The new cow shed at Children's Garden Home was christened Singa-MOO-Lah by a group of 16 donors led by Mei Yin back in Singapore. It's a play of the word Singapura, the old name for Singapore and a local folk song. So Robyn and Joseph created a remix and added a Swahili version for the children to sing for the donors and everyone, and of course the cow.
The team that created and erected the signage.
The Singa-Moo-Lah choir getting ready...
> Silas rap dancing while the cow watched on with amusement...
Jubilation after a successful recording of the Singa-MOO-Lah song by the choir.
We were so glad to have Prof Mutiga come and advise us on making improvement to the cow shed and planting of the tomatoes in the greenhouse.
Prof Mutiga is a cow Pregnancy Diagnosis expert.
He offered to help our cow to get pregnant with AI.
He also advised how to improve our cow shed.
> He also gave valuable tips for tomato planting in the greenhouse and improving our farm plot for growing slow food. We are indeed fortunate to have commitment from an expert like him.
4-5 Nov: Train to Mombasa turned out to Nowhere... and then back to Nairobi
We decided to try the Jambo Express overnight train from Nairobi to Mombasa, which was supposed to pass through the Tsavo Reserve in the wee hour of the following morning.
Having read the Murder of the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, recommended by Chawlaji, it was exciting to see how physically similar the Jambo Express was to that described in the novel.
And like the story in the novel, our train mysteriously stopped in the middle of nowhere while we were dining in the restaurant car at 9.30pm...
We slept through the night in a stationary train... Apparently, an accident had happened ahead that blocked our way. Finally during breakfast, the train started moving again... but headed back to Nairobi. So after 15 hours, we got back to our starting point - Nairobi.
Still, it was a good experience. Jambo Express is a totally different train ride experience from the numerous train journeys in India.
Back in Nairobi at about noon, we rushed to catch the Coast Bus and spent another 9 hours on the road before finally arriving in Mombasa at 10pm.
Thanks to Lesley Symon of Backpacker Nirvana who stayed up to receive us.
Lesley's B&B is a great place to stay. Started on 1 Apr 2011, Backpacker Nirvana is well furnished, has a relaxed atmosphere and just 5 minutes away from the beautiful beach of Mombasa. We enjoyed a truly beautiful morning at the beach and swimming in the Indian Ocean.
We highly recommend anyone going to Mombasa to contact Lesley and stay at Backpacker Nirvana.
6-7 Nov: Malindi
Lesley sent us off in a matatu. We took 3 hours to get to Malindi and reached there at about 6pm. We stayed at Joys Villa B&B, a beautiful and homely place owned by Joy and her Italian hubby.
As recommended by Lesley, we went in search of The Old Man & The Sea and enjoyed a fine dining of fresh sea food. It's indeed a charming place by the ocean except it was too dark see the ocean.
Joy is a wonderful hostess and her hubby even volunteered to bring us to the airport the next day to fly to Lamu. We highly recommend anyone heading to Malindi to stay at Joys Villa.
We met with Jeremy Kambi of Aiducation.org at Joys Villa and shared with him Children's Garden Home. We hope his scholarship raising organization would help sponsor some bright kids of CGH.
7 Nov: Banana House, Lamu
We finally arrived safely at Banana House in Lamu, the heavenly abbot of Monika Fauth.
We slept through the night in a stationary train... Apparently, an accident had happened ahead that blocked our way. Finally during breakfast, the train started moving again... but headed back to Nairobi. So after 15 hours, we got back to our starting point - Nairobi.
