Mugabe's landslide victory

Promise not to get too political, but the way that Mugabe swore himself into office following his self professed 'landslide' election victory was more than eerily familiar. Monday's Nation newspaper reported:
'Mr Mugabe was quickly sworn in for a new five year term in a ceremony on the lawns of state house, with a military band, marching honour guard and judges in red robes and white wigs. Security cheiefs queued up to swear allegiance.'
TV footage of Kibaki's hurried swearing in at the end of December '07 spring to mind.

The fact that Moses Wetangula, Foreign Affairs Minister yesterday suggested to the African Union, now in talks in Sharm El Sheik, that Kenya (taking it's queue from recent experience) could help mediate in a solution that involved Mugabe and Tsvangirai entering into a coalition government, is sadly laughable. It seems that Mugabe has been quick to emulate Kenya in the speediness of his swearing in, but having gone so far down the road of violence and intimidation to win votes, will hardly be sympathetic to Wetangula's suggestions.

The following article entitled;
'All hope gone as chances of change disappear under dictator's massive grip'
is perhaps more realistic

Zimbabwe Elections

Yesterday I said that Kenya had been very quiet on the issue of Zimbabwe's elections, especially in light of the fact that they so recently experienced their own troubled and bloody election. Today I stand corrected as I hear that Prime Minister Raila Odinga (increasingly the international spokesperson for Kenya, in place of Kibaki), has spoken out to lend Kenya's support to the African Union in any decision they make following an appeal by Morgan Tsvangirai to postpone Friday's run off election and for international help in the crisis. Raila suggested that the AU go in to negotiate and even went so far as to suggest that the AU send a peace keeping force of troops to Zimbabwe.

Following Mr Tsvangirai's appeals for foreign help to end the crisis, Nelson Mandela spoke of the 'tragic failure' of Mugabe's leadership at his 90th birthday lunch yesterday; the Queen is said to be stripping Mugabe of his knighthood (a little overdue perhaps?!? I wonder if he will be much bothered about that). The US say that if Friday's election goes ahead, it will not recognise Mugabe as re elected leader, as the voting process will not have been free and fair. Leader who are members of SADC (Southern African Development Community) have called for the run-off to be postponed.

Mugabe said that Friday's vote will go ahead, then afterwards he will consider negotiation. Tsvangirai said poignantly that if the vote goes ahead and Mugabe inevitably declares himself re elected leader, then there will be no negotiation, stating;
'I will not talk to an illegitimate President.'

These words must sound all too scarily familiar to Kenyans. It seems that the next 48 hours will be critical for Zimbabwe, as international condemnation finally gains momentum, after a somewhat appalling delay. I wonder, will other African countries be able to pull themselves together in time to make a difference for Zimbabwe?

Following Kenya's December 2007 election, we learned that each day and even each hour became crucial as events took over. Also, ultimately it was international intervention that won the day, Desmond Tutu's arrival diffused tension on the first day of mass action, the AU chairman John Kufour flew over for a few days and hope was restored by the extended visit of former UN head and unofficial saint, Kofi Annan who led peace negotiations over rocky weeks.

In spite of all this effort, the situation reached stalemate until a pivotal point when Condi Rice arrived from the States and held face to face meetings with Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki, going above the heads of the 'dialogue team for truth and reconciliation'. We will probably never know the details of their discussion (there has been lots of speculation!), but whatever she did (and I wish I had been a fly on the wall!), she pulled it off and her arrival signalled a return to peace for Kenya after weeks of volatile negotiation, more bloodshed and a frustrating lack of progress on a solution to the crisis. Miraculously, after weeks of sticking firmly to their guns, Odinga and Kibaki agreed to a Coalition Government and power sharing. I know that the situation is very different in Zimbabwe, but I perhaps naively keep my fingers crossed that there is a small chance for a form of democracy to win out, especially if other countries do their damnedest to get involved.

Nairobi city - would you pay to pee?

