Standard fives's day of sun, surf and camels

Despite living within a twenty minute matatu ride from public beach, most students at Olives Rehabilitation Centre have never visited it themselves. This is in part due to the cost of travel. Public beach is one of the few beaches on Mombasa's beautiful coast which is not strictly private access to hotel patrons. Ownership of the coast by hotels makes access to the beach tricky for the average resident of slums such as Bombolulu.

GVI volunteers Anna and Claudia arrive at the beach with their students

After some (less than) gentle persuasion, GVI volunteers Anna and Claudia agreed to take standard five on Saturday, following a lesson on coastal conservation. Points stressed were the importance of picking up plastic bags from the community because they end up in the ocean (sometimes to be eaten by and killing tortoises or dolphins), and not supporting the shell trade here in Kenya. It is common to find hawkers selling shells from the beach, either in their original form or as jewelery. Beaches here are virtaully devoid of shells, meaning they cannot be incorporated back into the ecosystem for crustaceans to use.

Standard five students soaking up the sun and enjoying the surf

Standard five enjoy the sun and surf

As well as learning the basics of coastal conservation, the kids had a blast. They spent hours in the water doing what kids do, and we even treated them to a camel ride and a short paddle boat ride each. The only hard part of the day was getting the kids to leave, but the day went off without a hitch and will definitely be repeated.

Some rather anxious faces on students enjoying their first camel ride

Standard fives's day of sun, surf and camels