Iten

We have moved into our own home in Iten, down a dusty dirt track, past a little wooden roadside stall selling sweets and mobile phone credit, opposite one of the few two-story buildings in Iten. Behind big black corrugated iron gates lies a large lawn, covered in sheep poo and spiky grass.

The house sits in the middle of the plot, the big sitting room facing the gates, the tiny kitchen, shower and loo facing a magnificent view of distant hills dropping down into the Rift Valley. It's a long building, two rooms deep, but we're only occupying half of it. The other, larger half, is empty, save for one room with a pile of broken, dirty furniture in the corner, and Flora's bedroom. Out by the kitchen the door opens onto a vegetable patch, filled entirely with passion fruit plants.

The day we moved in we were met by our landlady, Mrs Keegan, the wife of a local politician, with big handshakes for Adharanand and I and hugs for the children. The house had the air of a building site, with the smell of paint overwhelming the rooms, the furniture and floors covered in dust, the newly laid lino curling at the corners, and rubble on the floor in the shower and loo. Out in the garden, Zachariah, Mrs Keegan's handyman, was still laying paving stones in front of the sitting room door. The goats and wild dog, that had been tethered to posts the day we looked round, had gone.

Mrs Keegan helped to make the beds and sweep the floor while we unloaded the car went to buy food and kitchen utensils in Eldoret. We kitted ourselves out with tin plates, bowls and mugs, a large tin basin to wash Ossian in and a bright yellow storm lantern in case of power cuts. The biggest excitement for Lila and Uma was a bunk bed of their own, and they diplomatically decided to take it in turns to sleep on the top bunk, one week each, change over day on Saturdays.