Trekking up Mount Meru!

What goes up must come down!

The views from the mountain were absolutely stunning. Me and Anni chose to visit mount meru waterfalls on another weekend we had free. To get to them we had to climb an area of mount meru, even though it felt like we had climbed the full mountain! Many people lived along the mountain and we saw these cheeky children who loved the camera :)

Women walked up and down with their supplies on their head. They made it look so easy walking up and down, especially when we was both struggling to balance on the rocks and dusty ground.

The mountain had a variety of terrain, these tree's where in an area at one part which was flat towards the top where we was walking. It was like a forest with tall tree's. Many had been planted rather than grew there naturally. On the other hand, below is a tree which has grown naturally. It stood alongside the hill in open space, and was extremely tall. But made beautiful imagery.

On the way up, there was alot of overcast, so it wasn't till the mid-afternoon the sun came out and it was very hot. It was a good job we was going down at this point or I think we might of passed out. I thoroughly enjoyed the walking, it was such a beautiful day!

This is the view of Arusha from park way up the mountain side on our trek. You could see for miles. It was great to see how far we had walked. We tried to make out our daily walk to place from a distance.

Monduli Masai Market.

The first weekend after our arrival me and Anni went on a visit to the moduli market. It was about an hour or so journey from Arusha and located at the top of the mountain. It was an extremely hot day in which we didn't think to wear sun cream and got very burnt!

We arrived to the market location which got to its busiest in mid afternoon, there was so many beautiful bright colours, with all the Masai wearing their traditional fabrics, as you can see from the pictures. The market was really interesting, women were selling beautiful fabrics in which I bought some. For about a metre and a half in fabric it only cost 2500 shillings which is the equivalent to £1.25 and their patterns are so gorgeous!

Before the market, Samuel took us both on a fantastic but tiring walk around the bush. This was the first time we had been walking about in the 'wild' rather than Arusha itself. I was slightly nervous we would come across anything wild but the nearest thing was a Gazelle- which popped out when Anni was going to the loo in the bush.

Surrounding the market and all over the land are many Masai Villages. Their homes consist of these huts made from mud and straw. They are so huge inside, ready to hold large families and their livestock. We were both lucky enough for this family to let us inside and welcomed us into their home. It was very dark but very strong.

The scenery was amazing. Samuel took us to this spot on top of the mountain and you could see for miles, unfortunately my camera I had with me doesn't show this very clear. Even though there was some wind and clouds, we didn't realise how hot and burnt we was actually getting. On our trips we took a packed lunch and it was so peaceful to each it in the bush, with just the sound of the birds and cattle with their bells.

The Masai walk for miles to get to this market every saturday. Many of them bringing their livestock of cattle and goats. Whilst in Africa one of the most shocking things was seeing the slaughter of animals. At the market there was various skins hung and animal meat for sale, even though this was quite a shock to see I felt it extremely interesting to watch.

Foliage.....

You can't beat abit of foliage to draw from!

I really love the variety of shapes you get from foliage especially if it has an aged feel to it, I feel it gives it more character. Above are some snaps I took when walking about Africa.

Florals from Africa.

I'm hoping to get back to the drawing board soon and here is where my inspiration will start...

Teaching In Africa!

The School me and Anni worked at in Tanzania was Hope Primary School in Arusha, Tanzania. It is such a lovely school and the children are fantastic. When we was there it was their summer holidays so we was helping out with extra tuition. We wasn't sure what to expect at first. We arrived on our first day and was introduced to class 1 which became our class whilst we was there.

After the introduction we was then told we was free to do what we liked which was teach! We began with the basic alphabet to see how much they new. There was originally on the first week only 4 pupils but after we ended up with 11.

With me I took some texts books with basic maths and one with english and handwriting, both of these were extremely useful as we were able to photocopy and use them as work sheets. I think it really helped the children enjoy what they was being taught as it was more visual than just copying off the blackboard.

The children were from ages 5-8 in our class and it was quite hard as they had mixed capabilities. Some found it quite difficult to count so we had to help them with this but eventually they improved and was able to use addition like the others. By the end of our fourth week we had taught them basic subtraction aswell. It felt so good to be able to make a difference.

Most of our class here is pictured on the front row, although they look rather confused. On our last day we donated everything we brought with us to the school and they were so pleased with our donation. We also gave all the children some stickers and bought our class some marbles to take home. We used the last day as a fun day taking some silly glasses in and blowing up balloons, the children went abit wild but absolutely loved them!