We have recently plugged our radio alarm clock, which has been gathering dust for years, into the kitchen. We initially bought it with the intention of waking to the gentle murmurings of the radio rather than bleeping alarm, but discovered that frequent (almost daily) power cuts wrecked havoc with the digital clock and the thing therefore cannot to be relied upon.

Ironically, the only station we can receive clearly is Easy FM because the reception is not very good in the kitchen. This is ironic as Easy FM is also the only radio station I can get in my car since my aerial broke. Now I am seriously overdosing on instalments of popular real life phone in; ‘Busting cheating spouses’ (the radio station were offering free paternity tests to settle disputes a while back!) and ‘Blues and R&B’ generally. The upside is that Easy FM run hourly five minute news updates which I am addicted to. I arrive at the school car park and won’t shut off the ignition until the news is over. There is not too much to report, mostly wrangling over constitutional review, MPs pro or against the taxation of their allowances and the ongoing problems of resettling Internally Displaced Kenyans (who fled their homes since election). Curiously, Zimbabwe’s problems have hardly been touched upon in the local press, especially in light of the fact that Kenya was so recently caught in the mire of a flawed election itself.

Back to the point. Yesterday evening while chopping vegetables, I heard a news item about the construction of public toilets in Nairobi. It flashed through my mind that when shuttling between school drop offs and pick ups every day, one of the most familiar roadside sights is to see a man peeing, bold as brass, on the verge. I must see at least twenty per day and wonder why my children never point and laugh, but I guess they are as used to seeing people attending to calls of nature it as I am. Last week I spotted a child squatting down in the open right next to the road in a built up area. I thought to myself, it won’t be the same old Nairobi if there are public toilets. As my mind wandered I heard that the Minister of ‘whatever the relevant department was’, say that the public toilets were planned in an effort to try and combat disease in the city, I thought;
‘OK then, great idea!’
I visualised the state of the art, self cleaning stainless steel models that I had seen in England. The newsreader then told listeners that using the facilities would cost five shillings per time and crestfallen I thought;
‘It will never work because they are asking people to pay.’

The lack of public toilets in Nairobi is a major problem giving people no choice but to use the roadside as their public convenience. On Monday, whilst picking up my middle daughter (aged 5) from kindergarten, I casually asked the youngest (aged 2) if she needed a wee. She gave the usual response of ‘No’, but I had a hunch she was lying. We clambered into the car and started on the 25/30 minute drive to the school of my eldest daughter. After about five minutes in the youngest piped up and said (predictably);
‘I need a wee – and I can’t panic!’
I kicked myself for not frogmarching her to the loo in the kindergarten, after all she is only two (though soon to be three) so doesn’t really know better. However, this did not stop me from feeling cross, mainly because I wasn’t sure about my options. Pulling up on the side of the road and letting her do a wee there might be socially acceptable here, but I was driving along a road that is renowned for car jacking and I didn’t fancy being unlucky – I was in too much of a hurry. We bounced over the potholes with my middle daughter consoling the agonised youngest;
‘We are coming up to a smooth bit of road soon!’
And I was driving like a crazed woman, risking accident, in order to get to my next stop as fast as possible. We passed one shopping centre but to search for a parking space, then sprint past all the line shops to the loos inside at the back would take as long as it would getting to our destination. When tears began to spring from the youngest’s eyes, I had a brainwave, we were passing a small children’s medical clinic with off street parking so I screamed in there, ran past expectant receptionists and made it just in time. When I had finally strapped the relieved youngest back into her car seat, the middle daughter said sweetly,
‘I actually need a wee too, but its OK Mummy, I can wait…’

Grey days in Nairobi

The past couple of weeks have been pretty cold in Nairobi because we are going into our ‘winter’. We are used to spending July and August enveloped in low cloud with accompanying drizzle, but this year it seems to have started much earlier in June. The city is 1,870m above sea level, higher than Ben Nevis I gather, so it stands to reason that sometimes we Nairobi dwellers are lost high up in cloud. Many might assume that because I am writing from ‘Africa’, I’m in sweating in tropical heat, but Nairobi is very different to anywhere else and the climate here is best described as ‘temperate’. When the cloud disperses, we are bathed in very strong sun that can burn ferociously, even when the temperature outside is relatively cool. Think: crystal clear air skiing holiday weather then add in a touch of road pollution and you're there! We get a fantastic warm/dry weather over Christmas (very dusty), but it is always chilly in the evenings and the sun rises and sets at around 6.30 all year round, so no long summer evenings sitting outside. (Outdoor lunch parties work well though!)

