District 9

Has anybody watched District 9? I normally hate sci-fi - but my husband insisted that he wanted to watch having heard about the controversy over the South African film, so we got hold of it from our local pirate dvd store.

I thought it was brilliant - except for a little to much fake blood, ugly creatures, squashy noises and gun fire. I loved the documentary style and the lead actor was brilliant the way he took his character from bumbling and naive, to hardened fighter as quickly as his world fell apart. There was so much anticipation I had to hide behind a sofa cushion and make excuses to go and put the kettle on etc. The squalid township and method of dealing with a situation where the 'aliens' were no longer wanted in that fictional Jo'burg society made me uncomfortable.

But what was so odd, in the midst of all this thought provoking viewing was the reference to the underworld, drug dealing, whoring 'Nigerians' who moved into district 9 to live alongside the aliens - the only people who would stoop so low. If this was the source of all the film's controvosy, then why on earth would Peter Jackson or whoever, not have anticipated this massive blunder and just made up another name? Did no one in the crew think to mention the word 'libel' or 'causing offence' when the film was being made.

Why say 'Nigerians' at all? It's fiction so why not use a fictional name. Why not, 'the Kululuku people' or 'The Eflugeans' - anything! Honestly, it doesn't take that much imagination. When 'Nigerians' is first said on the film, refering to these base criminals - the out and out tactlessness of it - you can't believe your ears - it's a joke. No wonder the film has been banned over there. I think that they are right to be offended. But for everyone else, except perhaps if you happen to be one of the much maligned Nigerians, the film is a rip roaring yarn.

Father Muli's views on the reasons why men are gay

Last week, and this, there has been a debate raging – sparked off by the marriage of two Kenyan men in the UK. Oddly enough, while the West has moved on and being gay or not gay there is not so much of an issue, Kenya has been stuck in a time warp. Being gay in Kenya is taboo. The act is illegal and considered a criminal offense. Many say that the publicity surrounding the marriage of two Kenyan men has brought shame on the country. I always did say that in many ways, living in Kenya today is like Britain in the 1950s. The story has actually been quite sad, because the Nation has reported that the family of the couple in Murang’a are being constantly harassed since the story broke. In fact there was a photograph of a particularly miserable old man who is a ‘relative of Daniel Chege’.

Since the story broke, the radio airwaves have been hot on the topic. The funniest moment in the debate has to have been the comments made by Kenyan priest Fr Ambrose Muli, who on Sunday preached an inflammatory sermon in Malindi. He placed blame firmly at the door of Kenyan women for the fact that some Kenyan men are gay. To paraphrase,

‘Today, as we celebrate this Holy Mass, I am a very, very disappointed man,’

‘This so called marriage between the two Kenyan men in London last week, why do you think it happened? What went wrong? What is the matter?’

Apparently the congregation had fallen into dead silence by this point.

‘This is because the women are no longer marriageable.’

At this point the congregation started murmuring. A few women said, ‘no, no, no’ and shook their heads, but the priest hadn’t really got started yet.

‘Women, from the way that I see it, have become too complicated and unattractive in marriage. You don’t provide what God intended you to give in marriage. You have frustrated the men so much leading them to try amongst themselves whether they will get the joy that comes with marriage.’

The Nation said; ‘Women could not take it lying down’ and started shouting at the priest saying that the problem was with the men. But still the priest wasn’t finished,

‘There is something very, very wrong with women these days. You have failed to handle men the way you should. Men don’t see anything useful if you. The job that God gave you, you have failed to do.’ He said. Apparently there was uproar. Female radio DJs are still furious and bickering with their male co-hosts over what men should expect from marriage and women.

Later in his sermon, Fr Muli went on to highlight the responsibility of parents to look after and guard their children, bringing them up in a righteous manner – which was beginning to sound a little less loopy – especially in light of the reputation Malindi has as a sex holiday destination for the rest of the world. Perhaps he was trying to wind everybody up in order to draw a bit of attention to the problems of sex tourism in Malindi – but somehow I doubt it. Wives everywhere are still bristling. Women leaders have demanded an apology.

Nairobi's Standard Chartered Marathon

My husband did the Nairobi Standard Chartered half marathon yesterday morning. Last year he ran the ten km race, but this year he decided to step it up this year and go for the twenty one. He’s complaining a little about his sore ankles today.

