Alone for the morning

This is the first time I’ve been alone in the house for what seems like forever. I can’t remember the last time I was on my own here. I’ve only got about an hour of it left. The kids are at school (this is the one morning that the two year old goes) and what is far stranger is that the two ladies who work in the house are not here either. One is off sick and the other has been given the morning to herself for some well deserved rest (she will be back this afternoon and baby sitting tonight).

It’s so quiet and the house seems huge today but normally can feel a bit cramped. I’ll have to wash up my own coffee cup this morning and I may even stretch to putting a load of washing on…maybe. When my mobile phone rang downstairs and I was in my bedroom, I had to go and find it myself, whereas usually there is a stampede to hand the phone to me before it rings off.

There’s no mopping and sweeping to dodge in bare feet. No bathrooms to avoid while they are being given the once over. No interruptions from the kids. No terrible guilt about switching on the TV or sitting down with a book. The fact that I’m blogging and not worrying about cleaning the house does rather highlight how completely spoiled I am but this little window of solitude is heavenly.

Dad's Bike

I took this photo with my phone, so it's not very clear, but it was so sweet to see a little girl sitting on a plastic chair that her dad had cleverly strapped onto the back of his bike with strips of car tyre inner tube. She was obviously on her way home from school with her dad on his ingenious bike.

Gonga on Ngong Rd - small car crash

I crashed my car on Monday. I was returning from the Centre for Travel and Tropical Medicine clinic with my middle daughter who’d just had a finger prick malaria test (result: negative – but had to do test as a precaution as she’d had a fever and we’d been to the coast in August), when I drove hard into the back of an unsuspecting Toyota Starlet. (see photo). What an idiot I am.

The accident happened along Ngong road, which is a little like a mini M25 where the traffic is going fast, then slows suddenly to a snails pace, then speeds up again. The problem is that the side of the road is dotted with ‘jua khali fundis’ (craftsmen who work outdoors) such as; carpenters, welders, lawnmower mechanics etc. and cars are always pulling off and onto the stream of traffic at random points all along the road. Not that I’m making excuses, the crash was my fault entirely. I love the Swahili word for ‘knock’ as in, bang in to. It’s ‘gonga’, a little bit onomatopoeic, so I ‘gonga’-d my car on Ngong road. That rhymes.

I was just gazing out of the passenger window wondering why there were workmen with pick axes bare backed and waist deep in a trench along the side of the road, when boom – I looked back and the traffic was stopped still in front of me. I braked hard and tried to steer my tank (1993 landcruiser VX) to the side of the little 3 door hatchback in front, but to no avail, there was that sickening breaking glass, metal on metal sound.

The occupants of the car in front were surprisingly understanding and sympathetic. The driver said:
‘I almost hit the car in front of me too because he braked so suddenly in front of me.’
The favourable reaction may have something to do with the fact that the driver turned out to not be owner of the car.

I explained to my daughter, here is your bottle of juice and a tube of Smarties, we may be here for some time. The procedure is that you don’t move your vehicle off the road, but stay exactly as you were, causing a major obstruction on the road and initiating many curious gazes and sometimes some heckling from other traffic (most often ‘matatus’/buses), until the traffic police pitch up.

Then, out of nowhere was a bang that sounded like a gun shot that went off right where we were standing. Everyone ducked, including the workmen in the trench. It turned out to be a passing car back firing.
‘Oh my God, this country!’ said my friendly crash victim friend. I guess he must have been from out of town.

It also occurred to me then, that a friend told me that she’d been car jacked on that same stretch of road last month when she stopped to pick up her old ironing board that had been welded. On stepping out of the car a thug had put a gun to her chest and three men climbed in the car, took her to the nearest atm (cash point) withdrawn her maximum allowance (once she’d told them her number), taken her jewellery, phone, wallet and left her with the car and keys. This is the new popular form of robbery – ‘get a lift to the cashpoint’ then scarper with as much as you can.

We waited for ages and I put out my little obligatory reflective triangle (on advice from my friendly crash victim friend). After about half an hour along came; a security vehicle with two armed police on board (called out by my husband); a driver from my husband’s office; the slightly more angry and less sympathetic owner of the crashed into Toyota Starlet and finally the traffic police with a very aggressive plain clothed policeman in black suit, black shirt with white collar and lots of gold chains. He started drawing lines in the dust and shouting at everyone.

Everyone (including the police) agreed that it would be madness to go to the police station and make statements etc. I spluttered;
‘what about making an insurance claim? Don’t they insist on a police abstract?’
‘Oh it’s a waste of time,’ said that car owner; ‘you will have to be charged with driving into my car, then found guilty. You might even have to go to court. It will take months for my insurance company to get money from yours for the repairs and they will have to get lots of documentation from the police. Just sign a piece of paper to say that you were in the wrong and will agree with me to repair the damages, then we can go home.’

I dutifully wrote what he wanted and signed, (after a quick tenth phone call to my husband who was at a presidential function, so could only whisper into the handset). I added ‘I agree to repair the damages - when a quote has been agreed upon by both parties’. It was becoming clear that this accident was going to cost us.

