Last week was one of Halloween and bonfire night here. These are not, of course, traditional Kenyan celebrations but the kids are at a British school and have lots of British and American friends here so we have been carving pumpkins, sticking hands into cauldrons of "blood and guts" (cooked spaghetti and jelly) for lucky dip and stocking up on sweets for various Halloween themed parties. The pumpkins are tougher to carve here, the halloween tatt is just as tatty and Trick or treating has been organised and pre-arranged between friends - Nairobi is not a city where unexpected knocks on the gate by groups of youths in the dark are welcomed. And the kids have all made pretty impressive hauls of confectionary which they are gradually getting through. They have worked out that I'm quite susceptible to an argument for a couple of sweets after breakfast to keep them occupied during the road chaos that is their journey to school at the moment. Its not ideal for their teeth I know but at least they are still asking before helping themselves.
Halloween error #1: apple bobbing before the flour game... http://t.co/H0Dj4LUk (https://twitter.com/HCCTurner/status/263657707129667584)
The final party was a school bonfire/ Halloween event last Saturday. Its the rainy season again and a torrential downpour earlier in the day apparently put an end to the planned bonfire. And fireworks are banned here on account of some people being a bit too keen to blow up others. The authorities have made an exception this week for Diwali as long as the fireworks are silent (do such fireworks exist?). But this didn't extend to a several hundred year old celebration of the capture, torture and ultimate death of a Catholic anti parliamentarian plotter (which is how we ended up trying to explain Guy Fawkes night to Australian and belgian friends here). The kids seemed very happy despite these notable absences from bonfire night and made the most of the neon lights, sparklers, candy floss and Halloween games.
As well as putting a damper on Saturdays bonfire the rains have, as they did in March, brought traffic chaos, some amazing storms and proof that the builders who renovated our house were rubbish as water came in through various places in the roof. The roof is now fixed but a storm earlier this week brought down a tree and a mass of power cables, including Internet access for the whole area. My neighbours and I have all been reassured that the company is working flat out on restoring services but given that the tree is still blocking half our road and there is very little sign of movement anywhere near it I suspect it might take some time. Matthew gently observed that he does miss the fact that things had worked in England. but we then agreed that our situation is nothing compared to Sandy and its destruction in the US. And it's all useful material for his current geography project on extreme weather. Jamie is also keen to use it for his geography project, if only as an excuse for why he won't be able to hand his work in on time!
Anne
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