In the News - local to global

Its been a busy few days in Nairobi. We have been preoccupied signing the lease on our house, moving out of our apartment and generally getting sorted for this next phase of our time in Kenya. We have been tracking progress on the house for the last few months - it features in April's through the keyhole blog - and it's still not quite there. But it's ready enough for us to move into and we are all up for roughing it a bit and finding all the snagging issues at first hand. Or that's what we say this week! I suspect the boys will feel differently if i fail to hook up the Internet and tv in time for Euro 2012. But they and Katie are already planning the house warming party - we all agree that we definitely want to do something to thank all those who have helped us get here, mainly through propping me up with coffees and moral support.

We have also had world environment day this week and Matthew and I made the most of a school plant sale to stock up on herbs for our new garden.



We bought an acacia too, in the spirit of the great Kenyan environmentalist and tree planter Wangari Maathai. I'm hoping that planting it might go some way to offsetting the carbon footprint of the 4x4 I carted it home in!

On a more sombre note, this week has seen a bomb attack in central Nairobi which prompted far more international and local news coverage than previous grenade throwing incidents. Fortunately, and unlike the grenade attacks, no one was killed this time. But the timing and location of the blast - Monday lunchtime in the central business district - coupled with the fact that it was almost certainly a homemade bomb have really had an impact here. Visible policing has significantly increased and lots of people we know are adjusting plans and staying away from central Nairobi for a bit. Whilst it might not seem the ideal backdrop for signing our lease, it will be great to have our own home to seek refuge in for what I fear will be the inevitable further incidents over the months to come.


Anne

Shipping news

Whilst we have been settling into our lives here our belongings have been slowly making their way across the seas and through Kenyan process to join us. Like many things here, it hasn't been entirely clear what the various steps are on their journey, when our stuff is likely to arrive and which bits of paperwork with which stamps we need to present where along the way. So we've just been biding our time, watching and learning about international shipping processes, with a little help from my brother who was able to check the whereabout of the container whilst it was at sea and so reassure the kids (and us) that it had avoided all pirates, storms and other catastrophes.

On Thursday we got a request to present ourselves at the customs clearing point in Nairobi to validate entry of our stuff into the country. Apparently our urgent attendance was required because, unbeknownst to us, our stuff was suddenly about to outstay its welcome at this clearing point (which we had no idea it had reached). The container has in fact been in Kenya for a over month waiting in a congested Mombassa port and then taking a few days to make the 16-20 hour train journey up to Nairobi. But this was the first time we've felt that our belongings are nearing the end of their trip. Anticipating that validation was going to be neither a swift or entirely transparent experience I took a good book, various passports and all the shipping related paperwork I could find and set off for a day out in the industrial lands around the airport.

I could describe the day in a couple of ways but the more positive version is a gentle drive with 4-5 hours reading a book in the sun, practising my Swahili with a group of packers whilst we waited for various officials to do their stuff, trying to avoid anything that would prompt extra work or require "express payments" to unblock non existent blockages. But it was quite a strange feeling sitting on a huge area of tarmac surrounded by stuff that we have very happily lived without for 3 months and still not being able to take any of it home with me. The things we are most excited about reclaiming are a large bag of footballs - the ones Jamie, Matthew and Katie packed as essential in our travelling bags are all punctured to varying degrees - some pink, glittery arts and crafts things, our ice cream maker and juicer, ninjago Lego, my jeans - the weather is turning a bit cooler and I will be really glad to expand my wardrobe again - and books.

Anyway, we are through the next hurdle and there are now just a few more bits of paperwork to sort over the next week or so and then delivery to arrange. We were in part helped through this latest stage by the rain, which threatened most of the afternoon causing the packers to put everything that they had taken out of the container for inspection back in and illustrating that age old experience that stuff never quite fits as well if you've rummaged through or half unpacked to find something. When it finally came, the rain arrived at the same time as the customs official (whose lunch break had lasted from 11:30 till 3:30). She took one look at the sky, a cursory look at the outside of the container, spent 2 minutes chatting to me about the contents and signed us off. The shipping agent was clearly of the view that we had lucked out. On balance, and with very limited experience of Kenyan authorities, I was inclined to agree.

Anne

Disco diva

Great excitement for the last week in our house about the first school disco - last Friday night for katie and her friends. The boys have theirs later in the term. Katie carefully selected her clothes and checked each morning how many days to go till the D.I.S.C.O. Tributes to Donna Summer on our way into school on Friday morning helped get everyone in the mood. Parents are barred from participating and so retreat to the school bar to reminisce about their own school discos - Donna and The BeeGees were big features of mine so I'm feeling particularly nostalgic (and old) this week!