Now I’m driving my smashed up car somewhat sheepishly around until we figure out when we can send it off to be fixed. Plus I’ve got really sunburned shoulders from standing in the sun for an hour on the side of the road. My poor ‘not very well’ daughter survived the ordeal with exemplary stoicism;
‘It’s OK Mummy, it doesn’t really matter.’
The ‘Starlet’ man is having his car fixed now. What a lot of inconvenience I’ve caused. A friend told me:
‘Watch out, these things come in threes.’
I’m not sure that she’s my friend any more. Just found out one of our dogs has tick bite fever, my daughter had flu and I had amoeba last week, so does that count as three?

Bringing up Babies in East Africa

Bringing up Babies in Africa

Bringing up babies and small children in Africa is great, thanks to year round clement weather making it always possible to play outside, but above all thanks to the fact that children here are not just tolerated but welcome and accepted.

It’s a great environment for children but on occasion, different approaches can be disconcerting for over anxious Western mothers (like me) unused to African ways. For instance:

Your new baby is carried off by an enthusiastic stranger in a shop, café or restaurant, sometimes taken out of sight completely to be paraded around friends and colleagues for a coo and a tickle. Generally the stranger is someone who works for the establishment, but it can still make your heart sink to your boots to watch your baby disappear out of the door. Refusing to let others hold your baby may make you appear rude, in the face of enthusiasm and kindness.

You are told in no uncertain terms that your baby is under dressed and should put more clothes on. Most babies here are covered up in many layers of knits and swaddled. A wool bobble hat seen on the head of a baby at the extremely hot and humid East African coast is a common sight in a climate where you might feel you are dying of heat when dressed in only shorts and camisole top. I was often asked: ‘is your baby not cold’ when living in Dar es Salaam, as sweat trickled down the backs of my legs.

You are frowned upon for giving your child a chilled drink, which is seen as unhealthy for kids and certainly the cause of coughs, colds, flu and other malaise.

Your child (normally toddler aged) is teased mercilessly by shop assistants and strangers. A two year old will often be subjected to the following repartee:

‘What are you doing with my teddy bear? That is my teddy, not yours. Give it to me’
Or
‘Whose juice cup is that? It is mine, give it to me. Why are you holding my cup. I want to drink this juice?’
Or
‘Who is your Mummy? That is not your Mummy, that is my Mummy, not yours!’
Or
‘Please let me have those car keys. They are mine. Shall I go in your car, then your Mummy can go in my car. Give me those keys.’
Or
‘Shall I take you to my home? You won’t go back to your home, you will come with me. Come with me to my home now.’

Although these remarks might sound sinister to a Westerner who is highly tuned to the threat of paedophiles, kidnappers and wierdos, in fact it is all meant in jest and intended to solicit a forceful; ‘No!’ from your child.

Invariably you have to watch as your child gets increasingly cross and agitated while you self consciously laugh along. Anyhow, the kids get used to the teasing eventually and by four years old can usually laugh at the same old banter. Getting teased is all part of growing up here. My eldest daughter turned it on its head in her pier group aged two, when she’d plonk herself on a little playmate’s mother’s knee and announce to a furious friend; ‘This is my Mummy!’ That one would always get a reaction.

Overstaffed shops and restaurants mean that there are always people watching and looking out for your children when they are running around or being boisterous and unmanageable. You can let your guard down a bit as a shop assistants or waitresses may offer to chat, carry or entertain your child in order to give you a moment’s peace.

This may not be a very politically correct blog post in light of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and may come across as being a little naïve, but there is an element of trust here that seems to have been almost entirely lost in Europe and the States. I think that almost all of my friends here who are bringing up small children would agree that we are very lucky.

Bashful Warthog

Having sunday lunch at a friend's house in Langata last weekend and we took this clip of a resident warthog (and it's baby) in their garden, who was snuffling sweetcorn from our hands. Find it on YouTube by searching for 'bashful warthog'. It's quite funny.

Am feeling wibbly wobbly about sending our two year old to kindergarten, but in spite of her silly mother, she seems to love it. Last week I picked her up after her first morning and she was full of beans announcing to me that she was off to the wendy house, alone and at a fast toddle, so off she went, but emerged from the little house screaming after only one second. It seemed that one of the big boys inside had pushed her. It was utterly heartbreaking to see her distress. Perhaps I'll only send her one morning a week for now.

A lady in front of me in the supermarket queue was buying long dark hair extensions in a plastic bag and it struck me that she's the first person I've seen buying the stuff although interestingly in all Kenyan supermarket stores an entire aisle is given up to hair pieces and extensions in varying shades of black, brown, red etc. at low, low prices. Something you wouldn't find in a UK Morrisons, Tesco or Asda.

Staff loans

If we were operating as a bank, we’d be extremely popular, but a commercial flop. An institution that charges no interest on loans, never expects to be in credit and occasionally lets you off the outstanding balance.

It’s difficult not to feel a bit like a bank at the moment, as we are currently owed 65,000 Kenya shillings (£490) on domestic staff loans. If the askari who also wanted a loan last night for school fees adds another 10,000 the new total will be 75,000/- or nearly £564.00. It’s getting out of hand and honestly, it can be galling handing out cash here and there when you are also struggling to find school fees for your own children in the month of September, and are also desperately waiting for pay day at the end of the month.

The problem is that the relationship you have with employees at home is a close, trusting one and everyone comes up with such worthy, needy requests that you’d have to be pretty heartless to refuse. However, last night when the sixth person asked us for a loan, I cynically wondered if we were being complete mugs (I’m sure our friends here would say we are) and if perhaps; ‘he who has the most heart wrenching sob story gets the most money and the most sympathetic ear.’

