February 1st 2009 – can you f..ing believe it?

It was another early start and things could not have started better, with an easy journey to the airport and plenty of time to get all the supplies I needed. Shopping in the airport was a dream with both pharmacies and clothes shops that had exactly what I wanted. The plane journey was quick and on arrival in Livingston the airport although small was clean and efficient. A far cry from Zanzibar.

I was beginning to think that life was becoming easy. That was until we reached the "house" where I was to stay. It was horrendous. Not only was it dirty it also resembled the type of place that if you took your teenage daughter to you would promptly turn around and say "don't worry sweetheart I'll rent you your flat down the road. You were right your mother would never let you stay here". The funny thing was that I could handle that until I saw the rooms. These consisted of small rooms with bunk beds and clothes and other paraphernalia scattered all over the place. I was initially to be sharing a room with 2 girls, until they realised I was here for 2 weeks and was moved to an identical room with 2 guys and girl on the other side of the building (nice move guys not). I decide to say nothing until I had gathered my thoughts and weigh up my alternatives.

After we had deposited our baggage I was taken (with 2 other volunteers who were not on the programme but wanted to see the lions) to the base camp where the lion programmes was carried out. We were even shown around the holding pen of the 2 youngest cubs where we were able to look and stroke these cubs, albeit tentatively. This was most thrilling. However I was to get another shock when I was told that I was the first ever volunteer to be enrolled on this base and in many ways was a work in progress of how this programme would be run. Not quite what I was expecting but let's wait and see how we get on.

Late afternoon I managed to get to see the Chelsea Liverpool game in a down town bar, where, say, 500 locals were watching the game and I was the only white in the joint and the heat and sweat in the place reminded me of the oven so I managed to cope quite well.. Football though is a great bringer together of people and although we lost (poor referring decision) I had a good time and made many new friends.

When I returned to the house I decided that there was no way I could sleep on the top bunk (humid room, snoring guys and no mosquito net) and promptly moved my mattress to the living quarters and slept on the floor. I would resolve how I would deal with this problem in the morning.