The reason we have all been moaning about the weather this month, is that we have had grey day after grey day from dawn ‘til dusk for a couple of weeks now, which is unusual as we are used to getting at least an hour or two of sunshine in the middle of the day, all year round, almost without fail. We are feeling cheated, the cold weather has started early and we are flummoxed. Washing hangs limply from the line and won’t dry and today’s common greeting goes something like this;
‘Habari gani?’ – how are you?
‘Nzuri, lakini baridi iko mingi’ – good, but it’s very cold
When I chat to acquaintances that spend the day working out of doors, instead of ‘hello’ I say,
‘pole kwa baridi!’ – sorry about the cold!
and they laugh resignedly then say with good humour,
‘Ndiyo, ni baridi kabisa!’ – yes, it’s freezing!

To be a real Kenyan you have to have a very different thermostat to anyone else. When you are used to temperatures averaging 23 degrees, then cold weather comes as a bit of a shock. The ‘fleece’ jumper is de rigeur here during the cool season, coupled with jeans and a cotton scarf or kikoy wound around the neck. Very home made sheepskin slippers/boots are an optional addition. The irony is that very few actually ever need to own a coat (the only ‘coat’ I own is a denim jacket). There is no need to ever wear wool or gloves. Your nose will not go red from cold; your fingers will not freeze. Worse case scenario is slightly wet shoes and the vaguest damp chill. No houses have or need central heating; a single log fire usually will suffice. So while we go around shivering and complaining, I notice that it is still a steady 15 degrees outside and at night it never drops below 10, so in actual fact it’s really not too cold and certainly not freezing! Warmth is never far away either, because as soon as you venture out of the city and drop to a lower altitude, descending down into the Rift Valley the sun will always be shining.

So if you are coming from Europe to Nairobi over the next few months, pack a light jumper and perhaps a scarf, but if you hear a Kenyan say that it is freezing here, take it with a pinch of salt.

The Global Food Crisis and Kenya

The global food crisis is depressing, to say the least. First thing on Monday morning, I heard the newscaster state over the local radio that due to the rise in the cost of food,
‘Three meals per day is a luxury that now the majority of Kenyans can no longer afford.’
Rapidly rising food and fuel costs since the election feels like the final nail in the coffin, or the ultimate insult, after Kenya attempts to struggle back from what have been a their most disastrous few months ever. Initially we were hoping that food costs would drop after the initial election disruption, but now we must face the fact that the new prices are here to stay.

Raila Odinga on his first official post election trip to the United States, reported that Kenya’s economic growth is sadly predicted to fall to 4.5 percent in 2008 against the impressive 7 percent growth of last year,
‘the situation is worsened by the rapidly rising cost of oil and the world food crisis. The political crisis and consequent insecurity and the displacement of 350,000 (many of whom are still in IDP camps), meant many crops were not planted in time, nor have the rains been kind to us. As a result, a very difficult 12 months lie ahead.’

It is not all doom and gloom. New buildings are being constructed wherever you look, there is hope, big plans for the country, new blood in Government and pledges of yet more aid money to fund development. However, the existence of an overly bloated Cabinet filled with around 100 MPs and their assistants each drawing hefty salaries and claiming hundreds of thousands of shillings in allowances, is rather disheartening for the average Kenyan on the street (not to say crippling for the country) whose monthly budget will no longer stretch far enough. It has recently been proposed that MPs pay tax on their allowances (allowances tot up to three times the MP's salaries i.e. basic salary 200,000/-, plus allowances of 625,000/-), but unsurprisingly this suggestion has not gone down very well. The Daily Nation headline today states that MPs are seeking millions more shillings (Sh650m) for refurbishing Parliament’s debating chamber, building a gym with Jacuzzi, more official Mercedes for the members, increased pensions, more money for official trips and an SUV chase car for the Speaker.