Many employers refuse to give out loans on principle, but when bank accounts are not realistic for all employees it’s understandably difficult to save. Plus, you can never plan for the odd family crisis and bit of bad luck.

All our loans have been given for worthy causes (I think):

1. A family member died and this employee needed to contribute to funeral costs and travel home.
2. An employee’s out of work but bright daughter wanted desperately to go to pharmaceutical college, so a loan was needed for fees, uniform, board, lodging.
3. Another employee is Granny to three children, twins aged seven and a nine year old whose parents are both dead, as is their great aunt who was caring for them previously. Each time our employee travels home she takes lots of cash and on arrival she always says the kids are ill with malaria or some such, so there are doctors fees to settle first, before school fees, clothes etc.
4. Another employee is using his initiative to buy land back home, but is running a debt with us to keep up with payments of 10,000 shillings every four months to meet the purchase price.
5. A nightwatchman’s brother, who is a policeman, was ill up country, so he needed money to travel up to see him and pay for medical treatment.
6. The second night watchman needs money for school fees (as does everyone – i.e. the ex-cook, and the recently burgled mechanic).

It’s more complex when the nightwatchmen ask for money as we don’t actually pay them direct (instead we pay a security firm), so we cannot deduct their loans at source but instead rely on the fact that they’ll gradually pay us back and hopefully won’t get transferred to guard another property. If their employers knew that they were asking us for cash they would be sacked immediately.

For our employees, repaying a loan obviously means less cash in hand each month, which then has the knock on effect of us being asked for; ‘kitu kidogo’ (a little something) more regularly i.e. £1.50 for food here or some such. Everyone gets a midmonth advance already in order to help with managing money – this is common practice. So whilst it’s a complete luxury having kind and hard working employees at home, it’s not as straightforward as you might first imagine because often it tugs on the heartstrings - and the purse strings too!

Saba Douglas-Hamilton's Perfect Weekend

I have to put my hands up and admit it; I’m just dead jealous – but when Saba Douglas-Hamilton is featured in the Saturday Telegraph Weekend, on the ‘My Perfect Weekend’ column (aug 11th 2007) my hackles cannot fail to rise. This is because she has the perfect job, clattering around the Masai Mara in her long wheel base Landrover, whispering into the camera about the movements of leopard and lion for ‘Big Cat Diary’, fashioning stories out of age old wildlife behaviour and transfixing viewers back home.

The problem is that she is a very ‘white Kenyan’ type, third generation or so and extremely comfortable with living in Africa where everything she does is ‘fabulous, amazing, stunning’ and never ‘mundane, boring, normal’ (like say, my suburban Nairobi life). Her name ‘Saba’ (Swahili word for the number seven), is typically exotic and rooted in East Africa, her sister is called ‘Dudu’ (Swahili meaning: insect), their parents have made game conservation their living and hang out at an ‘amazing’ ranch in Naivasha. There are quite a few people like Saba in Kenya, and sadly they never fail to make you outsiders feel more than a little inadequate.

In the column she says:
‘Weekends and weekdays really have no relevance in my life. I do things according to seasons or full moons, or during the migration of the animals I’m filming.’
(I say; how decadent!)

This is a girl who claims she packs up the Landrover and just drives, to the desert, mountains or any other hostile Kenyan landscape that I’d always shy away from unless there was the promise of a stone built lodge with a bar and a swimming pool. Her simple camp comprises;
‘…a tarpaulin on the ground, a bedroll and a small fire.’
It’s all so damn effortless for her. Camping sends shivers down my spine as my mind starts racing about the sheer volume of planning and packing it involves. Weekends in Nairobi are about visiting restaurants, cinemas, entertaining the children and seeing friends, whereas Saba says;
‘We only go back to Nairobi because it is the one place where we can communicate with the outside world, but we try to spend as little time there as possible.’
My guess is, that the reason she doesn’t like being in Nairobi is that it’s all too fearfully boring and normal with too many people (or rather plebs).

After I’d read the 600 or so words I felt thoroughly down hearted. She’s not tied by school runs, her weekends are about night swimming in the sea at Lamu amongst the phosphorescence, putting up a ‘simple camp’ on the edge of a desert and diving along cattle trails and dry river beds in her beloved Landrover before jetting off to the next film shoot. The quirky ‘shack’ she describes as her Nairobi home is doubtless also effortlessly ‘stylish’.

I was cheered by the fact that she seems not yet to have reconciled herself to having a husband yet (she’s only been married a year and says she travels a lot without him) and admitted to being ‘territorial’, even hinted at being ‘bossy’ on previous ‘perfect weekends’. Children may put the kibosh on such a fabulous lifestyle – but then again they probably won’t, she will doubtless still manage with ayahs and an unconventional lifestyle.

However, I’d just like to say to ‘Big Cat Diary’ or any other fascinating documentary maker with an eye on Kenya, if Saba is not available next time (hopefully she’ll be busy changing nappies or something), I’d be glad to slip into her glamorous shoes and ‘help out’ with some TV presenting.

(Dream on! I hear you chorus….)

My quirky African handmade furniture and the ticking bed

Moving to East Africa as newly weds years ago, meant that all we had to ship from England was our John Lewis wedding list stuff. The usual – Denby ‘oven to table’ wear in the overly popular blue and white (all my friends married in that era have the same), stainless steel cutlery, a magi-mix, a camcorder, a microwave, a cool box on wheels, a mirror, a tv. We didn’t choose any glasses, especially smart cut glass, for fear of it breaking in transit, on the way to Africa. Curtains were made from lengths of fabric from the second hand market where we found designer names like Cath Kidson, Ralph Lauren and Designers Guild.