I know that it is not really my story to tell, especially as I stayed home with the kids, avoiding an early wake-up on a drizzly Sunday morning and hellish traffic, but quite a few of my friends took part and there were a couple of funny stories.

First, my husband signed up everyone in his office – all profits go to the eye charity ‘Seeing is Believing’. In return, participants get a free pair of running shoes, a t-shirt etc. In a ‘eureka’ moment, my husband also asked our fast, young (23), fit gardener if he wanted to take part. He was enthusiastic and together they did some training. Jared donned his new running shoes and even produced a stop-watch. When he ran around the block in half the time of my husband, I got quite excited, thinking that perhaps he would be picked up as semi pro. runner with tons of potential. After all, I googled it and discovered on Wikipedia that of the ten fastest male marathon runners in the world, seven are Kenyan.

In the event, both did well. Jared did get to the end before my husband among the thousands of other runners but he wasn't miles ahead. What he did say was,

‘it was so annoying, there was this really fat woman running in front of me the whole time and I just couldn’t get in front of her however hard I tried. I simply couldn’t understand it!!’

After two hours, my husband was just completing the half marathon when he was lapped by the whole marathon winner who was trailing the chase car with a big digital clock on the back, entering the stadium. I gather that was quite exciting. My husband thought about taking a photo with his phone, but then decided he did not quite have the energy.

During the race, another friend got wiped out by a wheelchair that was careering along a downward slope. She was most indignant,
‘I didn’t even hear it coming!’

Apparently the event was better organised this year with whole marathon, half marathon and 10km runners all starting at different times. I heard that last year you could hardly put one foot in front of the other due to the huge numbers of competitors.

I spoke to a non running friend on the phone this morning,
‘You’re not going to go all ‘mid life crises’ on me and do the marathon next year are you? Promise me you won’t.’

A few people we know have taken up marathon running just before turning 40.

‘No, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I absolutely hate it.’

But after I hung up I thought. Perhaps I am missing something, perhaps I should? I wonder if I could?...

Tom Cholmondeley released

Tom Cholmondeley was released today. It's been 3 years in Kimiti prison - over two years were on remand. I bet he'll be tucking into a good supper tonight!

Though, probably more significant news is the fact that Maina Njenga, former head of the Mungiki sect, was freed on the same day. He claims to have found religion since being in prision and says he plans to eschew the mobster life but I'm not sure how many people are convinced.

Crazily high electricity bills conundrum solved?!...

I’d like to give an update to all those who have been very kind in helping with practical advice over how to deal with our crazy electricity bills. Needless to say, the saga has been ongoing.

We have switched to low voltage bulbs etc (sadly the bulbs are still pretty costly in this country) and still our last electricity bill for September was 41,000/- (around £385). Gasp! No, in spite of industrial scale bills, we don’t run a sweat shop from home, or have any large scale industry going on in the garden – I promise! (I almost wish we did, at least we could defray bills with profits...)

The good news is that we have now finally, (hopefully) resolved the puzzle and it all boils down to a faulty water heater that has been running constantly. The night security lighting was not the culprit. (I know, I know, somebody commented repeatedly saying ‘DONT USE YOUR WATER HEATER’ whoever that was, was so right).

What happened was that I noticed that over the last 3 months, while our bills have been extraordinarily high, the active a/c consumption has doubled while our water heating meter consumption has read 0. As I wondered about this, I finally recollected that a slightly cocky electrician had come to our house in June to fix a broken water heater thermostat in our old bathroom water heater. Turns out that he didn’t do a very good job and this point marked the beginning of our woes.

The normal thermostat (that he was supposed to have fixed) blew and the heater automatically started running off the booster – hence a steady supply of hot water.

Since I called in our friendly neighbourhood electrician Jeff, who looks a lot like Run DMC (big guy, Kangol hat, tracksuit, big trainers, chains, softly spoken), I found out a few interesting facts:

1. The ‘booster’ thermostat runs to the main meter, these units consumed are charged at a higher rate than the second specifically water heating meter. That is why the latter was reading 0 consumption.

2. The booster thermostat electrics were being run off a lighting circuit. The small wires have been struggling to measure up to the water heating job and have burned black, but were somehow after 3 months still working. There was apparently a high risk of fire during this time.

3. This is because the small/thin lighting circuit wires get warm while the water heater is on, which apparently makes the meter itself run more quickly ie explaining the higher rate of consumption.