Meanwhile, everyone else is feeling the pinch. Stocking up at the supermarket costs more than ever before. There is less money available for eating out, luxury goods or entertainment. Last week the smartly dressed man queuing in front of my husband at the local corner shop found he did not have enough money for two small bags of milk, so put one back. My husband was moved and bought the second packet of milk for him as he left. He then caught up with the stranger outside and not wanting to embarrass the man, passed it to him saying,
‘I think this is yours.’
Apparently the chap was utterly bemused but my husband asked me,
‘Well, what would you have done?’

Social Stereotype - The Kenya Cowboy's kids..

Kit and Lara have three boys, all born in Nairobi.

Simba, the baby, is used to being slung in his car seat for eight hours at a stretch whilst the family set out on safari or to catch up with old friends up country. When he was new born, they put a couple of oranges on either side of his head, to stop it wobbling and bouncing over the potholes. His ayah is always near at hand and he loves to be carried in a kanga on her back around and around the garden. In fact this is nearly the only way that he can be coaxed off to sleep during day time naps.

Batian, the middle brother is eight years old and goes to Banda School. He never wears shoes and appears not to mind running over gravel or thorny ground barefoot. Even when visiting the local shops, he cannot be coaxed into slipping on a pair of flip flops, so his feet are always filthy dirty. His unkempt longish hair is sandy in colour, he has a year round tan and seems to be cursed with owning only clothes that are either far too large, or far too small. Generally he wears a worn in t-shirt and shorts when not in his school uniform which is a variation on the same. He has long since abandoned his child’s car seat and prefers to ride loose, bouncing around in the back of the Range Rover with the old jerry cans and high lift jack. Batian is extremely polite and greets his parents’ grown up friends with unaffected ease. He is used to mucking in to any situation, is gregarious, loves sports and is considered an easy child.

Kieran is just thirteen years old and gangly tall. He has been able to drive a car since he was eleven. His dress sense differs little from that of his brother, but he prefers proper Surfing designer labels (Billabong, RipCurl etc) on his shorts and t-shirts, and often has an old striped kikoy slung nonchalantly around his neck. This is a critical year for him, as he is faced with common entrance and a fistful of scholarship exams that his parents are willing him to succeed in when he sits them in June. His future of commuting by air from Kenya to a UK public secondary school depends on it. Over the past few months, his mother, Lara, has been busy sending off copious letters to British public schools appealing for bursaries and allowances, explaining that her child is a unique product of Kenya and has so much more to offer than his indoors-y, ‘Play Station’ obsessed piers in England.

Kieran takes the pressure all in his stride, spending weekends at Motor Cross amongst friends and doing as little homework as possible. Weekend evenings are spent at ‘Black Cotton’ disco or ‘The Carnivore’ and the driver will patiently wait in the car park and take him home safely by midnight. Kieran is fortunate to have immense charm on his side, which always wins his mother over in family arguments. His ambition is to join his father in the family owned safari business that takes small groups of American tourists on exclusive trips out into the bush. Perhaps one day he will take the business over, future foreign office travel bans to Kenya and the political situation permitting.

Overlanders..

Just popped in to the local supermarket this morning to buy emergency loo roll after doing the school run and was amused by the sight of two overland truckloads of backpackers pouring out of their vehicles in the car park and heading straight for the shop. There must have been thirty of them at least and judging by their speed, it looked like they had been given a fifteen minute time limit to run in and grab what they needed in a kind of 'supermarket sweep' challenge.

