the luxuries you might from a trip to benidorm or paris or barcelona. if you are not satisfied with the clean and comfortable accommodation or the good and plentiful food take a tuktuk into Mtwapa or Shanzu and wander into the back streets to see how the majority of the world's population live.
So the water in the showers and from the taps may be salty but you dont have to carry it a couple of miles to get it home and it comes out of a tap and doesnt have to be stored in a plastic bucket. Yes the power does go down but at least you dont have to use makeshift battery powered or oil lamps or candles, if you have them. Some plates are chipped, soup spoons sometimes in short supply but you dont have to eat by hand and the food is plentiful. Go see what the locals have to eat.
Go to Kenya for the lovely people, the gentle weather, the pole pole approach to life, the happiness in the face of great adversity. And go to see what you can do to help those less fortunate than yourselves. Schools that could do with books and pencils, children that need clothes, young chelsea, man u, arsenal supporters that would love an old club shirt, budding young runners that need proper footwear, women that need medicine for their babies, money for food for their children. In a 2 week stay, I've helped to build a mud hut for a single mother and 3 year old, bought a meal for £3 for a family of 10 sleeping in one room that hadnt eaten anything that day , paid £10 for a child's schooling for a term and then added another £2 for dinner for the whole term, helped a young woman set up a little shop. The opportunities are endless - fill your suitcase to the limit with the stuff you never use at home and come back light and free both in heart and luggage. Or refill the bags with souvenirs.
The hotel is more than adequate, clean and tidy, the staff are friendly, polite and helpful, the locals hustle hard but that is often their only way of making a living. Use the hotel as a base to go out and help. And you'll be back too, I guarantee it.
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