Dry season in Nakuru

 This is what my garden looks like in the dry season. The last time it rained was over night on Christmas Day. Everywhere is very dusty and dry. 

Sometimes there are fires as it is so hot and dry. In this photo you can see black patches on the hill behind our house where there have been fires.

We don't expect it to rain until the end of March. The temperature outside yesterday was 30 degrees. 

Rainfall in Nakuru

I used my rain gauge to measure how much rain fell over 10 days, from 26th September until 5th October. The rainiest day was 5th October 2.5 cm of rain fell. There were 2 days when we didn't record any rainfall - 1st October and 3rd October.

On 2nd October we had a huge hail storm. It was like snow. Big piles of ice were left on the ground afterwards. We have never seen anything like that here before.That day 2.2 cm of rain fell.

I calculated the average rainfall over the 10 days. I did this by adding the 10 readings together and then dividing the answer by 10.

1+ 0.2 +1.1 + 0.4 + 0.8 +0+ 2.2 +0 + 1.9 +2.5 = 10.1

10.1 divided by 10 = 1.01

The average rainfall over the 10 days was  1.01 cm.

This is normal for this time of year. The dry season is  January, February and March. It does not rain at all then. This is followed by the rainy season in April and May when it rains even more than it does at the moment.

I am hoping to get some data together about temperatures soon.

What is the weather like in Kenya?

What is the weather like? Is it really hot all the time? These are questions that people in England ask me about living in Kenya. Me I like the weather here because it rains nearly every day but it is still hot. When it rains it rains really hard but only for a short time. But it never rains all day like it does in England. 

I took these pictures to try and show how much it rains. When it stops raining the ground dries quickly because it is hot. I am also going to do a weather study. So I made a rain gauge to monitor how much it rains each day.

This is the bottle that I used to make the rain gauge.

First I cut it in half with the big scissors.

Then I put the top part of the bottle upside down  in the other half of the bottle with mummy, to make a funnel.

Thirdly I Wrote on the  numbers with a ruler. This will show how many centimetres of rain collect inside the bottle.

Now it is finished!

I will put it in the garden and record how much rain falls each day.  I also plan to reord the temperature each lunchtime.🙂🤗

I will post the results soon.🌄🌈

Being back in England for the summer

I am back in England for the summer holidays. These are the things I was looking forward to doing in England:

This is the library in Ross-on-Wye, where my nanny and Gan live.

I wanted to go to the library because I like books, and you can borrow up to 10 at a time. In Kenya it is hard to find good books that I have not already read.

This is Bloxham School pool. I was looking forward to swimming in an indoor pool because it is warm! The pools in Kenya are ice cold, especially my school pool. I have been swimming at Ross swimming pool and Bloxham school pool.

I also went swimming at the outdoor pool in Banbury. This was new for me because it is a 50m pool. There are hardly any 50m pools in Kenya. Swimming in a 50m pool is tiring!

I also like being able to buy my favourite magazine as soon as it comes out. I do read this magazine in Kenya, but I have to wait until we have visitors and they bring the magazine to me, so it is always out of date so I can't enter the competitions!

I have also really enjoyed catching up with my friends and cousins. I miss them a lot. It is raining in England today though, so I do miss the sunny weather in Kenya.

Snorkelling in the Indian Ocean

When my Nanny and Gan came to Kenya they brought us presents of snorkels. 

Last week we went to Diani Beach and on the holiday me and Daddy and Sam and Nanny went snorkelling.

 This boat is like the boat that me , Nanny, Daddy and Sam went to the reef on. It was very narrow. The journey to a sand island was about 15 minutes from the beach. 

I liked snorkelling. We saw lots of interesting things. Here is a list of some of the things that we saw. My favourite thing was the starfish we saw and my other favourite was the shiny black fish with blue spots.

The coral was very colourful and pretty, but it was sharp - I grazed my foot on it.

This was my favourite fish. I spotted it first.

Sea cucumber    I didn't like the sea cucumber because it looked weird.

Zebra fish        We saw quite a lot of these. They were swimming in and out  of rocks.

Starfish           This is a starfish we only really saw this colour. Some were really orange but most were red like this one.

Clown fish      This is a clown fish we saw 1 of them. I liked the clown fish a lot.

This is me and Sam holding a starfish. It had suckers underneath so it felt weird.

 This is Sam holding a sea cucumber.

 This is one of the starfish we saw in a pool of water.

I LOVED SNORKELLING!

RE trip 26.01.16

Today I had a great time. I went on an RE trip. There are lots of religions in Kenya and today we visited 6 different places of worship in Nakuru. First we went to the Sikh temple which is actually called the Ghudwara. I found out that if you go to the Sikh temple you can't eat meat before you go. And when you go in,you have to cover up your head with a headscarf or a turban. When Sikhs go to the temple on Saturdays they get special sweeties that are made from butter,water,flour and sugar.

Then we went to a Hindu temple. The priest, who came to take us around the Hindu temple,could not speak any English only Kiswahili. When we went into the temple we were in a hallway. On either side of the hallway were idols which were gods. On one side was an elephant called Ganesh and on the other side was a Monkey called Hanuman. There was a tiny room at the end of the hall and inside were 2 idols - a male called Krishna and a female called Ratha.

After the Hindu temple we went to the Mosque. Us girls had to cover our heads when we went into the mosque.Two people showed us round and answered our questions. They also told us that when Muslims go to the washrooms they don't use tissue they wash themselves with water instead.

Next we went to another Hindu temple. It was very pretty inside. The lady told us that all the Gods we could see had once been alive, and that the ones in orange were saints. She said that the one at the end was still alive and was 95 years old.

Then we went to two different Christian churches. First we went to the Catholic Cathedral, which is where our family go to church sometimes so I had been there before. We had a photo outside by the statue of Mary.  The last place we went to was a Pentecostal church. A lady showed us round and answered our questions. She took us outside to the baptism place (which is like a big bath in the shape of a cross) and demonstrated how people are baptised in the Pentecostal church. You actually get right inside the pool to be baptised and are ducked right under the water.

It was a very interesting trip.

Mount Longonot expedition 27.12.15

My cousins came to stay with me for Christmas ☺️ we did lots of fun things climbing mount Longonot was one of them.⛰ Mount  Longonot  is a dormant volcano which last erupted in the 1860s.🌋

The expedition was fun but hard work and I got 3 big blisters. It started off easy and flat.

But it soon got very steep.

 This is me in the hut where you reach the rim of the volcano.
Then you walk around the rim. The path is very narrow but not flat. There is still lots of climbing to do. The name Longonot comes from a Maasai word which means "mountain of many summits".


This is all  of us  on the summit.

 this is a view of the crater from the rim. It is 2-3KM wide.

 we could see lake Naivasha from the top.

This is coming down it was very steep.

This is Mr. George he was our guide for the walk. He was also a pool attendant at our school and one of our swimming teachers. Sadly and unexpectedly he died the day after our hike. He was always lots of fun and he helped us to enjoy this really long walk. We  will all miss him lots.