The upshot of our situation was that when we moved into our first house, we didn’t have any furniture and as a result now all our cupboards, beds, tables, chairs and sofas are a hotchpotch of items ‘made in Africa’ often by ‘jua khali fundis’, literally translated as hot sun workmen, or rather carpenters who operate from a shack on the side of the road or work out in the open under the hot sun.

Our first buy was a large low pine varnished bed measuring two metres by two metres made in Tanzania. The dimensions were chosen so that we had plenty of space and didn’t crowd one another in the stifling, humid climate of Dar es Salaam. Finding a mattress was tricky though.

We’ve got a pretty chest of drawers, carved from top to bottom with safari animals (giraffe, hippo, lion, buffalo, zebra etc) made by Tanzanian Mkonde carvers, the top is a bit wobbly as nothing balances on the carved surface. We have a large solid wood hippo whose ears were chewed off by our first Alsatian puppy. We’ve got a tv cabinet that had to morph into a file cabinet as it ended up too small for the tv (I gave the carpenter measurements of the tv and he translated them as outside measurements of the cabinet itself. Then a second attempt at a tv cabinet whose doors don’t quite meet in the middle as the wood shrank after it was made.

Our dining room chairs are a bit wobbly as they were made on the side of the road which is just dirt and dust in dry season, mud in wet season and so it’s hard to find a properly flat surface there on which to judge the length of the chair legs. There’s also one chair that squeaks like mad every time you made the slightest movement because the joints have all got loose and unglued, the kids love sitting on that one!

We have some funny Zanzibar stuff, a couple of side tables with drawers, too low to get your legs under, a standing mirror, round occasional tables and a brass studded chest that is impossible to get shiny. There are some bits of old furniture; desks and shelves that were being thrown out from my husband’s office that I snapped up, then tried to get creative for hours and hours by doing DIY colour washes and white wash effects. They never turned out very well, the clear finishing varnish I used has all gone yellow but they are still in use.

The kids have pine ‘sleigh’ beds painted gloss white with huge bolts poking out of each end and the ‘copy of a Mothercare top seller’ cot has just survived the third child who is now nearly out of it. We never really got the sliding mechanism right for the cot’s lifting/adjustable side which has always been stiff and unwieldy but that’s not surprising when it comprises a botched attempt at a roughly hand cut out metal plate and screw head that fits inside, sliding up to a wobbly notch and down again.

In a fit of creativity and when we heard we were moving to cooler climbs, I ordered from the friendly ‘Mohammed – Carpenter’ an Edwardian style bed copied from a photograph in ‘Homes and Gardens’. The result was not an exact replica, it came out a bit bigger than I’d expected and there are still protruding bolts, but to be fair it’s not a bad attempt at a copy. We left our original 2 metre x 2 metre pine bed behind and disassembled the ‘mninga’ (local hardwood) ‘Edwardian’ one to freight to Nairobi. The bed dwarfs our now smaller bedroom but since we’ve found a much worse, more distracting problem. It ticks!?!?

Night after night I’m woken by our ticking bed. The slightest movement or roll by my husband sets it off and there it goes;
‘tick, tick, tick, tick, tick’ right next to my ear.

I’ve tried banging it, then shaking the headboard; first I thought there was some weird ticking beetle in it, or ticking worm. Now we’ve narrowed the problem down to a loose bolt possibly – but it seems strange that that should ‘tick’. It’s been periodically ticking for four and a half years now. Occasionally it stops for a few months, then starts up again. My husband is threatening to get rid of the bed as with three children and four dogs we have enough night time disturbances without a ticking bed, but now I’ve got all sentimental about it and don’t want to my copy of an antique bed featured in ‘Homes and Gardens’ and made by Mohammedi to go. I love our quirky, handmade furniture, each piece has a funny story to tell.

Life gets in the way

Yesterday morning I was hoping to update my blog when other things got in the way, as they do.
After the school run, I went to the gym (late), only to find that I was the only willing volunteer for the 'sets and reps' aerobics class, so 'Rodgers' and I had to cajole other gym members off running machines and cross trainers to join me in a one hour class. As a result we started late and afterwards, exhausted, I just had to have a coffee in order to recover from an unusually high speed routine.
Returned home, desperate for a shower and found fundis in the house (workmen). We discovered last week the reason for our scarily high electricity bills was down to an electrical fault in the water heater upstairs. We could never work out why, when we fitted a timer device in an attempt to reduce our bills, the water was not really getting hot. In fact, to get hot water, the heater would have to be on for hours and hours. Then, after four and a half years (plus however long our predecessors lived in the house) a clever fundi climbed up into the roof, looked at our water storage tanks and noted that the water inside was warm! The conclusion was that our little water heater has been battling to head not only it's contents but however many gallons four large water tanks in the roof contain. hmmmm. This would also explain why sometimes our cold water tap ran hot.

Anyway, I made a cup of tea for the fundi who was waiting for hours for his boss to arrive with 'spares' and was madly handing out biscuits from a batch our nanny had made, but I'm afraid to say were not a success. I'm supposed to be teaching her to cook, but keep throwing ingredients and books at her and disappearing out of the door so it's not going that well. Also, I can never make good biscuits either, so what chance is there? The nanny (ayah) in question, was on leave yesterday, so I was making use of the opportunity to give away all the biscuits without offending her.

