Burglar alarm bungles

Another night of high jinx with our intruder alarm, yawn. This time I could see it coming, as one of our two Alsatians absolutely refused to come inside to sleep in her basket at the foot of the stairs last night. She kept on running towards me as I called her name in increasingly irate tones and then at the last second swerved off towards the night watch man and into the darkness. We played this little game for a while (about 15 minutes) until I locked the door and gave up, careful to keep the other Alsatian and further two more dogs whom we own by proxy (having inherited them with the house) contained inside. This fiasco is a fairly normal part of our evening routine, but last night I was on my own and am obviously lacking the firm commanding tone of my husband who normally gets the dogs to come in.

After padlocking the metal security gates at the top of the stairs and setting the alarm I fell asleep wondering why on earth I had bothered to stay up late in order to watch a ‘style star confidential’ featuring Angelina Jolie on E!. Jess, the dog outside, did her level best to keep up incessant bout of woofing but I tried to ignore it. At 1am a particularly excited bout of barking outside woke the dogs in the house and they started to shout and scuffle around downstairs. As quick as a flash I roused myself from my slumber and attempted to propel myself out of bed, through the mosquito net and over to the intruder alarm control panel on the bedroom door to try and disarm the thing. Just too late. The dogs inside obviously banged against an access door downstairs (as I had anticipated they would) and the siren started sounding. ‘Damn it, that dog has to come in’ I thought, then unlocked the gate and went downstairs in my nightie to have another long performance with the askari trying to coax Jess in, whilst another escapes out between my legs and needs to be dragged back in etc. Failed again. Meanwhile my mobile phone is ringing upstairs, then the land line. It’s Ben calling from Kigale, ‘I’ve just received a call on my mobile to say that our alarm has gone off and backup is on its way’. My reply, I’m afraid, was a string of expletives interspersed with the words ‘dogs’. Later, as I was back in bed and just shutting my eyes, the tooled up, back up security men are calling up to my window to see if everything is all right. I explain the scenario whilst peeping out from behind a curtain, go back to bed, then minutes later have our own night watchman call up to tell me that he has found a lead to put the dog on, so that she will stop barking so much. ‘OK, great, thanks a lot.’

I wouldn’t mind, only it takes some time to get used to the lack of dignity of conducting conversations whilst half asleep and half dressed. It is such a joy to have people in your house to clean and baby sit and cook and garden but on the down side every time I sit on the loo I’m wondering if a non family member is about to stumble in (because of the children keys have been removed from the doors). This morning I was pouring out cornflakes and feeding the baby in a towel with wet hair whilst Gladys and Florence attempted to help me and busied themselves around the house. They were probably thinking what a lazy sloth I was, still not dressed at 8am on a Saturday. Yesterday, as I snoozed in my bed (bedroom door open) in between school run shifts at 7am and 8.30am and the children were being dressed and having teeth cleaned around me, their opinion of me must have plummeted to an all time low. I expect Florence is up at around 5am every day, in order to get to our house by 7.15. Sunday is our day of no guilt, where Gladys and Florence are off and we can slouch around in dressing gowns until midday, but I still have to run the gauntlet of being caught by the gardener who might have a question or two. This said, I do thoroughly love my incredibly decadent existence thanks to all the help around us and liken my lifestyle to that of someone like Victoria Beckham (who also has three children and finds time for manicures, pedicures and unimpeded shopping trips), but perhaps on a slightly smaller scale i.e. within the confines of Nairobi.

Meanwhile, Gladys went home last week, upcountry to try and help find a neighbour’s twelve year old daughter who has gone missing. The police have been informed and family and friends have been searching for her for the last three weeks. Sadly it is fairly common for young girls to get abducted, often by middle aged men and many girls’ boarding schools are surrounded by high walls and razor wire to try and prevent this from happening.

