2016 – wtf happened?

Seriously. What happened?

penguins just cuddling and stuff

 

2016 was one of those rare years that dragged on and on. In terms of politics, terrorism, celebrity deaths and the rest of it – the year was pretty awful.

But some good stuff happened, I promise.

See here, here and here for great news from all over to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Now I’mma be self centred for a sec and reflect on all the cool shizz I’ve done in the past 12 months.

• Rocked my braids like the true Jamaican Queen that I am.
• Dragged my sorry self to our VSO post volunteer round up weekend thing to learn more about development (would’ve been cool to learn this all before we went to Kenya for 3 months but whatever)
• Saw my big sis perform in Austria. She deserves all the praise because she’s a showgirl these days. Her costumes are a solid 10/10 and she gives all the cheese which warms my cold soul
• Stopped buying clothes! Yas. I watched The True Cost at work and omg I felt all the feels. The fashion industry scares me a lot and if everyone saw the way our clothes are made and the conditions that people work in to provide us with cheap, fast fashion, maybe we’d settle down and stop buying so much sh*t in H&M.
• Stopped eating meat. Ok I do this most years to some extent but I was full pesci from April until October. (In October I moved to a farm. sorrrrrrrry). Meat free is fab and of course this year I’ll be turning to the veg again
• Was a big brave gal and went to the barbers loads to shape up my unloved undercut. Barbers are a scary world for a wimp like myself, especially in foreign countries. But you know what, I braved it. And had alcohol slapped on the back of my head with zero warning.
• Got a real life adult job and moved into a proper adult house with other adults and we adulted together. Nah, but for real, my housemates kept me sane (Vasantha I’m mainly speaking to you hun) and my job made me so happy. Oxford was sweet (hella pricey) and my friends there are 100% baes.
• Spoke in parliament about how it’s kinda unfair that girls in developing countries are denied the right to go to school. Whether is because of their culture, family’s opinions or health problems. It’s not on. So yeah I shimmyed up to the House of Commons and spoke alongside real life adult women who also thought it wasn’t ok.
• Campaigned A LOT.
• Went to a lot of festivals. Ok this isn’t an achievement at all but maybe it’s worth noting that I pitched my fair share of tents this summer. As well as coming up with innovative and creative solutions to carrying in alcohol.
• Sent adorable letters, presents and postcards to my pals. It’s taken me a while to realise that the majority of my closest friends live in different cities, counties and countries to myself. Instead of being as lazy as I am usually, I actually made to effort to send cute stuff to my faves. And I got a lot of cute stuff back so yayy
• Ran a marathon in a country where the weather is comparable to THE SUN.
• Learnt to just follow my heart a lil (I’m saying it as if I never used to do that before. Who am I kidding) and take my unemployed self to Namibia for 2 months. And it was so worth it.
• Showed Chloe the amazingness of Otjikondo. And we realised how friggin cool the rest of Namibia is. (yaaaaas we climbed the worlds highest sand dune, big up)
• Showed J the absolute BEAUTY of a city which we like to call Cape Town. And had the best time discovering new places and asking him to take multiple candid photos of me just casually walking down a cute street or chilling on the beach

So yeah. I haven’t blogged much at all this year. And maybe some of y’all think I’ve just been staying quiet and not getting on with much. But I can honestly say I’ve been pretty busy (and not having the patience to deal with slow wifi to upload posts) and had a fab year. Filled with weird moments, new buddies, drunken regrets, empty bank accounts, dodgey outfits and a whole lotta love. How was your year?

peace up, a town.

Maz

xo

I’m running 26.2 miles for ONE reason.

Around a year ago I was well on my way to running 600 miles over 8(ish) weeks for VSO. I’d been running so much that a few gals suggested I may as well run a marathon. Let me stop you there. One does not simply run a marathon just cozzzz. But still, I signed up for the Isle of Man full marathon and ran the 26.2 miles on 9th August, my 21st birthday.

look at me go, right at the front…

Not content with just the one marathon to my name, I signed up for the Lisbon marathon with my good pal (probably an over statement) Kate and we’re shimmying over to Portugal to take part on 2nd October this year. Soooo, we have less than 2 months to quit whining and get on with training for our second marathons (she ran the London Marathon in April).

Instead of raising money for a charity, I’ve decided to do things a little different and raise awareness for a cause quite close to my heart. (I say that, a lot of causes are close to my heart but stick with me here)

So, in return for me sweating my lil booty (and back, arms, legs, forehead, everywhere) off, I’d like my lovely friends and family to hear about and get involved with ONE campaign. I want to raise awareness for ONE and all the world changing, life saving work they do. See, ONE isn’t a charity. We (I’m a ONE member along with 7 million others) don’t dig wells, we scream n shout to get governments to change the law so a well has to be dug.

I’ve been a ONE youth ambassador since March this year and their approach to ending poverty and  preventable disease is refreshing. It’s not always easy to get your local MP or media to care about your work with ONE but as a group of around 50 UK youth ambassadors we’ve managed to make a real impact resulting in meetings with MP’s, speaking in Parliament, creating university societies and visiting the OECD forum in Paris (yessss we ate all the croissants).

