We were all worried. The El Nino rains had sputtered out after only ten days - we had two weeks of hot sun. The dams are not yet full. No one was ready for the rains to be over, or 'fail'.
Last week I cursed the fact that my driver's window is jammed shut because it was so sweltering, and was relieved that one of the back windows is jammed open a few inches, so at least the kids didn't die of heat exhaustion. (one day the air-con packed up temporarily too).
'Where is the rain?' I asked the grocer, the man in the supermarket, everybody.
'I don't know' they said; worried.
Now the rain is back with a vengance.
For example, it rained all night and it has been 'raining in my car' (a German friend of mine coined this phrase.) The sunroof is generally the main culprit as water drips through the edges of the tinted glass and down through the roof lining, causing me to resort to sitting on a beach towel. I know the drill well. The canvas seats have many water marks from previous downpours.
The window that won't close has been problematic today. I tried to rig up a plastic Nakumatt bag to plug the gap which flaps horribly when going along. This afternoon I saw a man driving a landrover with a purple plastic bin bag stretched over the open void that was the driver's window. I felt his pain.
P.s. The new 'harmonised' draft constitution has been published in the Nation and Standard newspapers today. It's very exciting and all everyone down to the man on the street has to talk about. The jist is,
'we have waited so long for this. We want to take time to read and understand our new constitution and don't want to hear any more politician's spin on it.' As I understand it, Kenyans have 30 days to gather their thoughts then present their views and debate before it is passed as law.
p.p.s. Just read in the Standard that Nicholas Cage has been in Kenya touring a Mombasa prison, Shimo la Tewa. Will I ever see these celebs - am sure I have a secret calling to be a pap photographer!
The diary of a British expat living in Kenya. News, views, debate and a healthy dose of trivia.
Dear Expat Wife
ReplyDeleteJust a quick message to explain cyber stalking from Kigali.
I met my (Dutch) husband overlanding 15 years ago, spent the next 12 years as an expat in Holland - learnt the language and integrated, only to have him join the foreign service, and since 2007 we've been based in Kigali, Rwanda.
Our next round of posting is coming up, and Ouagadougou is looking pretty likely as our home for the next 4-5 years, but we won't find out until April.
Anyway, I stumbled on your blog as part of my cyber research, and ended up reading from start to finish. I have no kids so our lives are very different, but there are many experiences and emotions that struck a chord with me, so I kept reading on.
Keep it up
Hazel
Hey Hazel,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much. Needless to say, you have made my day!
Your meeting your husband while overlanding and subsequent move to Holland sounds very romantic and adventurous. The things we do for our husbands?!
How is Kigali? Everybody talks about the great promise of Rwanda's future but not the bare facts of how it is now.
I can't believe you flogged through the whole Africa expat blog. Must have been irritating at times.
Just off to check out your site!
If you do end up going, good luck in Ouagadoudou - I must look that place up - I am so ignorant!!
I found your blog shortly after the elections and I've enjoyed reading it ever since. I live a bit outside Nairobi and it has been fun hearing about a life that is similar in many ways, and yet very, very different in others. I have to work full time (as does my husband) and just can't imagine how wonderful it would be to have free time. We live where we work so don't often leave our compound -- going into Nairobi maybe once a week and Karen one more time. We are on well water so don't seem to suffer the water problems that many people do -- in fact, I didn't realize what a challenge they can be until I read about them on your blog. My daughter attends the tiny school on our compound which has nothing of the big events that your children often seem to have. It's really interesting to learn what life is like for other people here.
ReplyDeleteI've wanted to comment many times but am so busy / lazy that I haven't yet, but I absolutely had to today. I really laughed when I read the story of the rain in your car -- and completely out of sympathy. The exact same thing happened to us this afternoon. We started off for a quick trip to Nakumatt Karen just as it began to rain again (in our area at least -- it often seems it will be raining down the road and not where we are) and the car hadn't backed up more than a few feet when suddenly my son began shrieking because cold water was pouring down on his head. This is the second time this has happened recently -- both times my husband thought it had finally been sealed. We ended up propping the umbrella we had in the car over his head, though he was already a bit damp.