(23/3/07) I would like to confirm that glady's friend's daughter was found and seems had been abducted for 6 weeks... the story is a bit hazy, but she is now safe and sound

School Sports Day

Our eldest daughter had her first sports day at her new school yesterday. The school is very strong on parental involvement and ask us to attend school assemblies, parent socials and parent teacher meetings. My diary has been filled with school events since September and I couldn’t possibly have had time to hold down a full time job in the meantime (so lucky I don’t have one). There has been quite a build up to the cross country run and practising has been going on in earnest since the beginning of term. At the beginning of the week my daughter stated that she REALLY wanted a medal, and not a runner up certificate, but a medal. The only problem was that she said that when she runs there is only ever one person behind her. The memories of my own school sports have been flooding back all week. I asthmatically used to bring up the rear in cross country races and hated the pressure to perform in team games for fear of failing my team mates, which I invariably did. I can remember chants of ‘SHOOT, SHOOT’ when positioned as goal shooter in netball and knowing I would invariably miss the net and endlessly apologising through stilted games of tennis; ‘SORRY’. I remember going on one ‘away’ match with the ‘B’ team netballers, as reserve. The school must have been experiencing a debilitating flu virus or chickenpox outbreak, for me to have been selected that once. I seem to remember that I was OK at diving, as it didn’t involve getting out of breath.

So, with a strong resolve, and metal pictures of Lady Diana running on school sports day in a see through skirt, I packed my trainers in readiness for the parent staff race that rounds off the afternoon. For once, I’m not pregnant, or breastfeeding and am averagely fit having been going to the gym for the last six months or so, on a fairly regular basis. My husband was keen to compete too, having done a bit of long distance running in his time (albeit ten years ago), and was concerned that two parents racing might look a bit overly keen, especially as we were sporting matching blue tee shirts in support of our daughter’s assigned house colour. Undeterred I was going to face my demons and race come hell or high water. Our daughter ran valiantly in her race for what seemed like many miles and was even given a number 10 when she crossed the finish line red in the face and determined. I thought this was pretty good going as she is young for her year and looks a bit smaller than her piers, but her disappointment in not being eligible for a medal was palpable.

A definite dragging feeling started in the pit of my stomach as parents started preparing for their race. I was encouraged to hear that some staff members usually walk the course as competing was obligatory for them. My fellow parent and best friend said she might do some walking during the race due to her bad knee and I vaguely remember saying; ‘don’t worry I’ll wait for you’ when the starting horn sounded. Then I just started running and didn’t look back once. Over each step of the 900 meters I was thinking of the six year olds who had just managed this run and it still didn’t stop me from feeling like giving up and walking the whole time. Half way through the sound of my hoarse, open mouthed breathing in and out began to be deafening and embarrassing. How are you supposed to breathe while running? I heard a distant ‘come on Mummy!’ and kept going. On the home strait I felt like I might not manage it (I am an inveterate ‘giver upper’), but then I looked and saw there weren’t too many people in front of me and kept on. Over the last 100 meters, about three people shot past me at a sprint and I staggered over the finish line collecting number fourteen, but I was placed third among the women runners. On finishing, I felt like I had smoked twenty cigarettes in half an hour, running at altitude is not joke.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a bronze medal for being third among lady cross country runners (as hoped) but, reluctantly, I suppose the event was really about the school children not the parents. It would have been nice to give a medal to my daughter though.

p.s. I think Lady Diana must have definitely been doing a 100 meter sprint and not a cross country race.

p.p.s My big toe is still black since the race from my too small trainers

Our ex askari

My computer inexplicably crashed this week, possibly due to a power surge and the intruder alarm is still playing up. My parents in law have arrived and the weather has suddenly got cooler, so we’ve got the; ‘it’s better weather in England’ debate raging each drizzly morning over breakfast. My brother in law came over for three weeks in July, to a wintery Nairobi, while England was melting in a heat wave. ‘When is the best time of year to visit?’ Is such a difficult question to answer as at an altitude of 5,500 feet the weather is unpredictable here.

Our ex night watchman came over to the house collect his money for anti retroviral treatment last week. This cost seems to come up once a year in October, when AMREF have a month’s break from handing out the drugs free of charge. He says that he has to keep his HIV status a secret as he will be rejected by the community completely if anyone was to find out. He would be likely to be thrown out of his rented accommodation in Kibera slums (even this slum housing is rented out) and he would not be able to use the communal tap, go to church or buy food from the local traders. His co workers would stop interacting with him and they would not let him share cups or plates because they don’t understand the disease. However, he’s been trained as a counsellor over the past years and has attended many workshops and conferences about living with the disease. He’s proud of his certificates from NGOs who have trained him as an advisor on living with HIV. He is, in fact, a sort of underground guru whose secret mission is to educate those Kenyans who are ready to face up to their HIV status. He’s forced to lead a double life and believes that we were sent by God to help him and his wife when necessary. His wife suffers from ill health regularly. She was previously a nurse and possibly got infected by a needle stick injury. You can’t help but to admire his faith and conviction. He has invited us to him home one Sunday, to see how he and his wife are ‘going on’ and be their guests.