After excitedly swarming inside, gossiping and giggling in familiar English ‘young people’ accents, they proceeded to ram the bread counter and sweetie aisle.
‘Ooo, I could go seriously overboard here!’ said one young girl grabbing at chocolate bars. A similarly young man saw a large packet of Mini Mars and exclaimed,
‘My favourite! I’m going to go for it’ then added with a flourish, ‘you only live once!’
A few went to the mobile phone stand and a couple to the booze section. I saw that they were all in their late teens or early twenties and bursting with energy.

My eyes were popping at the outfits: the sloppy, dirty tracksuit trousers with baggy bottoms; the filthy feet in flip flops some with henna that was wearing off; the unwashed, un brushed, greasy, scrunched up hair; the grungy tee-shirts. The boys wearing ‘my granny made it’ knitted hats, the boys with cheap orange highlights, the saggy shorts; the ground in tan that was half from the sun and half simply filth.

When we lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the place was hovering at that early stage of tourism where backpackers and honeymooners visited, but mainstream hotels had not yet been built. There were no plane loads of package tourists arriving in search of guaranteed sunshine, only the intrepid and the brave visited. After years of socialism, the Tanzanians were used to encounters with missionaries, aid workers and backpackers from overseas, which apparently coloured their view of foreigners generally. When asked what words best described the white people who visited their country, they came up with the following; scruffy, poorly dressed, smelly, teachers.

When I saw the overlanders on this overcast, drizzly Nairobi morning my first reaction was strangely maternal,
‘Oh dear they must be freezing – poor things have camped out all night,’ then,
‘They are not wearing nearly enough clothes!’
Then more frighteningly,
‘One day my girls might want to go off and do this. Oh my God, how could I stop them!’
But as the group rammed each other with baby shopping trolleys, shared jokes and dashed excitedly back to the truck with their sweets, doughnuts and bottles of water, dirty and having almost certainly had a rough night under canvas and I looked down at my loo roll and oven cleaner in my little basket I thought,
‘Wow, they are having so much fun, what a riot!.....Oh dear, I must be getting old.’

Food miles.... again

In spite of risking boring readers stupid, I have decided to smugly quote at length from a tiny news clipping dated 22nd May taken from the UK Daily Telegraph (that my mum kindly sent me) that is entitled:

'End Food Miles Hypocisy, retailers told' by Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

'The food miles myth has been debunked in a new report which warns consumers they could be doing more harm to the environment than good by shunning air-freighted goods.
The report by the Food Ethics Council also says supermarkets should stop being 'carbon hypocrites' about their ethical policies. If too much air-freighted food is banned from the shelves of UK supermarkets, then of thousands of livelihoods could be wiped out in Africa it says.
The think-tank points out that air-freighted food is far less damaging to the environment than home-grown meat and dairy produce, because of the intensive and energy consuming nature of much of British farming and calls on supermarkets to end 'carbon hypocrisy'.
The report does not name any individual grocery chains. However, both Tesco and Marks & Spencer have put stickers of an aeroplane on food that has been flown into the UK.'

My friend in UK emailed me to say that these days with possible recession looming and the credit crunch, the majority of British shoppers are looking for best value for money and a good quality product. Chosing to buy 'local' and therefore pay more is really only the preserve of the wealthy and unrealistic for most, so there shouldn't be too much danger of air-freighted products being boycotted on any great scale. However, it's great news that the 'Food Ethics Council' has spoken out and I feel a little vindicated in my boring old argument persuade you all to; 'BUY KENYAN!' Shame it wasn't front page news..

What to expat housewives do? Work Permits

‘Home leave’ is approaching and with it comes the most frequently asked question, ‘what do you (or rather expat housewives) do all day?’ - it's a question that my husband asks me regularly too!

Before I launch into a scintillating account of what I’ve been up to over the last couple of weeks (in my following post), which will go some way to explain why the infrequent blog posting of late, I must pre-empt it with an important point that not many people know about being an expat spouse – that is, it’s not easy to get a work permit, therefore often it is simply not possible to go out to work.