Then, I started a struggle with the washing machine. I never operate the damn thing (the ayah who was on leave normally does) and couldn't get any water to go in to the tub. After numerous attempts of switching the thing on and off and searching for instruction booklets, I got frustrated and called the 'on leave' nanny on her mobile for help (she said she was going away on personal family business, but sounded suspiciously like she was at home - I heard her granddaughter in the background). 'Yes, it's sometimes giving me problems' she said - you'll have to ask Shadrack (the gardener) to help'. Hrrumph. I hoped I didn't sound too cross. Got the machine working with the help of Shadrack. We discovered a blocked water inlet pipe -actually, detaching the pipe was his idea.

Then the other gardener said he needed to see a doctor as his calf muscles had been giving him problems for ages since a fall off his bike last week. So I took him to a nearbye clinic, via the cashpoint as I had no cash, while my two year old wailed in her car seat about not going into the shop to buy sweeties.

The hot water fundis hung around all day but somehow didn't get the job finished, so last night and this morning we had no hot water for a bath or shower. In fact, it's now 2.30pm the next day and they've still not returned to finish the job.

Anyway, Somehow the morning was gone.

Today wasn't much better. Our alarm clock went off at 6am as usual and I flung out of bed to wake the 7 year old, whose alarm had failed to wake her. Then I watched her face crumple as she reached under her pillow to find the tooth fairy had 'forgotten' to visit in the night. I called out to my slumbering husband; 'the tooth fairly forgot to come last night?!?*' She's seven and it's only her second lost tooth, so you can imagine the anticipation over it all.
'Perhaps she thought it was too wet to come last night' I struggled 'it's been raining all night - you never know, she might come during breakfast'
Queue.. husband, who leapt out of bed and flew downstairs in search of gathering change kept in his car, but then set off the burglar alarm in his haste as we'd failed to remember to disengage the thing before opening the back door. So, long apology to the security back up team who arrived in their pickup ready for doing battle with intruders.

Fortunately, miraculously, the tooth fairy did remember to visit during breakfast so someone's day got back on track - but mine still hasn't. I'm late for the school run......

East Africa Driving Tips - additions

On returning to Nairobi from our trip to the coast there’s been a bit of time to reflect on our twenty hours driving that we’d done in that week (Nairobi/Funzi – Funzi/Watamu – Watamu/Nairobi. It inspired me to add a few extra East Africa Driving Tips to my previous post:

1. If a vehicle is heading straight toward you at over 100 kilometres per hour on the wrong side of the road whilst attempting a kamikaze overtaking manoeuvre, don’t be surprised if they frantically flash their lights at poor unsuspecting ‘you’ for being in their way. You may be left wondering who should really be angrily flashing who, as you are forced to swerve off the road.

2 Watch out (especially when being terrifyingly driven off the road) for sharp ‘drop offs’ on the edge of the tarmac. The verge can be several feet below the tarmac surface. Often steering off the highway onto the dirt verge is impossible as you would almost certainly roll your car when trying to negotiate the precipice down at speed. Apparently new roads are now taking into account the need for ‘shoulders’:

Sunday Standard (9/10/07) Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Roads and Public Works, Richard Abura said that some of the old parts of the Nairobi/Mombasa road were constructed in the 1960s:
‘We are making our roads wider now with a width of at least seven to eight metres.’

3 Don’t misestimate your journey time and wind up driving in the dark, it could lead to divorce. Potholes, carts, pedestrians, donkeys and cyclists are impossible to see (no bikes seem to have lights). In one place we found rocks had been inexplicably laid across the width of the road (luckily there was no oncoming traffic so we were able to go round, fearing a highjack trap). Earlier on we’d seen piles of contractor’s stones and sand piled on the highway waiting to be used for road repairs, but they were completely un-signposted and totally invisible at night – probably a nasty accident waiting to happen.

4 Roll up windows when passing large speeding buses, you may get hit by a ‘flying toilet’ or thin plastic bag filled with excrement. Passengers on long journeys have no ‘in car’ loos like the smart English ones but instead stop off occasionally at service stations. In fact loo stops are a bit of an issue on all long car journeys. I’d always recommend stopping on the verge and wearing closed shoes to avoid splashes, this option is without doubt preferable to public facilities found at petrol stations or cafés. Our kids are only given boring water to drink, no favourite juices allowed.

A friend of mine gave a lift to a friend’s nanny on a nine hour drive to Nairobi. Whilst his kids stayed quiet as mice, good as gold, the nanny repeatedly kept asking to stop for a wee. As the driver struggled up escarpments and battled past container lorries on the long journey home he was not amused to have to stop for the nanny’s calls of nature and then be forced to watch the same lorries pass him again as was helplessly stopped on the side of the road. After frequent pulling over, the final straw came when he was forced to stop just outside the city limits at a busy ‘weigh bridge’ full of bustling freight lorries practically within sight of home. No one could understand what the reason for all the wee stops were, until half a dozen empty water bottles were found in her seat at the eventual journey’s end.

