Thursday 14th March.
My last day here, and of my trip, before I set off on what will probably amount to just under 24 hours travel. I will be very sad to leave Demani Lodge (my backpackers) and the friends I have made here. Turns out the Gangsta Rap is a very rare occurrence, and mostly I have been lulled ever deeper into a relaxed torpor with lovely reggae music (I couldn't even really hear the music from the party last week in my new lovely hut). Africa, or the small pieces of it I have seen, is wonderful. It somehow gets under your skin, and falling in love with it is very easy. People are curious, kind, (mainly) happy, and very funny. The wildlife and the countryside are amazing, and it's a little bit addictive. There are stark contrasts here, the most obvious being between the rich and the poor. I can't count how many times we have been stopped at roadblocks by police, looking for a bribe to be allowed to pass, or how the helicopter flew in a politician to Maasai land, where small children have one dress to wear. People are surprisingly optimistic though, and there is always a new plan to improve their lives - whether it ever gets done is another matter, but there always seems to be A Plan.
I wrote in an email to a friend the other day, that although I have been completely out of my comfort zone, working as a "doctor" for small children and babies, with a culture completely alien to my own, I felt more at home than I have done anywhere for a long time. If I needed a catalyst to prove that I need to change direction then this certainly served as one. Thank-you, London School Of Tropical Medicine, for giving me the inspiration to decide how that change comes about.
Now the tricky stuff begins - trying to rearrange my life so I can actually do this full time. As I said in my very first post - Bring It On.

Wednesday 13th March
Popped up to the north of the island for a day and a night. Drove through a village called "Bambi", which delighted me, but resulted in a protracted explanation of Walt Disney films with my driver. Delighted me so much in fact, that we took a little detour on the way back to have a look, finding a beautiful village surrounded by palm and mango trees,with women, conspicuous by the lack of muslim dress, sitting about by their mud huts, sharing food and childcare. We popped in to buy some mangoes, and played a game of peek-a-boo with one of the kids (a game that translates into any culture), bought mangoes that tasted of sunshine, and left with smiles on our faces. Driving about here takes time and patience - a one hour trip is likely to take three hours, as you stop every few kilometres to buy some bananas, fresh coconuts to drink from, just to pull up for a chat. It is a mark of how swiftly I have acclimatised to African timekeeping that I thouroughly enjoyed myself and didn't worry about the time once.
Day of sorting things out and paying for things tomorrow, then home Friday. Boo.

Monday 11th March
My last week - heralded in by more tropical downpours, thunder, lightning, and clear skies and sun in the afternoon. 6 weeks has flown by as usual, except this time I think it will be more difficult to return to "normal" life. Having adjusted to the heat and humidity, I'm certainly going to be cold. I have resisted the urge to check the weather at home until now, to find it is expected to reach the dizzy heights of 4 degrees centigrade tomorrow in England. 4 degrees. That is about 32 degrees colder than I am now. Nothing in comparison to one Canadian woman I met,from Winnipeg, where the temperature, with wind chill added, was an ear bitingly cold minus 40 degrees centigrade. On arrival in Kenya, we calculated that she had undergone an 80 degree centigrade change in temperature. Jeepers.
Dived again today, where the visibility was a disappointing 15 or so metres, due to the sediment having been whipped up by the storms. It was still a nice way to pass the time however, if it had not been for The Selfish Diver. There is always one. This particular Selfish Diver was having difficulty with the concept of the ocean being a very big place indeed, and there was no need to be in my little bit of it. If you thought it was impossible to barge past someone in the middle of the sea, when there are only 5 of you in a very big space - well, this chap would have dispelled that notion fairly swiftly. " Look " I gestured, doing the sign for a lionfish - having managed to catch the eye of most of my fellow group, imagine my surprise when I was firmly pushed out of the way so he could take a (bad) photograph of it, startling it so that it swam off fairly sharpish. "Look" I gestured again, "big octopus under this rock", as he charged past me once again, nearly knocking my breathing gear out of my mouth with his flappy fins, to lift the rock up, sending the poor octopus white with fear, under the next big rock, before anyone else had a chance to see it. First rule of diving - DON'T TOUCH. Leave everything as it was, do not upset the animals. That includes the other divers. Grr. And, Selfish Diver, do not go in the opposite direction to everyone else with your wretched camera, when the visibility is poor, and we all have to go back and find you, against the current, wasting our precious air in the process. There are some gestures, when demonstrated underwater, or above it for that matter,that are perfectly clear, and the rest of the group was communicating their feelings perfectly adequately by the end of the second dive....
Just needed to get that little rant out of my system - back to calmness and serenity now. Phew.

