Saturday - First day at Waterberry

Skipped breakfast this morning - figured we will be eating a ridiculous amount for the remainder of the day when we get to Waterberry, so we packed up our things, cleaned the room and donated our mosquito nets to the ladies at Sunbird along with some small gift necklaces. We said our goodbyes to the remaining few volunteers as most were off on safari in neighbouring Botswana for the weekend.

Rabeccah came to say goodbye and update us how things were progressing at the school we worked at last year. Tracey had arranged for a painter to go in and paint both the inside and outside of the whole place, and a local carpenter has been commissioned to make some new desks for some of the classrooms.  Any remaining budget will be spent purchasing new books for the children. She will go back to take some photos for Tracey when the work is all done which should be in plenty of time for the school year to start in September.

Scorpion we removed from the bathroom

Our Waterberry driver, Webster, arrived at lunchtime to collect us and we set off for hobbitland and the luxury of proper toilet roll, clean sheets and hot running water. Kelly greeted us on arrival and remembered us from last year which was fantastic. She is running the local community school project that we will visit tomorrow and deliver the final suitcase full of supplies - mainly sets of books, craft resources and glue sticks.

Coincidentally we are staying this year in the thatched chalet called "Sunbird"; after dumping an entire suitcase of washing in the laundry bag, we grabbed a glass of Chardonnay each, had some lunch and chilled out on our terrace - within minutes, a brown-hooded Kingfisher landed on the branch on front of us not more than 5 yards from where we sat - love love love this place and so pleased to be back. Webby and Matthews are still here, along with Shadreck, Bonface, Tessa, Michael and Caroline.

Webby took us out on the boat for the sunset cruise and as soon as we crossed the river and rounded the island we were treated to a huge breeding herd of elephants on the far bank followed by impala, kudu and baboons. We saw crocodiles, a fish eagle, and loads of vervet monkeys, Senegal Coucal, water dekop (thick knee), giant, pied and brown hooded kingfishers, a goliath heron, hammerkop, hippos, white-backed vulture, squacco heron, yellow-wattled lapwing, banded mongoose and Egyptian goose with chicks!!!!! the list goes on. The mighty Zambezi certainly lives up to its' name.

When we got back and switched on the wifi, we received a lovely whatsapp from Judy at the farm - Songiso had finally broken down in tears after we left - something Judy had never seen him do. They missed us already and wanted us to know how much they had all enjoyed the party.

After a gorgeous 3 course dinner, we sat alone round the campfire reflecting on the farm and the experience - relieved to be back at Waterberry, but sad also to have left Linda behind.