He said that he would like me to tell the staff here that he was looking for work, as he didn’t want to arouse their suspicion or jealousy if they were to find out he was receiving handouts from us. The new night watch man (askari) position that his company has given him is in fact working out well. Next time we will arrange a rendez-vous elsewhere, whenever the next time will be….

About the Nannies and the Landcruiser

Our burglar alarm is being tweaked at the moment and I am nearly having heart failure every five minutes as the siren is wailing on and off just outside my window. We are currently experiencing one false alarm per night and it has to stop. When the siren starts sounding in the night we sit bolt upright in bed, heart in mouths. We check the time (12am, 2am, 4am etc) then the phone rings. It’s the security company control room checking in and confirming that a patrol car is on its way. My husband has a naked chat from the window to our night watchmen to see what the trouble is (hopefully nothing), then count down the minutes until the patrol car arrives (the all important response time). Four or six burly men with truncheons and helmets pile out of a tiny pickup and the dogs go wild. They kindly check the perimeter of the house, confirm all is well and drive away. We are then supposed to pop back to sleep but instead have a wakeful time, hypersensitive to any sound from the garden or the road. Sometimes cars backfire or transformers blow up, or the power is off and we are in pitch blackness and very occasionally you do hear a gunshot or two.

On a happier note, I should confirm that I did get my suitcase back after just three weeks. It had been mixed up with the lost bags of another airline but is home safe and sound now, what a relief! It was slightly damp in places but otherwise was delivered completely in tact. I have heard that the lost luggage room in Heathrow stinks to high heaven because of food packed in the bags. During the dark days of not having my bag, just contemplating how to replace all those clothes and shoes was so disheartening. I realised that shopping is hard work and the contents of that suitcase represented many man hours, trudging up high streets and checking through clothes rails not to mention trying on and cramped changing rooms. I had made a comprehensive list of what had been inside from memory, and was pleased by my accuracy. However, I had missed out quite a few ‘low priority’ things that were in the case, but belonged to the children.

I also wanted to quickly fill readers in on the 2 nannies in the address and the 1 landcruiser: The two nannies mentioned are Gladys and Florence without whom I would be certain to have many more grey hairs and wrinkles. My friends and I spend many hours speculating how is must be to bring up children ‘single handed’ in England and unanimously agree that it sounds like a nightmare. We do this while drinking coffee or having a long lunch, always secure in the knowledge that our precious offspring are being watched every moment by a fleet of nannies or ayahs. Gladys and/or Florence are on hand from 7am to 7pm on weekdays and a half day on Saturday to wash, clean and care for the children, which they kindly do unconditionally. I’m not working, so running the house is a bit of a team effort but I think I have the heady role of team manager who likes the odd tea break (often). Sunday is a day off for Gladys and Florence, where I do the washing up and where our parenting skills are put into the spotlight. As much as possible we go out for the day to the club for swimming, or to the national park for a picnic. The jury is still out as to whether ‘Sunday off’ is a good idea or not.

The landcruiser is our holy grail of cars. It has taken seven years to upgrade ourselves up to VX level. From Suzuki Vitara, to ancient Landrover ‘Santana’, to Toyota Landcruiser I, then II, to Landrover Discovery and on up to a Toyota VX landcruiser. It’s an old car (1993) and cost a small fortune as car prices in Kenya are astronomical thanks to import taxes. What you spend £5,000 on here you could pick up for £150 in the back of Exchange and Mart in England. The landcruiser cost a lot more than that, but its sheer size and strength makes it the vehicle of choice. Chelsea tractors might get a lot of flak in London, but it’s reassuring to have a big strong car in Nairobi when you see the pileups on the side of the road. A four wheel drive vehicle is almost compulsory kit when negotiating pot holes and flooding and that’s just within Nairobi, never mind off road driving in game parks. The rules of the road here are governed by; ‘he who has the biggest car and loudest horn, wins!’ Air conditioning that works is also important, a winch and a tow bar are handy. At last the epic drive that always accompanies a holiday in Kenya, can be in relative comfort and safety (hopefully).

The ‘intruder’ alarm man says there is actually nothing wrong with the system, but he’s adjusted its sensitivity. I am not reassured.