Good evening dearest parents,


After a long - very long! - journey down to the coast, we have settled well in our camp and enjoyed our first day here.

We were lucky enough not to have to wake up at school time this morning, although a lot of automatically did, and after a good breakfast we headed towards the mangrove to work with the Baraka women's group.  It had been a long time since we'd been digging that much!!!

The idea of this trip is for us to be helping a local group of women in the village of Makongeni. As we crossed the village this morning, we quickly realised their living conditions certainly did not match what we are lucky to have everyday. It gave us even more reasons to fully engage ourself with the project and share that experience with them.

We started by reinforcing one of the fish ponds, the only true income of the group being made by the sell of farmed fish once every 8 months. It was great to play in the mud and we came back to the camp for lunch completely filthy! We also planted small mangrove tree on the insides of the ponds to help prevent erosion and help with wildlife.

Dig it up!

Collecting mangrove pots for planting

Planting a mangrove tree

This afternoon, we went back to the mangrove to collect seedlings and pot them for future planting. We were followed by all the kids of the village who are not fortunate enough to go to the local school. It was good to share this moment with them.

Let's see the fish!

Collecting seedlings while the canals filled up slowly

Hop-scotching with the kids

Planting 100 seedlings

And FINALLY, we made it to the Indian ocean - literally for 2 of us! - to the sea. It was so cool to swim around, run on the beach and have a few games of pool at 40 Thieves.

And finally the Indian ocean entertained us!

It's pool time!

We are well tired tonight yet not quite in bed yet! Tomorrow, we are heading to Shimoni very early to start our diving training. How exciting!!!

Good night everyone.

The Coast crew x