School discos aside, the soundtrack to our lives here is pretty similar to back in the UK. Driving to school gives us plenty of time to listen to music as the kids have all decided that the news is just too grim and "always about bad things happening" so I save my world service fix for my solo car time. Charts pop is ubiquitous and we get regular blasts of Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Maroon 5 et al. Jamie does a very fine comedy Justin Bieber impression - there is complete consensus amongst the boys in his class that JB is rubbish, whatever the girls think.

But we get the odd splash of something different for our ears. The weekly school assembly on Fridays starts with the Kenyan National Anthem, although having experienced the school singing it when I went to Matthew's work share I'm none the wiser on tune or lyrics. I'm trying to broaden our listening options via the radio too. Africa World Service always has a featured regional artist or group playing a few tracks in the morning and I'm adding any I like to my Spotify playlists. A Zimbabwean singer called Prudence was a particularly striking feature. We are all agreed that the Swahili track which heavily samples Coldplay's Paradise isn't going anywhere near the playlist.

Friends and family are also making their contribution to our soundtrack. We went to a very lovely choral performance of St Matthew's passion at Easter, sung by a group of people we have met here. Jamie continues to enjoy the Toto album he got for Christmas as part of acclimatising the kids for our move, mainly at full volume in the shower. rains in Africa has been very appropriate for the last month or so. Matthew is learning about the tribes of Kenya in his topic this term so is picking up some traditional songs and instruments. Katie is learning the recorder and also invested her pocket money in a small African drum to make sure she can join in too, although I'm not sure that's what I call music!

Nairobi book club

Our lifestyle here brings loads of opportunities for us all to do lots of reading. I'm mixing some gentle fiction with learning more about Africa and all aspects of life here, and plenty of bedtime reading of Angelina ballerina and Hiccup's dragon related adventures. School has a well stocked library for the children and a grown ups' book exchange so we can all regularly refresh our reading material. And we are making the most of the worldwide web. There are book clubs here too but for now we are keeping this as a family activity.




Much of grown up reading time is spent keeping up with the news locally (where the rain and associated flooding and political manoeuvring in advance of likely elections in 10 months time currently dominate) and internationally. We get most of our international news from the radio and on line - another reason I love my iPad - but sitting at the table over a lazy Sunday morning coffee doesn't quite feel the same with laptop and tablet next to us rather than Sunday papers sprawled across the table. Regular purchases of the weekly Guardian offer some relief although the boys (young and old) still miss their Sunday fix of extensive sports coverage.

A particularly thought provoking read for me has been Africa,
Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, a collection of essays by American journalist Blaine Harden written during and soon after the four years he spent living in Nairobi in the 80s. Of course lots of things have changed in the subsequent 25 years, not least the end of Apartheid, but much really resonates with the current themes on world service Africa. Harden writes about the importance of family in society across Africa; tribal tensions in Kenya (a common theme here just now as various men start positioning themselves for next year's Presidential elections and tribal allegiances come to the fore); bitter war between north and south Sudan (then one rather than 2 countries but many of the names haven't changed); military coups, lack of election transparency and big men running Africa (at the end of the 80s Charles Taylor is just emerging as the chosen successor to take Liberia out of the mess Samuel Doe made - now he's an indicted ICC war criminal); the challenges of aligning aid to people's needs and knowing that donor funds are making a positive difference; and the vibrancy of life here, which resonates with a current twitterati debate Why I love Africa . Writing in the late 1980s, Harden sees Nigeria as Africa's big hope - I think he doesn't factor South Africa into his equation because at the time of writing it still stood apart from black Africa. The economic stats still largely support his thesis but his observation that Nigerians largely put aside tribal and religious tensions following the horrors of the Biafran war looks increasingly out of date in light of recent events there.

As Kenya and others' approach 50th anniversaries of Independence, I found it sobering to reflect on what has and hasn't changed in terms of the quality of individual lives here during my adult life time.


Anne

Down on the farm

Keeping cattle is a a big part of rural life in Kenya and milk, beef and cows' blood are all important elements of diets and tribal rituals here. But there is no tradition of making or eating cheese. A small family run cheese company, Brown's stepped in to fill this gap for the international community in 1979 and it's still going strong. They do a cheese tasting lunch and factory tour at their small farm about 30km north east of Nairobi so this weekend we decided to go and take a look with some friends.

It was a great day out learning about cheese, about how cattle farming and the milk market works - regular readers of this blog may recall a recent milk and butter shortage suggesting it doesn't work as well as it might - and the challenges of running a business here. The kids got to milk cows, watch cheese being made, feed pigs, scrump avocados in the garden and generally enjoy the good life.

Lunch was delicious too. And we have all been inspired by the chilli "tree" - seeds from it are already growing in our window box.

Jamie opted to go to a friend's birthday party, eat pizza and chocolate cake and watch a movie instead so we have a perfect excuse for a return trip at some point.


Anne