From Neil a lovely little poem November 10, 2009

Neil Rathbone
I rode a bike for over a week,
My knackered old knees began to squeek!
I gave my supports the occasional tweek,
Comfort with protection I aimed to seek!

There was dust and mud followed by bloody great ruts,
Slippery tracks past little mud huts,
We all fell off (Some more than others!) and bruised our butts,
But showed beyond …doubt we all had guts!

With Daryl at the bow and Martin at the stern,
It soon became clear we had lots to learn,
If not for “Wilson” we’d have missed our turn,
But to do it again is what I yern.

A tiny wee tick found somewhere new,
He jumped on my back and had bit of a chew,
It made me quite poorly and gave me “tick flu”,
I was given some tablets called TTFU!

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Tick Tick November 9, 2009

Back in the land of the living November 9, 2009

Apologies to all who have been checking the blog for photos… Just to keep you updated yours truly managed to get bitten by a river tick in SA. I didn’t know anything about it until we got back. Scratched what i thought was a mozi bite and ended up in bed for 5 days with tick bite fever and a hole in my back.. Luckilty the right antibiotics were found and back on my feet again… A few choice comments and poems came through which i will attempt to add to the blog. Anyway less of that there are now 300 odd photos in the elepharts gallery and maybe if i can sort the technology a slide show too. So have a look. A quick word of thanks to Paul at the Ferry who raised another £25.00 from the helicopter ride day… Everything no matter how small counts whether £1.00 or £1000.00….
Over the next few weeks we are changing the face of elepharts… (the face and not the bottom!! Elepharts will be supporting Touch Africa as its primary charity. Touch Africa primary objective is getting kids in rural areas into education. This is a hard task where there are not that many schools and where there is a school the facilities are basic to say the least. Touch Africa gives support to schools directly and the results and attendance are monitored regularly. In so many places there has been money given that has not been used for the purpose it was designed for… Materials and equipment have gone missing and attendance has been poor to say the least. Touch Africa only works with schools where there is strong leadership from the headmaster and strong support from the community. The aim is to get more kids into school and the funding is for precisely that. If equipment goes walkies or attendance levels drop for no good reason the funding is re -assessd. Many of the kids walk 5 miles there and back to school each day so the willingness to learn is there.
Elepharts is looking to bring together not only donations but also collections of pens,pencils, paper, books etc and we will be putting more on the site … watch this space..