4. Plus, and critically, the timer for the water heater was not working, so it was on constantly.

Jeff is a bit of a hero. Over the past few months he has also fixed our washing machine, put a new compressor in our fridge when it stopped working, hung a mini chandelier (that I brought from England in my suitcase) and changed a few blown switches in the kitchen. He has a car and a mobile phone, and his workshop is the one that fixed my eldest daughter’s hot pink cd player when she carelessly forced the lid and snapped it.

Re the crazily expensive electricity bills - You must be thinking but DUH – she is soooo stupid. How can this problem have been going on for 3 MONTHS! I know, I know. I feel stupid. In the first place I was blind-sided by all this talk of the higher cost of electricity countrywide because of the drought in Kenya. I then spent a long time thinking that the meter itself was faulty and was looking into getting KPLC to come and replace it. Needless to say they were dragging their heels not a little. Weeks went by. Oh well. I’ll let you know what our next bill but one is. October’s will be high too as we have only just sorted this. In the meantime, what a waste of cash.... Makes you want to cry....

Apologies for typos and spelling mistakes....

I got a dressing down from my friend this week. We were in an internet cafe and she was playing with her ipod, excited to be able to get online. She scrolled to my blog.

‘What about these typos?’ She said. ‘They drive me mad!’ adding, ‘AND your SPELLING is TERRIBLE!’

I blushed, but fought back. I mumbled something about a blog being an informal publishing format and mistakes being difficult to spot.

‘So is this your ‘dyslexic’ blog?’ she asked. 'and that's OK is it? Why don't you spell-check?!'

By now she was pushing her luck. But I couldn’t really argue. I knew she was right. Since my connectivity has become so good at home, I have a lazy habit of typing straight into the blog post window and failing to spell check before printing (even though it does irritatingly highlight all proper nouns and names in yellow that is tricky to remove). I used to have to type posts in Word, then copy and paste or else risk suddenly losing my musings due to a dropped line. The worst period was when I could only connect to the internet via our terrible Nairobi land line. ‘Frustrating’ does not begin to describe it.

I must say to other, more tolerant readers.... thank you for your patience!! I can tell you, my Mum for one would agree heartily with my (former editor) friend, but even she has resisted the temptation to complain about my dreadful presentation, even though I know that it is long overdue. Thanks Mum!

I must say that I find it interesting that blogs have become so ‘mainstream’ nowadays. Who could have predicted it? Initially they were just perceived to be inconsequential rambling diaries. Probably most of them (like mine) still are, but now all major newspapers and magazines online have links to accompanying ‘approved’ blogs, written by staff writers. The E! Online website boasts about its new ‘blog’ format – they have obviously put some research into this and delivered a style of product that millions of readers’ demand. Politicians worldwide are not too proud to be found blogging, linking and tweeting on a regular basis.

When my same friend popped over for a cup of tea today, I called to her from my office.

‘Sorry, I can’t make you tea today – I’m far too busy spell-checking three years worth of previous posts!’

‘OK,’ she said, ‘well then I won’t give you these nice clothes I brought with me. The ones that my daughter has grown out of and would suit your 3 girls so well.’

‘Oh well in THAT case,’ I said and dragged myself away from my computer.

Anyway – after my telling off, I vow to do better. I will show more respect for my ‘casual’ blog and my very kind readers. I will therefore spell check/proof read/resist the temptation to ramble incoherently before pressing that enticing button that reads; ‘publish’.

Rainy season started

We have so far had twenty four hours of proper rainy season in Nairobi. Hooray!

For the past few months I have been mindful of trying to limit the amount of dust my car kicks up for pedestrians, now it's all about avoiding those puddles. This morning it was wellies, umbrellas, raincoats and mud....everywhere.

Tell tale flying ants were flying out of our lawn, which indicates that we didn't get all of those termite nests. Gr! On the upside, a pair of Turaco's, a Hadada and the dogs were all enjoying a tasty snack at breakfast time this morning.

I am mindful of not making this too much of a charity website, but have been listening to Kiss FM (again!) and a guy from Habitat for Humanity has been on the show. They are raising money to build houses for those internally displaced Kenyans living in tents since the disputed election two years ago! The situation has become critical since the Government have recently ordered the closure of all remaining camps and the flimsy tents are being destroyed.

The Habitat for Humanity guy says they need donations. (For people in Kenya, they have an Mpesa Number, 0723 957685). He stressed that at little goes a long way. Their website is http://www.hfhkenya.or.ke/

1,000/- would buy you the heavy gauge wire mesh for all the windows on the house
3,000/- would buy you the 3 doors
14,000/- would be enough for the mbati (corrugated iron) for a roof
x3 truck loads of sand would build you a house.

