Joanne Lunan
Kenya Camp Life

What was your motivation to take a gap break? I had always thought about doing some voluntary work in Africa, as I watch Comic Relief every year and see how the things that we take for granted could change someone's whole world - one year the team over there put a bed up in a mans hut as he had always slept on the floor but was getting a bad back and when he saw what they'd done he was crying (and then so was I!) and this year I got a bonus from work so decided I would just book it and do it - and I did and had the most amazing time!

What was the most memorable moment of your trip? Oh so many that I can't stick to just one - all of it from arriving at Mombasa airport at midnight and being taken by taxi to a hotel for the night - a normal event in my life but in such a strange new foreign place….seeing the beach for the first time and marvelling at how beautiful it was, driving up to the camp in the jeep and having every child along the way run out to the road to shout JAMBO to me, waking up the first morning and hearing nothing but the sound of nature, walking into the school to have all of the children stare at us and hold our hands, seeing the elephants, the amazing safari, drinks on a rock at sunset dressed as a masai, visiting a masai village, every mealtime, campfires, the children singing for us one day - made me cry because it was soooooo sweet!

The cultural day with Morris and his kids at their house where we climbed palm trees, drank palm wine, learned how to make maize flour, made roof tiles out of palm leaves and sang with his children (the cutest kids I've ever met!).

Also the final assembly at the school where the headmaster made a lovely speech and the choir performed for us and finally the kids all sang a song to us asking us to never forget them - how could we? And the party on our last night….

It was the most amazing three week trip and in my last week I felt so sad as I didn't want to leave….I am still in touch with lots of the people I met in the community and the builders we worked with on the project and all of the other volunteers. My favourite story would have to be when we were getting ready to distribute the porridge one day, all of the little ones sat below us were touching our legs and it wasn't until my friend Jen told me to look at them I noticed that they were touching our legs and then looking at their hands to see if the colour came off - how sweet and innocent!

I also realised that our societies are so so different - these people are victims of their circumstances - some of the builders we worked with were so intelligent and ambitious but unfortunately could not further their education due to lack of funding which made me feel so helpless…many of the children and the builders didn't eat lunch because they couldn't afford it - even though they had maybe walked 8km to school that morning and would do the same that night.  But there was a huge sense of community because everyone lived their lives in the community they were from - school, work, friends, socialising…I realised that these people had almost nothing, yet were some of the happiest people I had ever ever met - to entertain themselves and us everyone sang and danced - these people did not have inhibitions or insecurities or complexes - their outlook on life was a lot simpler and I feel I brought some of that back with me.

Before I went I thought that the images I had seen on TV would be the most extreme and that surely people didn't live like that everywhere but when I got there I realised that it is pretty representative of life in Africa - well Kenya at least! People do have to walk miles to fetch water and to go to school, they do grow their own crops, they do live in mud huts, the children don't all have shoes and although they have a uniform it is often dirty and ripped…but that is just life there - they are happy people - and the work the project does just helps to improve that life for them - bringing the water nearer, making the school a nice environment as its often the heart of the community, and they are so all-embracing of visitors.