The Hiders Blog......: It's raining man....Hallelujah!!

Woke at 6.30am after a very cold night in the tent. Breakfast is at 7am which, if you can imagine, is quite a challenge when you are wet from the night before, cold, needing to gte the kids clothes sorted in a tiny tent, needing to have a wash in the outside wash facilities (!!) (pic) etc etc

This morning the kids went off to do a cooking challenge (pots, pans, veg and rice) down by the river. Great fun for the kids. They all had to cook their meal the ’fastiest and tastiest’.

Whilst the kids went off to do this Raj and I took a kayak and dinghy and paddled round the lake (huge lake) from where the kayaks (which had been donated from the UK) were to where the meals were being cooked.

Just as the meals were finishing being cooked the rains came down. This time it made last nights

heavy rain seem like a trickle. We got soaked within seconds in this rain even with standing under the trees. I just can’t describe how wet and cold we got. In the end the rains didn’t stop again so we all abandoned the task and took the pots and pans back to camp through the mud and rain and sludge!!! Wasn’t much fun at the time but in heindsight……yet again the kids didn’t moan or grumble but thought it was great fun!!

Back home and no time to get dry etc but two more sessions – this time on ‘relationships’ and ‘the internet’. Very interesting have these debates/discussions in an environment where dating who you like is seen as a fairly new concept really and having your parents arrange or certainly help line up your life partner is the norm. What’s happening in reality is kids are seeing the western way of doing things and dating lots of people and the parents are struggling to see this is not plain wrong..

Kids have been loving their sessions (not the ones above) with games and songs etc – just like the old days when I was growing up……!!

Spent quite some time with Ajoo (camp boss) and Raj and went

from to the highest viewpoint of the camp where the 360 degree view (pic) was stunning and we could see the outloine of the land that they have their. I reckon only 10% of the site they have is currently being used and the rest just lies dormant partly sue to lack of resources and finances to support developments but also some major challenges Ajoo has with internal politics of his organisation. No more detail as not appropriate but I really felt for this guy who has massive heart, massive vision, massive land to work that vision out but is blocked by everyone and anyone in any attempt to develop the site. I want to keep in touch with him.

Bed at 8.30pm – totally shot again! Every night we huddled in our tent (having not seen each other most of the day as they had been in their groups and I had been doing other stuff) and cuddled til we get semi warm and talked of Mummy and warmer climates and the fun we had had that day – special times…...