Saturday 9th March
So today was moving day - and move I did, to a bigger bungalow at the very back of the same place . I'm going to put up with the Gangsta Rap tonight, in favour of liking this place so much now. When it's a choice between Gangsta Rap, or, in the other lodge, bad orchestral renditions of Whitney Houstons's "I will always love you"...it's a close run thing to be honest.... I now have a lovely big bungalow with my own shower and toilet  - I'm either just going to have to join in tonight, or put two sets of earplugs in.
And the sun is out (although there are ominous rumbles of thunder in the distance....). Mr Bond has been doing his job.

Friday 8th March

The thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms happened last night. The electric crackles of lightning started about midnight, with the distant rolls of thunder following minutes later - by the morning I was woken by an enormous clap of thunder that sounded as if it was somewhere between the ceiling of my room, and my head. The rain that followed was a typical tropical downpour, sheets of warm, hard rain, almost so dense you could not see past it. Just a short run to the bar for breakfast left me soaked to the skin . It continued to rain all day, tailing off by the evening - if my weather forecast is to be believed it will be sunny tomorrow, but after that it is not looking so good. My tolerance levels with continuous rain when it is not expected "for another month" are reasonably low, after 10 days of downpour in the Philippines last year " which hadn't happened for ten years". I'm beginning to wonder if there is some sort of weather vendetta being waged against me by an evil mastermind buried in a secret James Bond style hideout...Bit dramatic maybe, but when everything to do is outside, it is all a bit dramatic . When the rain stopped, however, I took a wander along the beach, which was completely transformed. It was deserted, except for local children playing in the wet sand, and fishermen dragging their nets in. There was an abundance of butterflies, of all colours, and bright yellow birds that I have never seen before. All the sound was somehow muted, as if it had snowed - the sounds somehow gentler - even the sea seemed quieter .
Here's hoping the evil weather genius has been foiled by Mr Bond .

Tuesday 5th March
So started diving yesterday - booked a group of ten dives as a package. Now, you never really know what to expect when booking lots of dives somewhere you've never been before, but according to my research, the diving is not at all bad here. It's completely dependent on the tides as to the times you leave, as the tide is WAY out by midday, so we started really early, at 0700 for our first dive. After throwing a tiny...well, a bit bigger than tiny, but not as big as huge, tantrum, about not being able to find any fins to fit my peculiar feet, but being assured by the next day a lovely set of fins would arrive that my boots would actually go beyond the toes in, I nervously waded out to the tiny fishing boat, weighed down by a huge , heavy, bag of gear, joined by the usual group of Danes and Germans (divers are always Danish or German...). I say nervously, as every time I haven't dived for a while, the first time I get in the water it's like I have never dived before, I flap about like a beginner (although I now have 70 dives to my name), panic a bit, and promise myself that I won't ever dive again. Five minutes after I have failed to descend due to breathing like an idiot, I eventually get down, recover my buoyancy  and my composure, and remember why I love it so much.....
Today we went to Mnebma Island, some 2 hour drive to the north of the island. For some reason I could not quite fathom, you are not allowed on the island, something to do with German prisoners??? No idea, but it was a shame as the island looked perfect, palm trees, white sand....picture postcard. (edit - I have just discovered that I completely misunderstood our guide, and actually the island is privately owned by Germans, and there is a hefty fine if you set foot on it, unless you need the services of the clinic they own too, to administer help to stricken divers).
Our first dive my regulator (breathing apparatus) had a wet valve, so on every intake of breath it sounded like I was an old man with emphysema - once I had reminded myself that it was the valve,and I was unlikely to end up on home oxygen for the rest of my life, all was ok, we battled fierce currents to get to the coral garden, which was beautiful, although with the speed of the current, we whisked by at almost too fast a pace to inspect any nooks and crannies for anything interesting. Now the whole reason I am posting this, is that my second dive was simply ...well, I'm a bit lost for words - and that doesn't happen very often. While we were bobbing along, no current, bouyancy restored, we heard a persistent high pitched beeping sound. I looked to our guide with what I hoped was a questioning gesture ( it's really easy to be misunderstood under water, I probably looked as if I was asking him what time it was). He indicated something passing above (or he could have been saying how lovely it was that the visibility was good), and I looked up, to humour him mostly, to see a pod of about 35 dolphins passing about 10 metres above our heads !!!! I think I used up about half a tank of air squeaking with delight - my nose filled up with seawater, and I didn't care. There were mothers with babies, and one curious youngster came for a quick peek at us, before deciding we were not worth playing with, and rejoined the pod. Smiling so hard is not the most water resistant thing you can do in a mask, but I really didn't care.  Just as we finished the rest of the dive, we passed the biggest green turtle I have ever seen, he must have been at least 5 feet across, just chilling out, being old and lovely. What an amazing day.
 The drive there was also very beautiful. We drove through a forest with the infamous Red Colobus monkeys peering at us through palm fronds, through increasingly poorer and poorer villages. The huts are made of mud, cow manure and sticks, and have holes in the walls that serve as windows. The men are dressed in the traditional " Thawbs", a white robe that reaches to the floor, covering, surprisingly, a full set of Western clothes underneath. The women are uniformly in long black dresses, with headdresses that reach to their elbows - like Russian dolls. The further we went, the more sparse the living became, with chickens and goats scratching around in the dust and inevitable rubbish that lies further away from the tourist areas. The privilege that we are afforded, being able to dive with dolphins, is starkly contrasted by the poverty in which these people eke out their existence. The only consoling thought is that the young lads of the village have at least some income, carrying our oxygen tanks from the boat. It's not a lot, but it's something....
Reminding myself how very lucky I am again, I will sign off and have a cold beer.

