You know you live in Africa when.......

Its an odd time of year in Nairobi just now. This is partly because its turned a bit grey and chilly as it does between mid June and August. Socks and fleeces have appeared from drawers, extra quilts are on beds and porridge is the breakfast food of choice. But its also that the wind down/up towards the end of term heralds lots of departures - some just for the "summer" but many for good as people coincide changing jobs with the school year and so we have all started saying goodbyes and going to farewell parties and farewell sleepovers and exchanging email and Skype addresses. It's an aspect of our lives here that's unlike life in London, where departures were really rare and although there was lots of chat about moving out at some point, people usually meant moving within a hundred miles, not crossing continents.

In a fortnight that has mainly been filled with the normality of life - work, end of season matches, parents evenings and school shows, going out with friends, having kids to stay, having friends for dinner, and weather more like London than living on the equator, I've been wondering what else about our life here reminds me I am in Africa.

There are the obvious things. The real focus on Mandela's condition in all the news and the interest in exactly where Obama is and isnt visiting. We have also had a couple of big power cuts which meant bedtime stories by head torch (and a rude awakening at 1am when the power and lights came back). Then there has been the water rationing which saw our storage tank empty out and a friend run out of water totally just as 10 people turned up for coffee. And the roadworks, which are almost entirely done by hand rather than heavy machinery and which meant it took me an hour and forty minutes to drive 3 miles the other day. Grrrrr.

And of course there are the perks - the laundry that is done almost as soon as the clothes hit the wash basket, the shopping that is bought and put away whilst I'm at work, the washing up that we rarely touch but is always done, the never empty cake tin, the very willing people who pack and carry heavy shopping to the car, the work trips that take us to all sorts of places - Tanzania for me this week, London for Tim last week and jo'burg next.

Then there are the African twists on things - the passion juice and samosa to keep parents going through chaotic parents evenings, the dog food and prawns given equal billing with chicken, mince and goat at the local butcher, the traditional African story of a hare who wanted to be king of animals turned into a musical (of sorts) performance by year 3 and 4 kids, the drive through coffee plants to reach a small fishing lake for a quiet Sunday trip with friends, the kites divebombing our picnic and the camel in the background (not quite near enough to be identifiable in this)

And this appearing as I washed my homegrown salad!