This friend also mentioned a story he’d heard from a member of staff at a tourist lodge in the Masai Mara. One of the lodge vehicles had taken a crowd of tourists out on a game drive during the world famous migration season in the park. The car had pulled up overlooking the Mara river bank and the Masai guide predicted that the waiting herd of hundreds if not thousands of wildebeest were about to cross the water. Tension mounted as predatory crocodiles circled in the river and wildebeest tentatively risked their lives to take a drink then hurriedly retreated as a croc snapped from beneath the brown water. It was exciting edge of your seat stuff, until the atmosphere was broken by a lady in the back who said she needed a wee.
‘Can you hang on?’ the guide asked, ‘the wildebeest crossing should be in the next few minutes.’
Another tourist suggested;
‘Why not jump out and go behind a bush quickly?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not the kind of girl that squats behind bushes’.
After a harrumph she hung on and ten minutes passed. The animals were twitching and everyone held their breath in anticipation of the crossing, until the silence was suddenly broken by the girl in the back violently shaking the seat in front of her shouting:
‘I have to go back to the lodge right now, I need to pee!!’
Reluctantly the vehicle turned around to make the lengthy journey back to the lodge. At dinner time the tourist learned that they missed one of the largest and most spectacular migration crossings of the season, by minutes.

Whilst I sympathise with the lady in question, as no one likes crouching behind thorn bushes for a call of nature (and I’m particularly painfully modest about it), perhaps she should have swallowed her pride on this occasion. I expect the disappointed and resentful stares of her fellow passengers might have been punishment enough.

Oh, I also have a ‘worst wildlife moments’ one to add to my list too, though this one is not that bad:

On returning to Nairobi from a week’s holiday, I was bemused to find the kitchen tap spluttering and seemed somehow blocked. Seconds later I discovered that when the water appeared, so did a colony of large black ants which were flying out of the faucet along with wiggling white larvae. It took quite a lot of running of the tap to get rid of them all because they kept spattering out and I was wondering whether they had nested in the tap itself or worse, in the roof tank. It was enough to quite put me off the prospect of having a much needed shower.

Kenya Road Traffic Accident

There was a lot in the press this weekend about road traffic accidents in Kenya, which was an issue highlighted by public outrage that thirty people died together in a single road accident involving a PSV (Public Service Vehicle) last week and were buried at mass funeral in Kisii on Friday. Long distance buses (country buses) and mini buses (or matatus) are more often than not in the centre of road accidents because they speed around and drive dangerously. In town, it’s most rare to see a smashed car in the road without a smashed matatu or two next to it.

In October 2003 new regulations were introduced by Government, spearheaded by a minister named John Michuki – they became commonly known as the ‘Michuki Rules’. He brought in sensible measures such as setting a limit on the number of passengers per vehicle, the compulsory fitting of speed governors so that buses could not exceed 80kms per hour, making the fitting and use of seatbelts compulsory and insisting on uniformed PSV crew (touts and drivers had been becoming increasingly aggressive and gangster like) and white painted vehicles with a smart yellow stripe (before they were covered in graffiti & slogans). At the time there was uproar and public bus services were suspended as their operators staged strikes and then hiked ticket prices, however soon enough, with the help of traffic police enforcing the new laws, the measures were upheld and the general public heaved a sigh of relief as they believed that climbing aboard a bus would no longer mean taking their lives into their foolhardy hands.

Now, in 2007, matatu and bus operators have reached a point where they’ve figured out ways of tampering with speed governors and overloading is taking place again. Seatbelts are broken and redundant. There are rumours of bribery among traffic police officers who seem to have run out of steam in the fight to enforce the public transport ‘Michuki Rules’. Further complicating matters is the fact that the majority of PSVs are owned by top ranking Government officials and police officers.

Statistics of those killed in road traffic accidents in Kenya has increased (– although there was a lull in 2004 after new PSV rules were implemented). Here is a comparison with UK statistics:

2003 - 2,937 died on the roads in Kenya UK – 3,508 dead due to road accidents
2004 – 2,264 (i.e. the statistic decreased)
2005 - 2,531 (numbers up again) UK – 3,201 fatalities
2006 stats are predicted to be higher again. UK – 3,172 fatalities

UK population mid 2006, over 60 million
Kenya population 2005, over 34 million

So you are almost fifty percent more likely to be killed on the roads in Kenya, but road accidents here make front page news because we can blame poor roads and badly maintained vehicles, whereas in England the statistics seem very high in spite of the newest roads and modern vehicles equiped with air bags and the latest technology.

Sleeping Janitor

I took this picture with my phone of this lady asleep in the public loos in a shopping centre in Mombasa - she must have been very tired!!

Africa/me: 1/nil

Had a real 'Africa: 1' 'Me:0' shopping trip yesterday.

I went to a local petrol station for fuel and to refill (or rather swap an empty for a full) gas cylinder. First, there was no gas though I was informed that the delivery truck was due imminently... but they had been waiting for it for two days. The manager said he would call the gas people to find out what had happened, but would not be able to make the call for another 45 minutes as they would be on their lunch break at the other end. Then I gave instructions to put a few thousand shillings worth of diesel in the car and popped over to the nearbye cash point in order to get some cash to pay with. I found that the atm machine was out of service, then tried another bank and the queue was horrendous enough to put me off waiting, plus I was a bit concerned about dumping my car for ages.