Sunday 3rd March
Arrived at lovely backpackers yesterday - stone huts, with thatched roofs, sandy paths (the sand so fine it is like walking on coffee-mate), and my tiny, single, bathroom-less room with a fan. Started off being perfect...I've never really needed air-conditioning before, preferring a fan, as air-con tends to give me a cold - a disaster if I am going to dive a lot. What I hadn't accounted for was how incredibly humid it is here - it feels like I'm in a Turkish bath in my room it's so tiny. After several tries, I eventually got the fan to the end of my bed, pointing directly at me, and had a little relief. Now, there are lots of things that are lovely about this place. The manager, Linn, who is Norwegian, is lovely, and nothing is too much trouble for the staff. The rooms are entered every evening by a statuesque lady, bearing a can of mosquito repellant, who sprays, and lowers your mosquito net for you, tucking it in firmly to keep the beasties out. The shared showers are cleaned after every single use, as are the bathrooms (which are only a very short sandy walk from my room ). The rooms are cleaned and swept every day, with fresh sheets, adorned with a hibiscus flower laid out.There are hammocks in the shade - which is practically my favourite thing about beach holidays, and it is lovely and peaceful during the day, with quiet music playing at the bar and internet access for two pounds a day. And it is ten pounds a night. Ten pounds. Pretty good.
The downsides are that it is not on the beach, being on the other side of the road, but that is not really too much of a problem, as it is only a 10 minute walk to the glorious, deserted, white powder-fine beach, which stretches for miles and miles. It stretches so far , in fact, that it took me half an hour to get to the dive centre, by which time I looked like a peeled tomato. The major factor, however, that has made me decide to leave here on Friday, is the Saturday night party they have here every week.
Not being one to shirk a good party, I had been warned that the music was loud, and went on until 0200hrs. Not a problem - I've had nights that have lasted much much longer than that, although I was rather enjoying the peace and quiet, reading my book, feet up on cushions...... Then the music started. Not too bad to start with, although in the little space it was very very very loud - we slipped (not always seamlessly) from rave, straight into pop, to rock...... By about 11 pm I had had enough ( I know !! Me !!) and retired to bed. Trying to ignore the bass throbbing through my whole room - I swear the bed was dancing - I popped my earplugs in and lay star-shaped on the bed to make the most of the fan. Then the Gangsta Rap started. For those of you who have no idea what this is, I envy you - I really do. For one who knows little about it myself, it appears to be a lot of very angry shouting American men, threatening to kill their girlfriends, and anyone who steals their drugs. It makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out with a blunt apple corer. It makes me angry - which I can only assume is the point of the music, and I did not come here to feel angry.It's played a lot here, I've heard it on local buses (where I was wincing at the amount of swearing, seeing as there were very respectable middle aged ladies who clearly understood english sharing the bus with me ), I've heard young, sweet-faced canadian girls singing every horrible word, and, good lord, I suddenly feel old. If I was a parent, I would be that one who says " Music wasn't like this in MY day" - and I can't believe I am actually saying it !  In my day, people smiled as they danced, with their hands in the air... It appears to be endemic now though - the days of listening to some chilled out music at the end of the night on a beach before bed, seem to have gone. Instead it's this horrible, violent nastiness at 0200 hrs. I think I may have made myself clear - I'll stop now......
So, after a long chat with a nice South African lady who owns a lodge directly on the beach, with a swimming pool, air con, and no gangsta rap, I'm moving there next Saturday, before my ears are subjected to any more ghastliness. Somehow, after telling me the rooms were $100 a night, which led into a discussion about how , as a poor volunteer nurse, I just couldn't afford that, she has given me the week for $300. I am going to enjoy my week here though, diving at 0700 tomorrow morning - here's holding out for dolphins (they saw some yesterday !)
Hakuna Matata !