Caroline Mutoko gave 20,000/- and crowed 'I've just bought a roof and three doors - what are you going to do?'

One house costs 200,000/- to build. International School of Kenya raised and donated 500,000. Corporate business have also donated funds and have joined in with physically building the houses as well. - that would be quite a bonding session!

I carry guilt about Habitat for Humanity. When I first moved to Tanzania in 1999, I met a very enthusiastic American lady called Debra. I said I was bored and lonely and she asked if I would go upcountry with her for three days and take part in a 'house build' in some remote place. I agonised, then wimped out. I never went which was embarrassingly. Strangely enough I still have her business card somewhere, though I never really did see her again. Couldn't bring myself to throw it away.

small car prang.....turns to fisticuffs..

My morning just went pear shaped.

Driving around Nairobi, I am always aware that a traffic accident/prang is never more than a hairs breadth away. You sort of drive about in 'wince' mode and hope it will never happen to you.
Buses pull out in front of you without warning.

Brake lights don't work.

Cars stop senselessly on roundabouts so that passengers can 'alight'.

Bicycles swerve and weave in amongst speeding traffic.

Brakes are slammed on as a Mkokoteni/handcart appears from nowhere.

Drivers turn off and onto busy roads without indicating.

Scary looking stone lorries lose brakes on hills, either going up or coming down.

Bikes 'tailgate'/hang on the back of lorries to pull them up hills.

When it rains everybody slides and smashes into everybody else.

I was once side swiped by a lorry moving into my lane on a dual carriageway. He simply didn't see me.

Having said this, I am not claiming to be always the innocent party. I once ploughed into the back of a hapless driver in heavy/congested traffic. I have various excuses for this, 1) a car 3 ahead made a sudden turn so everyone had to jam on brakes, 2) my brakes were mushy and 3) I was looking out of the window at the time wondering why the men were digging a ditch on the side of the road. Another time I slid my car off the raw edge of a narrow tarmac road in wet weather, over corrected then ended up in a hedge..... No other cars were involved.

Anyway...

This morning I was pottering up a residential road near my house, on my way back from the shops. I was slowly going around a 90 degree bend, when a saloon car coming from the opposite direction decided to take the corner very wide, veering right onto my side of the road. In fact he simply wasn't turning the wheel at all. I thought, 'Oh Sh...' and drove onto the verge as far as possible, but the saloon car clipped by back wheel arch.

Luckily the saloon car driver stopped. In retrospect, in his position I would have driven on.

No 1. I have learned that if you have an accident in this country, first ask if the driver of the other vehicle is actually the owner of the car. Nine times out of ten it is not.

Two men got out of the saloon. The driver looked scruffy, jeans sagging, orange t-shirt dirty, eyes glazed. It was obvious that the fault of the accident was on the saloon car driver. Little bits of glass were scattered the outside edge of my side of the road. The passenger was a little more presentable and easy to talk to.

The saloon car had ripped off the bottom end of my fibre glass wheel arch and taken out his wing light. It wasn't massively serious.

I was a bit cross, launching into the driver in pigeon Swahili on 'why didn't you turn?', 'is there something wrong with your eyes?' 'What were you doing?'

The passenger guy who was a bit more switched on than the driver kept agreeing with me (which was odd), 'yeah, you're right, he really can't drive, I don't know what he was doing. he's crazy..' sort of thing. So much for comradeship in the face of adversity!

The damage wasn't that bad, though I knew it would cost us a bit to fix. I weighed up the situation said I would just go home, but the car passenger said he had already called the owner of the car. It turned out that the vehicle owner lived on that very road, so was walking up as we spoke. I called the owner of the car too, just to clarify that he was actually coming and I wasn't going to be there all day waiting for a no show.

'We're outside no 93' I said. 'I'm coming' he said.

As we waited the orange shirted driver who looked like he was on drugs re positioned his car to the other side of the road. I could see that this was a cunning move to make out my car was in the wrong. To do this he was reversing ineptly at a snails pace on the blind corner. A water truck nearly careered into him and had a few cross words. At this point I could see that the 'driver' couldn't drive to save his life.

'This guy is going to be in a real accident next time' The passenger agreed with me effusively. 'yes, he's absolutely hopeless.'