I then returned to the petrol station whereupon the filling lady told me that although the pump read '2,500' she had actually put '3,500' of fuel in the car as I'd requested:
'What happened?' I asked.
'Oh,' she said, 'I put 1,000 in, then the power went off and the digital display went to 0000, then I put in the remaining 2,500'
'OK' I responded; 'so I'll just have to believe you on this one'
'Yes,' she said; 'you will just have to believe me'

Fine, but now I've got no cash so I hand over my bank debit card. The card and the petrol pump attendant disappear for hours. Whilst my car is beginning to feel like an oven sitting in the sun, I decide that a rather than waiting I'd rather nose into the station office where my card is being 'run' and there I find a small room crammed with almost the entire staff of the place. The Manager is on the phone apparently 'referring' my card, but is told at the other end that he can't be given an authorisation code on a debit card, only a credit card.
'Nonsense' I said, knowing that with communications failures and problems with phone lines here, shop assistants often have to call for authority before the card goes through.

The female petrol pump attendant is stabbing at the small card machine and repeatedly swiping my card in a seemingly random manner. When I tell her that it should be OK to call my bank for authority, she suddenly disconnects the phone line from the card machine, then attaches it to the phone handset.
'What are you doing? You haven't given the card a chance to go through yet?' so then she removes the phone line from the handset and puts it back into the card machine.
'I think it will have disconnected by now' I said.

Meanwhile, the manager is asking her why she is charging me 3,500 when the bill says 2,500. She leans in to him with her answer, which is whispered and in fast swahili and I was straining to catch it. I concluded that the story she told me and the one he got were very different though the detail was hazy.

Anyway, the card finally, magically went through and I walked away with various tiny pieces of paper showing failed attempts to 'run' my card, just in case I get charged by the bank a few times for the same transaction due to operator error. It doesn't help that I won't get my bank statement for at least another month, by which time all the little pieces of paper will be gone forever.

The whole rigmarole took quite some time and I was thankful that none of the kids were with me. Even the 45 minutes had passed to put a call into the gas supplier, but when I remembered this I realised that the manager had now disappeared. 'Cut and run' I thought.

Since then, I have been back to the same petrol station four times with my empty gas cylinder enquiring about the elusive delivery truck to have had no luck. Each time the answer is different 'it's coming at 3.30' 'it will arrive in the morning' 'try later' and still I have nothing to cook with.

( - 19/9/07 My bank called me today to query a transaction for 3,500/- that has been run four times in succession from a fuelling station.... hmmmm)

Mechanic's clothes

I forgot to mention the mechanic who lost all his possessions in a robbery in the 'ex-staff' update. We scrabbled together a small hold all full of clothes some items were painful to part will. I had great difficulty persuading my husband to part with a particularly expensive 'Hugo Boss' pair of brand new navy trainer shoes which have always been frankly too small because we bought them in a rush on a visit to England and didn't read the 'Euro' shoe size properly. Then I reluctantly handed over a pair of size 30 'Diesel' jeans that sadly have not fitted in the two years since having my last baby in spite of desperate attempts to pour myself into them then suffering stomach cramps as the zip/button was so tight. That was gutting, though to be honest the jeans were actually found at the 'mitumba' markets/second hand, one of my best finds (along with some black knee high, high heeled leather 'Bally' boots). There was also a slightly girly khaki t shirt that I'm not sure if he'll wear and various other items all imbued with history and memories.

Anyway, he popped back a few days later and I asked if the clothes were any use. You can imagine my horror when he said that the jeans were 'too big' and that he might give them to his father?!?! However, at least he was wearing the trainer shoes.

Ex staff and back to school

Quick (or rather long) update....

For the sake of continuity I thought I’d better give an update on how things are progressing for those people previously mentioned in my blog:

The cook has started a permanent job working for a nice family on the other side of town, where he is nearer to where his family live, gets a monthly salary plus paid leave and doesn’t have commute to Karen for over an hour on buses then dot from place to place trying to remember where various people keep their oil, flour, spices and how their differing ovens work. Let’s hope the new job works out. I know that he has been in terrible knots about informing and letting down the housewives he was working for around here, but I’m sure they’ll understand. He told me he’d said to one lady that he was ‘going home for a while’, but would be back ‘later’, as I think he was hedging his bets a bit about the new job being a success. I said; ‘come clean and let people know where they stand’, but it’s always easy to give out advice and not so easy when the shoe is on the other foot. I also feel partially responsible as I may have had something to do with getting him the new job in the first place.

The ex-askari (night watch man) who is HIV positive has been back in touch. Whilst we were away I received a text that read:

Good evening. I was diagnosed of basal pneumonia. I started medications, I finished injections today. Am getting strong, coughing has lessened kabisa. Thank u for your assistance. GOD BLESS U U SERVANTS OF JESUS.

Not sure how equipped I feel about being a 'servant of Jesus'.

I think he’s now been off work for about a month due to ill health. Yesterday he called to say that he’s been made redundant from his job (along with 85 other people), as one of the company’s main security contracts has been cancelled. He may be called back if more work comes up in the form of a new contract. He said he was lucky enough to receive his ‘dues’ or redundancy money, but others did not or for some reason were not eligible to get it. He’s waiting for the money that he saved through the company’s ‘co-operative society’ to be paid out. In fact, he sounded pretty relieved to be out of his difficult situation and with a wedge of cash in his pocket, but I think that the money will run out pretty quick and things might start to look bad again and it will be difficult for him to find work. Meanwhile, the yolk of responsibility is starting to bear down on our shoulders. Perhaps this blog should become a Nairobi employment agency instead of a diary?