Sad thing is that the stupid sun roof hasn't even worked in a year or two which really takes some of the fun out of trips to the Mara.
Hey Garnet, you can get the sun roof fixed. find some wannabe staf fundi and it will be sorted. we had an old peugeot 505 with the same problem for about 7 years till we decided to try them, In the days of Moi, sticking my head out of a sunrooff was something id always dreamt about.
ReplyDeleteAEW, i read your blog from start to finish when i found it too. i was so hooked i was reading it at work, on my phone while going to and from work, at home and could not stop till i finished it (didnt know what to do with myself then). You have to write a comprehensive book about all your experiences some day but please please please dont loose the writing style in favour of a book deal. its what keeps most of us hooked.
Very clever to quickly add another post above the last one ('It's a fair cop') to distract your fans and detractors from a possibly rash post there. Naughty, naughty girl! However, you have livened up many peoples day! But do suggest you make a mea culpa for endangering lives talking on the 'phone while driving - not a model mum/expat, afraid... Naughty mzungu, you're also going native...
ReplyDeleteHi Expat Wife,
ReplyDeleteYou asked what life is like in Rwanda - much of our blog is apolitical, which is on purpose, partly due to my husbands position, partly because there is a feeling that there is a Big Brother who might come and have a chat if our expressed sentiments don't toe the line, and mostly because we haven't a clue. The English language newspaper here http://www.newtimes.co.rw/ is basically a government mouthpiece and the most vocal Kinyarawandan paper has been stopped...(plus my vocab is about 15 words).
Looking back on our blog, a lot of posts are when we have left the country - that's due to the fact that our daily life is...work, dinner, sleep mostly - and because I feel the need to regularly leave the country. Underlying everything is the genocide still, its a huge bloody elephant in the room...the best way I can explain it is to imagine you are 5 or 6 again and you go into the room and your parents have been rowing, but stop and are very polite to each other while you are there - you know something is wrong, but don't understand - that's the vibe the country gives me - and I'm very much aware that a lot of the underlying reasons that made the genocide possible here have not been solved. Some people catch the vibe, and others like my husband feel nothing…but he has the emotional IQ of a cabbage mostly…
For the Rwandans, I think that they do see the positive changes that are being made – though for many farmers the notion of becoming an East African Singapore is a long way away!
Nakumatt opened here about a year ago, which has improved many expats lives considerably, I just pop in now and then to buy overpriced cherry tomatoes and mushrooms imported from Kenya, and stick to my regular haunts.
Thanks for letting me stare through the window into your life for a while..
Hazel
Hi Hazel,
ReplyDeleteYour info about Rwanda is fascinating. I have read a lot in the Kenyan press about leaps forward and done some of my own research into the country when doing a writing assignment on the economy there, but your inside, more emotive take is hugely refreshing.
Garnet, Loved the image of your son in the back of the car with an umbrella over his head!!! Thanks for reading!
Eric, thanks for all your kind and encouraging comments over the past months. I am trying to put a book together at the moment just for my own curiosity to see if I can manage it. It's based on the shock of moving from London to Dar es Salaam as a newlywed in 1999.
My husband keeps saying 'you have to choose - is it tragic or funny? If yours is funny then make it funnier!!' I am sweating. None of it felt very funny at the time, but I'm working on that!
p.s. hope you weren't reading the blog on your phone while stuck in traffic, otherwise we might get a new flurry of disapproving comments for you!!
Driving??? no way dont you dare try and share the village dissaproval with me. lol. I was reading while stuck in the cattle truck that used to be called the london underground. Guess it was an escape from the pin drop silence that exists here.
ReplyDeleteLet it rain. That country needs alot of it.The other day I was reading that your electricity bills will depend on whether it rains or not. Can this leak be sealed with duct tape? Ha! I am sure some jua kali garage can fix the problem easily. Goodluck with that.
ReplyDelete