Settled yet?

The other night Katie announced that she didn't "quite feel settled in Kenya yet mummy". I think her comment was prompted by her desire to have a bedside table and a sense that she hasn't quite nested yet in her room here with some of her favourite things still waiting to find their place. But, coupled with a few other things she prompted me to wonder how settled the rest of us are.

After 8 months of living here the kids and I are now formally resident with stamps in our passports to show it, just in time for my multiple entry visa to expire. This latter means it was almost exactly a year ago that I first visited Nairobi on a whirlwind trip with Tim - it was his final interview for the job and we wanted to see if we thought living here would work for us as a family. Clearly the interview went well and we (with thanks to a few great friends who helped us think through the pros and cons) decided we could happily live here, although I'm still slightly suspicious that we were influenced by the thrill of a couple of nights out without kids or babysitters to think about.

And whilst the anniversary of our decision making trip, formal status here and a bedtime observation from my daughter might anyway have caused me to vaguely reflect on our general state of settledness, it was coffee with a friend a couple of weeks ago that crystallised this theme. This is a very good friend I made soon after we arrived. She too had just arrived with her family and we shared the ups and downs of landing in a new country together, fortified by coffee and occasionally something stronger. Our kids played (and fought) happily for our first few months here and she and I compared notes on our house hunting efforts. We both found houses at the same time and moved in the same week. But we live in different neighbourhoods, with kids at different schools and so we have seen much less of each other as we get increasingly settled in our lives. So we were both eagerly anticipating a long gossipy coffee. But her news was very different to ours.

After 9 months of trying to expand into East Africa her husband's company had decided it wasn't going to make business sense so our friends had been told they would be out of here by Christmas. This position has since changed and our friends (and we) are very pleased that they will now be staying - the kids are so settled here and the family is thriving on the life they are building together. But the challenges of doing business here are very real and impact on Tim too. They will ultimately influence how long there is a role here for him. We've always seen our time here as a temporary adventure and are certainly no way near wanting that to end (which I take to mean we are all pretty settled) but this timely reminder that the adventure might be ended prematurely by others has got us wanting to make sure that we make the most of being here. So Katie now has a bedside table and we've said yes to Matthew's request for his birthday to be at the beach. We are still resisting the daily pleas for a puppy though.



Anne

Things that go bang and bump in the night

I wrote this post a little while ago and if you read on you will understand the delay in getting it online......


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

A helping hand (and feet)

Inevitably our lives here are getting busier, juggling play dates, sports fixtures, homework, a growing social life and work with a shared family desire to get out and about and see the fantastic sights the region has to offer. And its easy to get wrapped up in all of that and fail to do anything meaningful for those around us who are so much less privileged. Read some very moving examples on a friend's great blog On the threshold of Africa

I have good intentions to get properly involved with something and really admire the dedication and commitment to others of our many friends here with various humanitarian causes. But until I get my act together to do that we are just trying to live our life in a way that recognises the world we live in and helps others, if only in very small ways.

Last month our lovely eskari's wife lost the much wanted baby she was carrying and we all wanted to find a way to help them. I sought advise from Kenyans and an experienced expat, recognising that infant mortality and miscarriages are so much more a part of life here that society's reaction might be different. But the consolidated view was that sweet tea (tea bags, a large bag of sugar and loaves of bread to help the family cater for the numerous callers they could expect after church on Sunday) and sympathy (in the form of kind words and hard cash) would be the right support. So not that different really.

We also support some more formal charities. Tim has a small sum taken from his wages each month and donated to local good causes, the kids' school has fundraising events mainly for charities supporting children in the nearby slum, holiday football training has been provided by a coach who was trained by and now works with one such charity and we always find homes for clothes, toys and shoes that we have outgrown. Its not much in the grand scheme of things but it does keep the reality of others' situations in our minds. And Matthew is busy learning his scouts' promise to help others - it's not entirely clear to me that siblings really are exempt from this commitment!

As for the helping feet, Tim is doing a fair bit of running here and took part in the Nairobi half marathon at the weekend. This annual event was this year raising money for Seeing is believing. It's been much hyped on the local radio stations that provide the soundtrack for the school run and so the kids were able to explain to Tim just how his feet were helping reduce preventable blindness. I'm not sure how much he heard as he jumped into a pool to cool off and let his muscles relax.

Anne

Pretty in pink

I've said before that much of the family side of life here is much like our life in London. One thing that is notably different is the time and effort that a number of people put into making events look just right. Ive been to some beautiful lunches and most recently a very pink babyshower where any fancy interiors magazine could have done a photo shoot (with me obviously airbrushed out of the scene due to dishevelled hair and a failure to have matched my wardrobe to the decor).

There is masses of creative ability amongst my friends in the UK and dinners, parties and school cake sale offerings always looked great but here that is taken to another level. I'm not sure if its because of a Martha Stewart type US influence here (balancing out the British tendency to think its uncool to try too hard). Or because of the help everyone has which means cakes can be decorated, flowers sourced to match, tables laid exquisitely and printed menus produced without laundry and dishes and other domestic chores piling up. Or because there are some very high achieving women here who are not currently working - its a bit of a nightmare to get a work permit, a very competitive employment market and lots of my friends are prioritising settling kids into lives in a different part of the world and using this time to expand their own families - and just approach anything they do with an equally committed search for perfection. Or because amidst the noise and hassle on the streets there is a real appetite for serenity inside. Or because its a relatively small overlapping community here so its important to mark the difference between an informal quick catch up with a group of mums over coffee and a special event with the same mums and coffee. Or just because it is a fun challenge to see what can be done in Nairobi.

But whatever the reasons and its probably all of the above, I long ago learnt my level and do not try to keep up with the standards set by this group of my friends. Doesn't stop me appreciating their abilities though or tucking into the yummy food that goes along with the decor but I don't think I'm yet ready to invest in a butterfly paper hole punch.