As part of getting ready to return to London I've accepted a Facebook friend request to join a local mum's group. I thought it might be a good way of reconnecting, finding out about nannies and life in the neighbourhood we are returning to. I joined a similar group here and whilst most of the posts have little relevance to me, it has been a useful source of information on events and the sort of things that pre-occupy mums here (and pretty much everywhere) like ill children, reliable childcare, where to get specific things, problems at school etc. All very familiar stuff. And most of the time it is easy to feel that our Nairobi world is pretty similar to our London world albeit with better weather, a different group of friends and much more wildlife - our cat brought us a snake the other day rather than a more traditional mouse offering!
But the other week I was really struck by 2 posts on these 2 sites and by some of the very real differences in our worlds. On my London net a mum of 3 was seeking advice about driving from London to Verbier to go skiing with her children. She had at least a dozen comments from people locally offering advice based on their experiences. In Nairobi on the same day a mum was asking whether she should be suspicious about a woman and her three kids that she had dragged out from the middle of the traffic apparently trying to kill themselves because life was so hopeless. She too had a dozen or so posts saying this was an established scam with agreed descriptions of the con woman. It may have been a con but the woman was still taking 3 kids into unpredictable and bonkers traffic in a country where annual road deaths are at least double that in the UK (for a smaller population and much lower rates of car ownership). It felt very different to the anxieties of driving across Europe for a skiing holiday. I will try and hold on to that when I'm inevitably struggling with aspects of our privileged London life in the coming months.
Anne
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