I have three children and have been busy enough lately thank you very much, but the situation is beginning to change now that the youngest is approaching three years old and the others are at school full time. The financial mountain inevitably looms ever closer as it dawns on us that three children was perhaps rather an extravagance and it’s getting hard for me to justify not working. However, I won’t pretend that I’m the type of person who would dash out to work given half a chance because I admit I could probably have done this if I was really determined to. In actual fact I love being at home, being there to do school runs and most importantly being my own boss.

The problem with living in the developing world as a foreigner is the thorny issue of work permits. The Government Immigration Departments are very tight on giving them out because they don’t want to deprive their indigenous population of employment. Most expats have to apply for their work permit renewal at least three months in advance and the government has the right to refuse it. There are prerequisites to getting a permit, the Immigration Department looks for expats who are providing employment for a good number of local people, giving their employees a professional training and who are bringing a new, specialised skills into the country. Many new work permit applications are rejected if these criteria are not likely to be met. I gather that some permits are procured by ‘oiling the wheels’ of bureaucracy with bribes but there are no guarantees.

My presence here in Kenya is allowed because I am listed as a ‘dependant’ on the two year work permit which is stamped into my husband’s passport. The children and I have dependants’ passes which must also be renewed every two years. To award a second work permit to a single family of expats is rare, but can be sought if ‘paid’ for (around £2,000 for 2 years I think?). This means that employers have to really want you to work for them if they are willing to lay out this capital before you even become an employee, plus they would no doubt expect you to work full time in order to capitalise on their investment. Alternatively you can buy the work permit yourself then look for work and hope that your salary will eventually compensate you. I got around this problem once by working for the British High Commission on a local hire basis (earning a salary of only buttons) as I was, strictly speaking, in the embassy thus working on British soil. Many housewives set up their own ‘cottage industry’ businesses, or work informally on a cash in hand basis networking amongst friends, but they often don’t have official work permits and risk deportation if their activities are discovered by the KRA (Kenya Revenue Authority), thus jeopardising their partner’s career too and their future in the country. Anyone with a personal gripe could report you and put your business under investigation, so it is a realistic fear.

Housewives like me end up writing blogs, getting involved in charity fund raising, becoming excellent horse women, tennis players or golfers and living vicariously through the experiences of our husbands and children... Excuse me if you are a working expat housewife and if you are.. good for you!

What do expat housewives do?

So, back to the original question: ‘What do you (expat housewives) do all day?’ I can’t answer for anyone else and I am lucky to be free from household chores, but FYI this is what I have been up to over the past week:

Friday May 30th to Monday June 2nd
Well at the moment, I have my parents in law staying for three weeks. They and my husband went off to the action packed ‘Rhino Charge’ charity off road driving competition to compete/support and I took our three girls to the beach for the weekend before last with a group of fellow stranded wives whose husbands like to go off and do things on their own. (I’ve done Rhino charge with small children a few times before and it wasn’t much fun – see previous post.)

The coast was lovely but not exactly relaxing as we were busy chasing a group of fourteen children who had morphed into a ‘Lord of the Flies’-esq. gang, where they made up all their own rules, didn’t listen to boring mothers and alternated frequently (both swimmers and non swimmers) between jumping Indian Ocean waves breaking at high tide and then running back into the pool with squeals of delight.

Tuesday June 3rd
Came home from the coast, had my hair done (as previously mentioned).