Meanwhile, another ex-askari (who was under suspicion for masterminding the theft of our car stereo/dvd player a year ago – see previous blog post) has dropped a letter at the gate as he is in search of work too. He was very nice and we liked him. We bought him a bicycle (he wanted one with gears) as he was,off his own bat doing a computer course and was finding it difficult to get to college and work on time. We were impressed by his initiative. Some of the cost of the bicycle was meant to be given as a loan, but we kind of cancelled this as he was moved on to another property after our break in, so in the event the bike was ‘gratis’. After he left we weren’t sure if we felt a bit mugged (if he really was responsible for getting someone to steal the stereo). Anyway he wrote:
Dear Sir & Madam,
I would like to break the silence by thanking you people for you tireless help and hospitality you extended to me; you people gave me easy time that aided me to complete my studies as far as transportation was pertained.
However would like to inform you that currently am jobless and requesting for any vacancy from you people’s hands as you had earlier promised, I feel I should still work under you!
Thanks for you people’s positive move and god bless.
I’m ashamed to say that we haven’t responded to that one yet.

Plus there is another ex-askari Moses who still phones from time to time although it’s now been three years since he worked for us. I gather that he is gainfully employed and quite happy but I think likes to keep in touch with us in order to keep his options open. You have to admire his tenacity.

In the meantime, kids are back to school. The kindergarten has less than half the number of pupils that were there last term, as most have defected to a new, more popular school. Staying positive about choosing to stay took nerves of steel and today I was excited to see my middle daughter had football and computer studies in the afternoon ( as she’s a tomboy), but when I picked her up she said that the football teacher hadn’t pitched and computer studies was cancelled as the power went off. Perhaps that goes some way to explaining why so many have decamped – but to be fair, it is only her first day.

The eldest was happy to no longer be the youngest in her ‘big’ school but we were worried when she said that her latest best friend was a new girl in the year below and she’d spent all her break time looking after her. It was difficult to bite back the words:
‘Haven’t you got any friends in your own class?!’
Yet more kids have left that school too, which is sad but most were moving overseas so it couldn’t be helped and they’ve already been replaced by new kids, so there are now new parents to get to know.

Someone I met at the coast was moaning about changes at her children’s kindergarten down there, so it was comforting to know that these worries are universal.

I keep wondering how our old friends who have just left Kenya are doing back in Blighty?

Self Catering on the Kenyan coast

Just spent a glorious week at the beach; kicking along white sand beaches, wallowing in rock pools and swimming pools, bouncing on waves at high tide, snorkling amonst tropical fish, eating lots, sunning myself and dodging mosquitoes. Our eldest daughter returns to school today looking like she’s recovering from chicken pox as she got so badly bitten on the first couple of nights and the scars are still in evidence. I feel like a failure of a mother and still don’t quite understand why it happened in spite of treating nets, lighting coils, plugging chips into power sockets and copious amounts of Doom sprayed everywhere at sunset. In fact, going to bed at night ended up being a toxic experience, so, as well as looking out for signs of malaria in the family, I’ll be searching for long term mosquito repellent poisoning.

Strange that Kenya coast houses don’t simply put mosquito gauze at their windows to keep the blighters out once you’ve nuked the ones inside. When living in Tanzania we always had a screen over each opening and kept doors firmly shut. Perhaps it’s part of the Kenyan ‘devil may care’ attitude, where camping amongst deadly elephant, buffalo and lion is a breeze, strolling freely through game reserves and sundowners at the river’s edge are the done thing, waterskiing/swimming amongst hippo and crocs is no sweat and for some there is still plenty of spare time to party hard in spite of small children’s routines, school runs, cooking meals etc (all these jobs can be out sourced.)

The self catering holiday is a bit of a different kettle of fish in East Africa to that experienced in England. Cornish houses will charge £1,500 per week peak season and expect you to come with your own towels and sheets for the privilege. Not that I’m knocking it, but you might then spend the week hoping for good weather, popping to the local Spa shop, cooking, washing clothes, making beds and cleaning up after everyone. In Kenya, you will find hot sun, blue sea, white sand, sheets on the bed and two or three dedicated staff at your disposal; a cook (often male), a junior clearing up person and someone to launder and iron your clothes every day if you wish. It’s usually possible to delegate shopping by sending one of the staff off on his bike to the local fruit and vegetable stand or small supermarket that in turn will be happy to set up a tab for you to clear at the end of the holiday. In some cases you can even arrange for shopping to be done before your arrival so that there’s bacon, eggs and milk in the fridge already. A fish man (dealer, as opposed to fisherman) will turn up on the doorstep to take your order for fish, prawns, lobster or calamari, last week it was ‘Kazungu’ who had a moped and a mobile phone. Every day the table is magically laid, food arrives beautifully presented with the minimum of effort and tea tray is produced at 4pm. No washing machines, no washing up, no damp smelly salty clothes hanging around, no sweeping sand from the living room floor and all at a third of the price!

Having previously been to hotels in favour of the ‘no fuss’ aspect of meals being provided, I’m now a convert to the Kenyan house rental approach, though next time I might enquire about mosquito gauze on the windows and the possibility of air conditioning during the hot season. Next time, I might even read a book, instead of only summoning up the energy to compulsively devour ‘Heat’ and ‘National Enquirer’ magazines to learn about Britney’s narcotic lolly pops, which celebrity is anorexic and who is headed for ‘Splitsville’?!