Plus, I was cross again,
'Put that car back!' I said to the orange shirt driver guy. 'Don't try to make out the accident was my fault!'

The advantage of the driver being a bit useless generally, was that it was easy to boss him around. He dutifully moved the car back into its original position. The driver then got out and started trying to bend the cracked saloon car bumper back in place, then pop the indicator light back, balancing it. I said with sarcasm,
'So you're a car fundi are you?' to which the passenger replied,
'Yes he is actually. He's a mechanic.'
I was a bit mystified.

'Look,' I said, 'Your boss isn't going to be worried about his car. He's going to be worried about the damage to my car.' This wheel arch, the paint job.' I pointed, 'It's going to be expensive.'
The orange t-shirt looked at me like 'Ohhh'. This had not occurred to him at all. I was beginning to feel sorry for him. He really hadn't a clue.

By this time various gardeners and askaris in the area had come out onto the road to have a look. A nice Kenyan guy I know drove by, offered to stop and help, but I told him it was not necessary. I still wanted out of the situation. I knew it wasn't serious enough to have the agony of calling out the police, waiting for hours, going back to the station, getting a police abstract etc. for an insurance claim. That might have taken at least a whole day.

Eventually the car owner comes walking up the road. He was talking on his phone, fag in hand. About my age. Kenyan, shorter than me. He shakes my hand, looks at the broken wing light on his car, then looks at my broken wheel arch. All this time he's still talking in polite English on the phone. I'm thinking 'this is a bit bizarre'. Eventually he says to the person on the other end of the phone,
'I had better go now, I have to deal with a small car accident.'

Once he hung up he asked me, 'what direction was my car coming from?' I told him. He then turns on the hapless orange shirt guy and starts beating him. Cuffing him over the head, kicking him right in the middle of the road, shouting in a tribal language that he shared with the driver. The driver was crouching down, arms trying to protect his ears. Another loud slap landed across his face. This was getting ugly. The situation had stepped up a gear. While I was cross about the accident I wasn't hoping for corporal punishment! The owner turned to me, asked me another polite question, then turned back to the driver for another smack. It was medieval. It made me realise what an entirely different planet I lived on in my cosy little expat world and here we all were, the passenger, the askari, the gardener; just standing around watching.

'That's enough!' I said.

The car owner was shouting at the 'driver' - 'This is going to be expensive. It's fibre glass!' he said waving the broken bit of my wheel arch around. 'Why were you coming from that direction anyway?!' cuff, kick.

'Enough.' I repeated trying to take control of the situation.

By this point I wanted to just go. I found a pen and paper. The car owner and I swapped phone numbers awkwardly. I took the bit of my broken wheel arch out of his hand.
'I'm going to go now.' I said, adding bizarrely, 'thanks.'

Well, it's lunch time now and it's all going to be alright. The car owner guy phoned me when I got home - still worried that the situation was not resolved - which was pretty good of him but made me feel weird since he slaps and kicks people. He sounded obsequious, nice, still polite. I got him to speak to my husband who was finally out of his big meeting.

Lucky my husband is a car nut and will get our car fixed up cheaply. Lucky the car owner didn't make up his name and phone number plus he accepted liability and seemed to be genuinely concerned . I hope that we can just fix the car ourselves and don't have to pursue the cost of the fix with my new 'friend' who happens to be a very polite but has violent tendencies. He then might not be so cross with his drugged out 'mechanic' employee who can't drive for tuppence.

The question is, what is best to do in these situations? There's a lot of reliance on trust, involving the police is a time wasting nightmare and realistically, how much can you really expect somebody to cough up, even when they are in the wrong? You can forget insurance in most cases.

Kenya, the new Celebrity-ville

I am the saddest kind of celebrity groupie. A typical product of the celebrity obsessed generation. My friend told me perhaps it's time to drop it, let it go, grow up and stop trying to keep up with Kanye West, Lady Gaga and The Hills.

It all started with Madonna and today I'm still riveted by celebs of varying worthiness from Rhianna to Kloe and Kourtney Kardashien (sp?). Working in London had its upside - you occasionally saw someone famous. My latest triumph was seeing Felicity Kendall at Heathrow in July - or at least I could have sworn it was her?! It is a little compulsive. My husband despairs when I flick onto Channel E! when I think he is not looking and he then flicks back to Supersports 2 or BBC Knowledge - normally Top Gear. We then reach deadlock and try to find a compromise along the MM1/MM2 film and series channels. I can't bear sitcoms. We agree on watching House, but it is getting a little repetitive as it's on every single night.