Combined with the tri annual hairdressing experience, I had tried to buy some designer rip off jeans from a shop outside the hairdresser’s but the one pair I liked had the front button missing. The lady in the shop said,
‘No problem, I can get this fixed this for you! They will be ready tomorrow’ I replied,
‘I don’t think I can take them then, as I live far from here (about 45 min drive across town) and can’t make it back tomorrow’
She then texted me in the hairdresser saying,
‘the jeans can be fixed today!’ ‘is it OK if they are ready by three?’ I said,
‘No, sorry, I hope to be long gone by then’ then she replied,
‘they will definitely be ready by 1.30’
I left the hairdresser at 2.30 and she said that the man she had sent off to fix the jeans was on his way back with them. He had had to take two buses across town to get to the tailor. I felt slightly guilty but was also anxious to get home having frittered so much time in the hairdresser’s chair already and my children had friends to play at home. The shopkeeper and I sat looking at one another for a while and she made a couple of calls on her mobile. The shopkeeper then said,
‘I will go to the car park to find him,’ so then there I was looking after the shop for my new friend because there was no one else there to do it.
‘What happens if a customer comes in?’ I thought.
I sat for twenty minutes minding the shop. It was three O’clock. I phoned the shopkeeper in the car park. She said,
‘I am walking up with the jeans now.’
I heard a car horn in stereo both through the phone and outside the shop so figured, ‘She’s on her way.’
I sat for fifteen minutes more and started thinking,
‘I can’t leave the shop unattended but I have to go home’. Then, ‘hang on this is ridiculous, it’s not my shop. I wonder if she has asked me to sit here so she can get out to do some shopping, chat to friends and grab a soda?!’
I rang her again. She said,
‘I’m walking up, I’m outside the Kikoy shop just around the corner!’
I said,
‘Do you mind if I go and get a sandwich quickly then come back, I’m starving?’
She said,
‘I think it’s OK because the watchman outside will probably keep an eye on the shop, I will be there when you get back.’
I thought,
‘OK. But remember I don’t work here do I?’ and I thought, ‘How much do I really want these jeans?’
I walked down to get a sandwich and noticed that the watchman had no interest in minding the shop. I purposely walked via the Kikoy shop and there was no sign of my new friend or the jeans outside it.
Ten minutes later I went back to the still empty shop and thought,
‘Damn it, she’s playing me for a fool, I can’t wait any longer.’
I rang her guiltily because I felt bad for the man who had taken two buses and was rushing back to get the jeans to me and said,
‘I’m sorry, I have had to leave’ then she hung up on me. I rang back and said,
‘I had to go, it’s the school run you see?’ and she said, ‘OK then, next time.’

Wednesday 4th June
The next day I had a friend from Mombasa for tea along with some other mums who were in the same circle of friends when she lived in Nairobi. She moved away two years ago but we still all miss her. Someone else was supposed to be hosting the tea but she caught me that morning on the school run to ask me to do it as her husband was home sick in bed and didn’t want braying housewives over for tea as he dashed to the loo with vomiting and diarrhoea upstairs – how could I say no?! I quickly baked a cake.

Thursday 5th June
The next job was to think out my eldest daughter’s 8th birthday Hannah Montana sleepover party. At a stretch it’s possible to plan food, entertainment and where everyone is going to sleep in advance, but hard to imagine how it will all turn out or if it will be a success. Will one child cry for their mum, or get sick? Will anyone sleep at all? Will we have a medical emergency, a broken limb? We settled on a disco and a Hannah Montana dvd played on an overhead projector, cinema style with popcorn etc. We spent Thursday night figuring out how to re create a disco and a cinema in our house. It involved tall ladders, tidying up, lengths of string and adjusting lighting. I began to regret having eight, eight year old friends over for twenty four hours.

Friday 6th June
On Friday I collected very excited friends along with my daughter after school. In the end the party was great fun and I had an emotional moment whilst shining a powerful torch at a mirrored Christmas tree ball strung from the ceiling in an attempt to create sparkly disco lights. I looked at the girls all dancing with abandon to Avril Lavigne’s ‘I don’t like your Girlfriend!’ and thought, ‘Damn, they are growing up too fast.’ My husband and I went to bed at 9.30pm exhausted and told the children ‘even the grown ups are going to bed now, so it’s very late and you must go to sleep.’ One piped up and said,
‘But what time is it?’ I said,
‘Never you mind! And nobody is to wake up until it’s light!’
They were all asleep by 10pm.

