Cue The Lion King song!

Habari everyone! If you're new to my blog i'm glad you're here! So much has been going on lately and I haven't had a good chance (until now) to sit down and update everyone on what's been happening..

• Flights booked..going to Mombasa takes 27 hours!
• Disease shots done. Found out you're not allowed into Kenya unless you're Yellow-Fever-Free
• I will be staying with a local family while i'm volunteering in Kenya. Ngeri, who is also my coordinator for the volunteer program, lives in the Mombasan 'burbs in a flat with her two children. Very excited to meet them!
• As I currently work for Bluefit, the Bluefit Foundation have been very supportive with this volunteering project. They have helped me to pay some of my expenses, which has been a great relief (it aint cheap to volunteer, let me tell you!). This help has enabled me to get swimming equipment like togs, goggles, kick boards and toys to take over to the children. Also bought stopwatches so i can squad-train the older kids.
• In order to raise some money to fund the volunteering trip, I held a Movie Night at Spring Hill Baths on Saturday 2 June 2012. It's the first time we've done a movie 'date-night' there, and was worth all the planning that went into it. I took a few photos with my vintage camera..

View from the top with the pool below. The massive screen is to the left of me.
We played Swimming Upstream, which was filmed at Spring Hill Baths!

After the staff and I had served everyone their movie snacks, we all snuggled into our blankets and watched the movie from the pool deck. Was pretty fun!

 All in all we raised $1150 from selling tickets and $200 from the raffle. Everyone really enjoyed themselves, and we hope to do the movie night again soon. If you want to visit Spring Hill Baths for a swim, or just to have a look at this historical building, please visit their website for more info.

For the movie night, I really have to thank the following people who bent over backwards to help me:

• Lisa Jackson from Core Pilates. Lisa runs a pilates studio at Spring Hill Baths and kindly donated some classes to the raffle. She is such a wonderful instructor, if you would like more info on her pilates classes please visit her website or call  0412 830 090.
• Jo Byron and Stewie from  Brumby's Bakery in Clayfield (Corner of Sandgate & Junction Roads, Brisbane). They also helped me with bread for the sausage sizzle. Seriously, eating their baked goods is like eating light fluffy clouds.
•  Bluefit Foundation. Besides helping me with my overall trip, they gave me all the movie equipment for the night and helped set things up.
• Nicolette Cordell (one of the swimming mums). She made 3 TO-DIE-FOR cheesecakes which we sold on the night. What a legend.
  
• Tracey England - Manager of Spring Hill Baths. Couldn't have done it without her.

This has been an amazing experience so far, and I haven't even left Aussie yet! Just finished packing my last bag, I leave tomorrow afternoon to Mombasa. Here are some thoughts running around my head right now:

1.  What is it going to be like living with a Kenyan family? Will they like the vegemite and tim tams i'm bringing over?
2. What will it be like teaching a large group of children that don't speak english very well? I speak a lot to the kids in my aussie classes, I will have to get used to using actions and my newly-learned swahili words with these little ones..
3. How can I keep the children swimming and improving once I have gone back home? I'm hoping to train up some adults who may be able to teach the children when I am gone, and start some training squads for the older children who want to swim competitively.
4. What will I do in my time off? I work with the children about 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm hoping to learn lots about african drums (maybe add a few djembes into my drum kit at home!), maybe spend some time snorkelling in the reefs around the island and take some day trips to villages on the weekends..

All the kids are going to love the swimming equipment, togs and goggles people have donated! I can't wait to start teaching these eager little kids and experience this amazing culture.

I'll keep you posted on what it's like when I get there!

Over and out,
Beth