(we finally capitulated and got DSTV back when we finished watching all 5 series of The Wire).

Anyway, I digress. The point is that I've heard rumours that we've had lots of celebs coming through Kenya recently, and I have succeeded in missing them all in my little expat housewife bubble. Apparently Brad and Angelina have been holidaying here recently (and I thought they had split up!!), plus Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher on safari. I think that in another life I might have liked to have been a paparazzi photographer.

The biggest/latest let down was that Akon was here last weekend. My friend even had tickets for the MAMA - MTV Africa Music Awards at Kasarani Stadium where he was due to be appearing and we didn't go. We had a middle aged moment and panicked about getting across town on Saturday night, doing battle with horrendous Thika Road roadworks, probably having to stay away from home in a hotel (Safari Park?) because driving for one hour back at the dead of night was not a good idea.

On Saturday I listened to the radio to try and ascertain whether Akon had arrived - this was a deal breaker for me, because while it would have been fun watching the Kenyan stars, Nameless, STL, Wahu etc. it is Akon that I am a fan of.

Sadly bad boy Akon's track record is not good as he has let Kenya down 3 times in the past by cancelling visits at the last minute. Once bitten, twice shy Radio presenters played his visit down saying, 'we are not bothered if he comes or not, we still have Wyclef Jean' but in my opinion Akon is HUGE and is allowed to cancel once or twice since he is pretty busy Criss-crossing the globe and doing 'collabos' with massive stars. Even my kids know every single one of his songs.

In fact, I learned on Sunday that he did arrive and visited Starehe boys school to give them a motivational speech about working hard and following your dreams. He had an entourage of 25, most of them minders. The visiting celebs all stayed at Tribe Hotel in Village Market.

I tried to find out about a rumoured Akon concert to be staged at The Carnivore on Sunday that I had read about in the newspaper, but drew a rather sad blank. I had imagined dragging my reluctant husband and slightly more enthusiastic 3 kids with me. I wondered if 4 year old kids go to music concerts?

In the end my friend gave her Saturday night MTV award tickets away to people who really, really wanted to go - they said the evening was fab.

We did drive past the Carnivore on Langata Road on Sunday, and didn't see any crowds or hear Akon's music pumping, so have a feeling we didn't miss anything there.

I am now back to scanning DSTV and hoping I haven't missed the screening of the MAMA awards on TV. Hey ho.

The pushy parent - to push or not to push?

After years of standing in the background, leaving my poor preciouses to fend for themselves, watching them passed over for teams and awards (OK, they were only at Kindergarten!), I feel myself morphing into a pushy parent.

1. I signed my eldest (aged 9) up for extra maths (the dreaded Kumon) in August and she is still doing it! I swore that these were depths that I would never sink to, but when I asked her what number comes after 199 and she blanked, I panicked!

We now fight every day about doing her maths sheet. My husband and I say 'Ku Mon' coaxingly- (come on) ha ha. Now our 9 year old's 4 year old sister is driving her nuts too, piping up on a regular basis; 'have you done your maths yet?'. The eldest goes off like a rocket.

Plus, My eldest daughter asks, why is the Kumon logo a SAD face! Not smiling? She has also used expressions like 'child labour' of late (she studied the Victorians last term).

2. The eldest also has additional homework that I can nag her about. It sometimes requires my involvement with researching things on the Internet or helping her carry out simple science experiments. When I tell my daughter to write the results down, she rolls her eyes and says, 'Mum, I don't HAVE to. I'll just remember, OK!'

3. She also has piano practice that I nag her about (since the heavy nagging started she has got slightly better - she even migrated onto 'Piano Time book 2' yesterday after 3 years of playing tunes like 'She'll be coming round the mountain.' She says the lessons are 'good' and is getting big shiny stars in her workbook for the first time.

4. I signed the middle daughter up to do extra tennis once a week, even though it is her first term in a new school and she has to play tennis with 3 children who are all in the year above her. The reason I did this was because she showed a little bit of aptitude at the summer tennis camp (see! I am beyond help!). Now I go to school early on Mondays, just to point the middle daughter back to the locker room to find her tennis racket, then escort her to the tennis court on time - otherwise she would never make it as she is in a dreamworld and basically exhausted from adjusting to her new school.

