From war zones to paradise and now back home, I feel like I've had a completely surreal experience over the past two months.

Salls met me in Nairobi and we then spent the weekend on safari in the Masai Mara.  It was incredible, it was just the two of us with our own driver racing around trying to spot as much as possible.  We didn't get to see all of the Big Five, unfortunately the Rhinos and Leopards were feeling a little shy that weekend, but we managed to see everything else from thousands of wildebeests to lions and cheetahs and zebras, which were my favourite!



After a rather bumpy overnight train ride, which kept having to stop cause of animals on the track, we finally made it to the coast of Kenya - although our train did de-rail towards to the end of the journey!!




We spent the rest of our time in paradise, quite literally!  We rented a cottage, which came with the most incredible cook, 'The Gentle Giant Muzeri', about 15 metres from the a white sand, clear blue water, palm tree beach!  It was paradise!



Muzeri was just amazing, for about £3 a day he cooked us the most delicious feasts of fresh sea food and anything else he could russle up - Ready Steady Cook eat your heart out!


Salls and I soon learnt that the reason we were getting 'odd' looks was because to say that you are friends with someone in Kenya, basically means you are going out!  So Salls and I were soon honouree sisters!  However, one person did think we were mother and daughter!!! - Salls being the mum, sorry Salls!!

Having already been given a Kisii name of Nyaboke (honey) I was given a Swahili name of Furaha (happiness) by a Kenyan friend.  What he didn't know was that Laetitia means happiness too - freaky!

After a totally idyllic week, which included a break in by a monkey and one of our crabs for supper making a break for freedom, later being discovered behind the oven, and coming to the rescue of a girl who had to be rushed to hospital, we reluctantly left paradise for England!

Looking back over the past two months I really can not believe all that I have experienced!  From discovering abuse in the first orphanage I was working in, giving sermons, travelling around war zones, visiting refugee camps, the most horrific road trips, learning to milk cows, nursing a very sick Max and coming face to face with snakes, crocodiles, hippos and lions, to name a few, and being on a train which de-railed - the last two months have been busy!

Now I'm back home everything so quickly falls back into place and things slip back to normal.  I was obviously changed and affected by everything I saw, so how do I make sure that I don't change back to the old Tishy?!  The first week back I was shocked by the superficiality of this materialistic world we live in but how do you remember not to take it for granted!

Don't get me wrong I am loving the luxuries of having a electricity, a toilet, clean water to wash with, and not having to milk a cow for my daily milk - but something about the African life touched me and I miss the reality it brings, the certain rawness of life that they have.

Every time I washed in Kenya I knew that a kid had spent a hour going to the river and fetching a bucket of water for me!  (don't worry I did do it for myself sometimes, well maybe once!)  Everything had so much more value to it and you couldn't take anything for granted! 

God has certainly taken me on more than a physical journey over the past two months.  I know that I have a responsibility to sort things out, somehow, for the children in Kenya, and can not just turn my back on it!  How, I just don't know where to start?