A bottle of Tusker and memories of Kenya on #BeerSaturday

It's been a while since my last #BeerSaturday post but this weekend I felt compelled to write about the bottle of Tusker that I enjoyed and the memories of my gap year in Kenya that it brought back.

On the left, today's bottle of Tusker while on the right a picture of me 20 years ago wearing a very fetching pair of red flip-flops on my feet. I wonder what happened to them?

I didn't go to the pub expecting to find a bottle of Tusker available as it's a brand that is mainly sold in East Africa, particularly Kenya. That being said, having done a bit of research this afternoon I've since found that the brand is now owned by Diageo so not quite as exotic as it might sound!

However, on seeing it on sale I thought I'd abandon my usual pint of ale and try a drink that I hadn't enjoyed since my gap year, when Tusker was pretty much all I drank!

The beer itself is a fairly nondescript lager, eminently quaffable without really distinguishing itself from many of the others that are available at any half decent pub.

It was however, while I was drinking it that I realised that it is nearly 20 years to the day that I started on my gap year to Kenya where I travelled and worked as a teacher. It was a journey that began my career in education, a field in which I've been involved in to some extent ever since.

Coming home then I thought it was about time that I dusted off the old photo albums and took a trip down memory lane!

By photo albums, I literally mean photo albums. Life and so it would seem technology move pretty quickly so this was from a time when no one had a smart phone and the ability to take a picture almost a will.

These photos were instead taken on a series of old school Kodak disposable cameras that I took with me so I apologise for the grainy quality. I remember a few of the other teachers who were in country with me had some fancy digital cameras and almost all of them ended up breaking! It seems that some Western technology isn't quite cut out for the rigours of life in Africa.

From left to right - Flamingoes paddle in the hot springs of Lake Bogoria. Pristine Tiwi Beach. Camping in view of the submit of Mt. Kenya

While I got lots of opportunity to travel round to many more of the sights in Kenya, my primary reason for being there was to teach in a rural secondary school.

I taught Geography, History and P.E. and helped in developing a new curriculum for HIV and AIDs awareness.

Resource wise things were pretty limited although when working on the escarpment of the Rift Valley teaching Geography and History doesn't require all the fancy tools that you'd find in any modern classroom in the West. Instead you simply walk out of the class and you can show the students first hand any number of rock formations, the impact of plate tectonics and off course the birth place of humanity itself!

Being young and fairly fit, I also coached the school football team (some of whom are pictured below) and even tried to introduce a bit of rugby. In fact, if you look very closely behind the students in the photo below, you'll see our attempts at putting up some rudimentary rugby posts which would later be struck by lightening during one of the regular afternoon thunderstorms.

Sports facilities at the school

My crowning glory as the coach of the football team came when we won a tournament that included teams from other schools as well as local sides. However, our road to victory was not without controversy.

Originally we were in fact knocked out at the semi-final stage by the team that would eventually go onto win. However, the next day, the school received a phone call to say that the team that had beaten us had since been kicked out of the competition for fielding ringers from a nearby semi-pro team (the tournament was strictly for amateurs).

The result being that we were reinstated and had to travel back to play in the final against the original runners-up . We won the replayed final and the rest is history - eat your heart out Alex Ferguson!

There are so many stories that I could share about my time there that I could probably write 10,000 words and still not be half way through. They range from the ridiculous; being offered 20 cows in return for marrying a local, to the sublime; working with some of the best and most hospitable people you could ever hope to meet. And from the tragic; a colleague getting killed by a crocodile, to the dangerous; being chased by hippos while on safari.

I hope you're all enjoying your #BeerSaturday too. Cheers