5. I also signed the middle daughter up for drum lessons. (I know, I know.... nuts!) My husband is secretly encouraging as he said he was never allowed to learn drums, so is trying to live through her vicariously. They now practice together with saucepan lids and chop sticks at the weekend. I rue the day I agreed to this, and wonder if piano wouldn't have been a better idea for her too. Even my daughter's enthusiasm for the drums has recently turned to ambivalence.

6. Saturday mornings have become a homework hell zone, with off the cuff spelling tests, alternating between the 2 older children. For example, while one gets 'HOT' or 'LICK' the other gets 'DISMISS' and 'DISTRUST'. Meanwhile, I am cajoling the four year to form her 'S' shapes and kicking 'K's as per her teacher's instructions for weekend homework.

7. In the holidays I got the kids to run around the garden in readiness for cross country term. The first time they went round they both cried. The eldest is actually quite good and has been picked before for a major event with no training. This time she missed qualifying for the final by one place, but I haven't given up. She still might have the chance at a medal in the 'house' cross country event next week.

8. We actually agree to go to the dreaded weekend NASA gala swimming competitions and spend our time sitting about under the hot sun so our eldest can swim one length and come 46th out of 125 competitors.

9. I am thinking about going to a secondary school open day tomorrow, even though our eldest is not due to move on for 3 years.

10. I signed up my four year old for LAMDA this term (verse speaking and drama).

11. I have just made my third cake for the school bake sale this afternoon - the first two exploded - I blame the new baking powder. (late note: the 3rd cake was looking perfect, until walking into school a kite (big bird) flew down and swiped it with its talon! I had that whole wing flapping over my head moment, but managed not to drop it. The lemon drizzle cake did look in a bit of a sorry state after that, the cling film torn - not that enticing!) I then promise to buy my friend's cake and nearly choked when I saw it was going for 2,000/-! I had to fork out, based on the fact that it was all for a very good cause - the building of a new school for HIV orphans in Kibera.

12. I went to the book shop and got 'fun' maths books to fill in for the youngest (bless her, she did actually ask me for these. Probably wanting to copy her sister), plus a French, 'fun' book for the eldest. She was not so enthusiastic. I also bought Berlitz French flash cards and am actually using them. OMG!


This is so not like me. Am I beyond help?

However, in my favour:

1. I don't heckle at rounders matches (shouting things like 'run' or 'wait' or 'butter-fingers' from the sidelines. There's a lot of this, no joke) but I do try and go along and watch. This week I could not stop myself from casually asking my daughter about her fielding skills. 'Why do you run in the opposite direction when the ball starts coming toward you, even if it's just rolling along on the ground?' She said, 'Mum, you know I've been scared of the ball since I was hit on the nose.' I decided to drop the subject.

2. My kids do not do riding - don't start me on that one, by all accounts here it's a snake pit!

3. I am not a member of the Parents Association (though I/we do help out at fund raisers etc).

Can't think of anything else. I know that this dilemma is directly linked to the fact that my kids are suddenly older now. We have left the realms of nappies, potties and afternoon sleeps thank goodness! The question is when does 'encouraging' become 'pushing'?

Grown under the Sun

I am a little late on the uptake on this one but 'Grown under the Sun' is a campaign to convince people in the West to buy African produce i.e. imported vegetables and flowers.

I just heard about it today on the radio and it's a little pet topic of mine I'm afraid... the whole food miles thing makes me mad. I can imagine shoppers in England not buying African flowers or mange tout beans in Tesco or Marks & Spencer because they think that it is not politically correct to do so. Check out the Grown under the Sun website and you might change your mind: http://grownunderthesun.com/

The 'Grown under the Sun' campaign is designed to highlight the fact that vegetables and flowers grown in Africa have far less carbon emissions than those grown in greenhouses in places like Holland. The Food Miles argument where the shortest distance between farm to fork is flawed and hopefully this campaign will go some way redressing the misconception.

Quoted From the Business Daily/July 2009:

The Africa Research Institute has accused Europe of hypocrisy,

'African crops are grown under the sun, cultivated by hand and often transported in the holds of passenger aircraft carrying European holidaymakers to and from Africa's beaches and game parks,' the institute said in a recent report.

'Growing horticultural crops out of season in Europe is heavily mechanised and consumes huge amounts of energy in artificially heated 'hot houses''

Please buy stuff from Africa when you see it. It is a big help. (and don't come back to me with arguments about minimum wage, sweat shops and working conditions... look at the 'Grown under the Sun' website first).