‘ONE’s 7 million members are critical to this work. They come from every walk of life and from across the political spectrum. They’re artists and activists, faith and business leaders, students and scientists. They take action day in, day out — organising, mobilising, educating, and advocating so that people will have the chance not just to survive, but to thrive.’

Fancy joining the 7 million people and making your voice heard?

What can you do?
First things first, get yourself onto their website – click here woo woo
Next, see what campaign we’re currently working on and choose what interests you the most and take action either by signing a letter or petiton.
Tell your local MP if they’re not doing enough about the issue and what they can change.
Write to your local newspaper about how you’ve put your name to something you truly care about.
Pass it on. Send this link to someone you know – let the movement spread
Let me know, a simple Facebook comment will let me know how many people stand with ONE just because they read this blog post.

Why?
We’re one race. We live in the same world. Why should where you’re born determine your quality of life? I’m not asking for money, anyone can put their name forward to something they care about.

When?
Now would be fab. But any time before October 2nd would be perf.

What’s next?
I’ll be writing some more blog posts in the run up to the marathon. (Run. Get it…?!!?) with some more info on ONE’s work and what I’m personally doing as a youth ambassador. Sound iite?

OH and use the hashtag #MazRunsForONE when sharing – because errrrybody loves a hashtag

Thanks,
Maz

get involved.

Just chillin’ with Mhairi Black at our launch

Kenya photodiary – Makutano.

Hey, Jambo, Habari.

Welcome to Girl Got Lost (formerly ‘Mary’s Project Year’ – but I’ve kinda stepped over the year mark, sooooo….). I’ve just come back from a crazy 3 months in Nanyuki, Kenya, where I was volunteering with VSO. More about the actual work later; for now, let me share with you some of the photos I took with my film camera. I love using film but it sucks how expensive it is and how valuable my camera is. So I mostly used digital in Kenya and took crappy videos and didn’t care too much for the outcome and saved my film camera for the safety of my home or garden. But now I’ve had the films developed I wish I was more adventurous with my photography and taken more pics at large community events and cultural ceremonies. Oh well, it’s definitely inspired me to take more next time I’m in Kenya/Africa/anywhere!

I’ll try and group the photos so expect a few posts.

Boda Life
This was taken from ‘Makutano’ which translates to junction in Swahili. So each town has their own area called Makutano but this was Nanyuki’s. We lived 10 mins from town and a further 15 min walk from the tarmac road. Although it was against VSO’s rules we used to travel by boda boda almost everyday. Thats the motorbike you see in the left of the pic. That small seat could carry around 2 or 3 passengers but we’d all seen bikes carrying 5 or 6 people, babies, goats, sofas etc. One time I even saw a bike carrying a cow. It’s legs were folded underneath it and it’s face was as puzzled as mine. Despite 2 near death experiences (seriously, Sophie and I almost had a head on collision with a lorry and another time my driver had to swerve off the road completely because of an oncoming vehicle) we all loved our boda rides. Especially during a night out, getting from bar to club at ridiculous speeds, nothing beats it! Plus it was dead cheap; about 30p for a 10min drive and one time I travelled for a full hour on a boda through forests, past giraffes and on a mud road for the equivalent of £1.60?!

Muddy Makutano   Our rural-town mix house was down a muddy path past a tiny church (you could really hear them screech out those hymns on a Sunday morning), a few grocery shops and guys welding on the street. Welding with zero protection equpiment may I add. Hardcore. I loved where we lived and the twice daily hilly walk because we were away from the bustle (and sometimes danger) of Nanyuki life but close enough to still get in and out quickly. We were down the road from Liki slums where we heard stories of petty crime and a woman getting beheaded. Our team leader also gave a passionate ‘don’t ever go to Makutno’ speech… Eeeeer we live there mate. But at the end of the day we stayed safe and the biggest drama at our compound was that someone stole our neighbours chicken. 50% of the time the road back home was fine, the other half was hell. The rain washed away our hopes of getting home quickly and cleanly. Seriously the path became and fast flowing river and we’d be ankle deep in thick mud. Our host mum would sigh at the state of us when we eventually reached home and would proceed to clean our boots with a machete the next morning. One evening I feel right on my bum because of the slippy road. Another time we saw a snake slither straight past our feet through the water.

Mount Kenya

Some mornings I would wake up at 5:30 am and there wasn’t much more to do than go for a run. And this was my view. When I used to live in Cape Town I could jog while checking out table mountain and now I had the glorious Mount Kenya to see in the mornings – not bad. The sun would rise from behind and you could see a clear outline of the mountain for a few hours before the clouds would come and hide it. On a really clear day you’d be able to see the snow and glaciers at the peak.

(run recovery on the grass. Soon to be covered in excitable dogs and subsequently muddy paws on my face)

Hopefully this has given you a little insight into Kenya and my experiences. I’ll have a few more posts on home life, cultural dress and lots of photos of my beloved cows. Crazy times.

Tuonane baadaye. (see ya laterrrr)