Saturday 7th June
Did a watery slip and slide for the girls (ie slide, water, shampoo, plastic sheeting, garden slope), a barbeque, and my husband drove them all around the garden in his noisy ‘monster truck’ Rhino Charge car. Surprisingly the girls were mostly happy playing without direction in the sandpit, with the plastic oven, brushing each others hair and on the swing.
When the party guests left, friends of my parents in law came for tea.
That night we all went to a fund raising ball. I didn’t know what to wear and ended up asking my husband to trim bits off a top that I had made by cutting an evening dress in half, which was peeping out messily under the hem of a jacket that in fact I didn’t end up wearing. Also, I couldn’t talk properly all evening as the cold had robbed me of my voice, so squeaked and rasped at fellow guests who recoiled in fear of catching flu.

This week will be quieter, my only job is to make two green crocodile tails for my middle daughter’s school play and force my eldest to write thank you letters, but no doubt other things will crop up along the way….

Mid life crisis and plastic surgery

I was looking at a friend’s wedding photos (c. 1995) the other day and she suddenly exclaimed!
‘God, why didn’t I pluck my eyebrows before my wedding, what was I thinking!’ and
‘Why did I go for that cut across the front neckline, so unflattering!’
Whenever I look at my wedding photo (c.1999) I think,
‘What dreadful mousey hair – why didn’t I think of highlights?!’
And when I look at my milky ‘February in England’ complexion,
‘A bit of fake tan wouldn’t have gone amiss either!’
The neckline of my dress was OK because I asked the dress maker to lower it three times whilst it was in production.

Now, ten years later, at thirty five I’m entering into my mid life crisis (which I may well indulge myself by continuing for some years) having just emerged the other side, battered and emotionally scarred, by the past nine years of producing and caring for three babies; getting them out of nappies and finally off to school and out of my hair. It’s time (or rather I now have time) to take a step back and reassess my careworn image of permanent exhaustion with accompanying dowdy clothes and perennial sloppy flip flops in the hope of exchanging them for something more svelte, youthful and fabulous. Perky body, white teeth, painted toe nails, blow dried hair, proper shoes etc. The Asian ladies at our school pick up always look a million dollars and the African women too. They spend time on their hair and clothes and I think that expats like me need to try to catch up.

Suddenly it dawns on me that over the last ten years fake tans, teeth bleaching, highlighted hair, boob jobs, botox and surgery have all gradually become socially acceptable whereas previously, the British view was that interfering in anyway with your ‘au naturel’ appearance was terribly ‘common’. Now it seems that everyone is doing it and the procedures no longer elicit gasps and sharp intakes of breath from onlookers. Over coffee, we don’t really bother gossiping over,
‘Have you heard the latest?! Mrs X has just gone down to South (Africa) for a boob job’
Because the shock factor has gone out of it and we’re now left wondering why we are not going ahead and doing it ourselves? If I had the money, I would be seriously tempted by the new inject able boob job that (temporarily) perks up post breast feeding mammarys. Highlighted hair that was considered extremely naff in the 1980s is now done by almost everyone I know.

When I was growing up in England we were fobbed off by NHS dentists, who in an attempt to keep within their Government budgets, said,
‘You can do without braces my dear, after all crossed over front teeth gives your face more character!’
Now, in an era of only perfect teeth being acceptable, I notice quite a number (I can think of three straight away) of 40 year old plus women going for train track braces on their gnashes and heck, I’m almost tempted to join them! When I asked a fellow expat Mum (American) who was a dental hygienist in a former life, about teeth bleaching she said,
‘Go for it! I think it’s a great idea! I last did mine just before my wedding!’
Those Americans are so ahead of us Brits!

A Danish expat friend who has just left Kenya to live in the States went to her first mums coffee morning in Virginia where two had had facial surgery, one arrived looking like she’d done a few rounds with Mike Tyson, and another planning to go under the knife in the next few days. She said that plastic surgery was the hot topic of conversation.

I know that you can overdo it, and none of us want to wind up looking like the bride of Wildenstein but I guess there is no harm in being open minded and un British for once about looking your best. (OK, I admit it, I’m just writing this to try and justify sitting in the hairdresser’s chair for more than three hours yesterday!)