It's Our Turn to Eat

I just finished reading ‘It’s our turn to eat’ by Michela Wrong. It’s a brilliant book and all the more fascinating for being so current, covering ground from the 2004 election where Mwai Kibaki was first sworn in and so eloquently promised that corruption would be a thing of the past, to the aftermath of the disastrous 2007 vote. The machinations of the ‘Mount Kenya Mafia’ who are described as shamelessly pilfering vast sums of money and holding onto power by their bloody fingernails are shocking. The fact that the economic boom in Kenya over the past few years has failed to trickle down to the poor was pointed to by Michela Wrong as a fundamental grievance and destabilizing factor at election time. The average Kenyan now pays an average of x60 bribes per month.

I was also horrified by reading about the complicity of the World Bank and Dfid (the latter who I worked for briefly as local hire staff) in continuing to hand over ever increasing amounts of cash while turning a blind eye to corruption scandals that were flaring up in local Government left right and centre. Tony Blair’s celebrity studded commitment to ‘Saving Africa’ (probably a popularity bid staged to detract from an unpopular the war) came at a time when a few brave souls were beginning to seriously question Kibaki’s will to fight corruption. After a brief honeymoon period, where every Kenyan felt there would be real change, it turned out that the President had no intention of healing old wounds, instead he allowed the continuation of scams thought up in Moi’s era and these scams were taken to an even new level of audacity.

The fundamental problem seems to be that in aid organisations, where success is measured by sums of money spent, targets reached, number of projects off the ground, no one wanted to listen to bad news. When John Githongo went public with the Anglo Leasing scandal, nobody with the power to do so acted.

I vividly remember Claire Short visiting our Dfid offices in Dar es Salaam in 2000 and haranguing a young Oxford graduate for still having 5 million in the bank when it should already have been spent in the Tanzanian education sector.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of the minister’ the graduate complained.
‘Don’t give me excuses!’ she shouted, ‘give me results! That money should not still be in the account, get on with it! It’s a disgrace!’

Michela Wrong very clearly questions this approach – asking, what about accountability? And, is this financial ‘help’ in fact a hindrance to the country’s governance? She points to the fact that while foreign governments make vast pledges of money to Africa, they are left with a choice of very few countries to pour their aid into – this is due to the fact that so many African countries are in a mess. In 2004 the the aid giving community wanted to believe that strategically important Kenya was the great hope of democracy in Africa and kept upping the amounts sent here. She described a monkey with its hands clasped over its ears, refusing to listen to the truth when corruption scandals were revealed.

The funniest irony in the book is when Michaela reveals that the World Bank directors’ traditionally rent their ambassadorial house, even share a compound, with President Mwai Kibaki and see nothing odd in this! Very cosy. She writes not only about John Githongo's frustrations but also of Edward Clay's and other small fish who could see that something at the top was very wrong.

The end of ‘It’s our turn to Eat’ the book gives a somewhat bleak outlook on the future of democracy in Kenya, but in my humble opinion, I think that there is a bit of a wave of change washing over the government at the moment. Also, I think that this book must have brought about at least a part of this change. The fact that corruption scams are out in the open and well documented means that foreign governments, in spite of their broad aid promises, have been forced to wake up and smell the coffee. They can no longer veto huge sums of money coming into the country in the face of such grand theft in Government. Plus there is now wide concern over how the 2012 election will turn out if old grievances and old crimes continue to be swept under the carpet.

In the past week, an ineffective Aaron Ringera has been forced by Parliament to resign as head of the Kenya Anti Corruption Council, in spite of Kibaki trying to overrule the system and keep him there for a second term. The chief of police, Hussein Ali, blamed for sanctioning extra-judicial killings in the police force, has been reassigned to the postal service.

Plus international pressure is piling on the Government. The US and UK have placed visa bans on fifteen to twenty MPs and officials who they deem are standing in the way of necessary reforms. The EU are threatening sanctions. Kofi Annan, chief mediator in the election crisis, is now in Kenya to meet with Kibaki and Raila and discuss why implementation of the ‘National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008’ signed by both sides of the Coalition Government just after the election has thus far failed. The final International Criminal Court deadline for setting up a local tribunal to try perpetrators of post election violence has lapsed – so now the dreaded Morena Ocampo of the ICC is expected to swoop in and begin his investigations any day. To me, being an optimist, it feels like the winds of change are blowing. It seems that the old guard is under siege.