Visits to the beach are extremely rare for children from Mtwapa; since, despite being just a few miles away, they are mostly owned by hotels and therefore completely out of bounds for local people and children. However there is one public beach about 15 minutes drive away, so whilst out on our trip to Kenya we arranged for two buses to take the whole Milele group plus all their brothers and sisters out on a trip to the beach, in total 32 people.

The children were extremely excited and had an absolutely amazing time. It was a great fun day out for all of us and of course they were all absolutely perfectly behaved!

We played and splashed in the sea (some of the littler people went skinny dipping and others wore spare t-shirts and shorts because of lack of swim kit) and had a wonderful time! Even our co-ordinator Rieder joined in, splashing all the children and having great fun!

After a couple of hours I was keen to get everyone out and dry, so suggested that they might all like to have a camel ride (a very popular pastime on the beaches in Kenya... perhaps the kenyan version of the english donkey ride...) and never have I seen children move so fast! They raced back to the beach at lightening speed and we all enjoyed a fab picnic with juice and biscuits all round - a real treat. Little Emmanuel (who isn't actually that little anymore) was allowed to take charge of taking back the leftover biscuits to the children in New Light Children's Home (where he lives) which he was absolutely THRILLED about. Regular readers of this blog will know Emmanuel as the child who can never be given quite enough biscuits!!

After the beach everyone had a go on the camels and shrieksof nervousness and excited delight rang out all afternoon(the camel holding Tamira, Linet, Peris and Pendo's younger sister Faith was particularly noisy!!)  and I'm sure the children will be talking about it for years to come! When we dropped off some of the children that evening and stayed for a brief chat, Shakeel, who is just four years old just kept exclaiming "mummy, we went on a camel.... we went on a camel mummy... It was really big!!" every few minutes!

The whole thing came in at less than £40... camel rides, picnic, beach, private buses and iced lollies for 32 people! Unbelievable! We finished up a trip back to Mtwapa with some very sleepy and happy children. A huge success all round. Enjoy the photos!

Hi All, A couple of days ago we took all of the sponsored children who attend Mtwapa Academy to Bamburi Nature Trail, this is like a cross between a mini safari park and a zoo. We thought it would be nice to let all the sponsored children get to know each other a bit better as well as having a bit of a treat. We gave them a disposable camera to take their own photos but we’ll put some of ours on here so you can see.

Everyone was very excited and we all got the chance to see lots of animals and learn all about them with the tour guide. The children wrote some sentences or paragraphs about their favourite animals, so we’ll include them below for you to enjoy! They are exactly as the children wrote them and they only did one draft so hopefully you will understand them!

Emmanuel (age 7) My favourite animal is monkey. I like monkey because good. The monkey is very small. The monkey is good at climbing the trees. The monkey is black in colour. The monkey eat pellets and eat bananas. The monkey likes to run.

Kaingu (aged 9) My favourite animal is giraffe. I like it because have long neck and like it because have long legs. Giraffe is colour brown and yellow and I like it because if you want to feed giraffe you put food in your hand and give to giraffe. I like giraffe because giraffe is bigger than all animals in the world and I like with his colour.

Pendo (aged 8 ) My favourite is giraffe. Why do you like? Because he has a long neck. He is feed on my hand. He looks like brown colour and black. I have see 6 giraffe and I have like so much and I have see most of them are boys and girls. They were have long legs and feed on trees. There food is in colour brown. Also I have seen some others. Most of them are snake and I have like them so much and I have see also hippos and trees.

Josephine (aged 14) My favourite animal is monkey. I like monkey because it is very funny. It acts like a human being. Monkey likes eating things like mangos, banana and other food. Its like climbing the trees. Its like playing with children. They like stealing food if they feel hungry. When you chase the monkeys they run towards the trees. When I see monkeys I feel very excited. I like spending time with the monkeys staring at them.

Tamira (aged 7) My favourite animal is a snake. I like the snake because is good. The snake is small and doesn’t have any legs. When I saw the snake I felt happy. There were many snakes it was black.

Safari (aged 10) My favourite animal is called giraffe. It is big and has long neck. He has a beautiful colour. His colour is brown, white. I like giraffe very much. Because its bigger than others, they eat good food. Giraffe is good than others because he has good colours. The giraffe is not dangerous than others.

Charo (aged 11) My favourite animal is crocodile. A crocodile is a dangerous animal. It’s live in water. Crocodile feeds different of foods. Crocodile eats fish, house fly, human being and rotting meat because he has no tongue to taste foods. In one month crocodile eat one time and has hard skin. In one year crocodile lays 60 eggs. I like crocodile.