Working In The North Of Scotland

Scotland, the wild and rougher part of the UK. A landscape filled with rugged beauty and old castle ruins that once were inhabited and fought over by the clans. Whose men and women were hardened by the harsh environment that they lived in and confronted the onslaught of the english armies. Nowadays it has come a long way from the time of hitting one anothers heads in with clubs and stealing each others women, for the most part. More and more people are starting to sense the magic that lies in this beautiful country: in the purple heather filled hills, the rustic distilleries that are scattered throughout the land and above all in the very warm and engaging culture.

So, just when the cold winds of autumn started to rush from the sea to the land my good friend Felix and I flew to the far north of Great Britain from the warm and cosy Portugal to work, plan and live together. Upon arrival we started to do little jobs here and there for Biomatrix, the company I had volunteered for in the Philippines. Again building floating islands that could clean the water body that they'd be immersed in using the plants that were be planted on them. In addition to this we did volunteer work every day for the 'Global Ecovillage Network' (GEN). We supported the organisation of the GEN Africa Conference which was to take place in Thika, Kenya this December 2013. Besides doing loads of minor tasks we also gave a lot of support to the 'Solution Library', an online platform which gives anyone that has a solution to a challenge that many people might face the possibility to add that solution. Which in turn allows people that face a challenge to look up the challenge they are having and hopefully find that someone who already encountered this challenge found a solution and added it to the library.

In that time a good friend of mine, Marion, that I had met in Barcelona and comes from France visited Felix and me for a week. Often the three of us just went for walks on the near-by beach and as we wandered through the tall dunes Felix and I started to think about our coming journey. As we were supporting GEN in the organisation of the GEN Africa Conference we were offered the great opportunity to go with them to Kenya and assist during the conference itself. We simply asked them to book the flights for us with different dates, hence we would arrive at the start of the conference but not leave again until 2 1/2 months after it finished. Which would give us the chance to fully explore this wonderful country that is located on the far east of africa, just underneath the african horn and bordered by Somalia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and (South)Sudan.