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

Reduce, reuse, recycle

As our London neighbours will testify, we are keen recyclers in our household and I'm slowly working out how to follow Bob the Builder's famous advice in our Kenyan lives. There is, as far as I can work out, little or no formal support for recycling here. But there are lots of independent initiatives that would make Bob and his machines proud.

Beer and fizzy drinks bottles have a refundable deposit to encourage people to take them back to the shop for re-use - and we are certainly making our contribution there! Various people we meet are keen to take our plastic bottles, glass jars etc for their own storage. And there is a factory which recycles other glass into glassware for re-sale, although you have to take your glass direct to the factory slightly off the beaten track. There's a bottle bank at the UN - which might reflect the organisation's environmental commitments or could say something about the lifestyles of the significant numbers of people working for the organisation here. And at school the kids are encouraged to separate paper, plastic bottles and other waste, although it's not quite clear what then happens to this rubbish. School also hosts a collection point for old clothes, book, toys etc for a local charity, Love shack which supports children growing up in the slums. Plastic bags are a real menace across africa and some shops are just beginning to encourage customers to reuse theirs, although I get odd looks when I actually follow that encouragement.

As elsewhere in Africa, there's a long tradition of making things from what others throw away - we have seen kids playing football with a ball made of plastic bags, slingshots made from old bits of rubber tyre with elastic, flipflops turned into all sorts of things by a local company, Jamie's book bag is made from recycled plastic bags and these lovely bracelets are made by a friend's Ugandan ayah, who makes the beads from old paper.




Our own efforts at making things from empty cereal packets, loo rolls and yoghurt pots aren't so attractive but they have allowed for many a happy hour during the Easter holidays.

Anne

Long rains and no hosepipe bans

We are in the midst of the long rains here - they are meant to start late march/ early April and last for about a month, where it rains most days but generally in short sharp bursts interspersed with sun. They play havoc with the roads and create traffic chaos but in a few weeks they have turned Nairobi green and colourful again as dried out grass and shrubs get a new lease of life and the hibiscus blooms.

Katie and Tim are busily planting things in small pots in our window box to make the most of the growing season and Matthew is growing kidney beans at school - he's very confident I'll never need to buy them again.

Life for many is so dependent on these rains that they are much discussed and anticipated in the weeks before they come. This year they were late and relatively light early on - but still no formal hosepipe bans. And as the food supply chain here works differently to the UK the lack of rain meant it was instantly hard to find butter in the supermarkets and sales of milk are regularly limited to a few pints per customer. In Nairobi, at least though, the rains appear to be properly here now and there have been some major storms, with sheet lightning and huge thunder claps and torrential downpours. We are all very used to the increased number of power cuts and the sound of the generator firing into action. Where we live now this happens almost as soon as the power goes off and the kids have yet to deploy their head torches to eat dinner, brush teeth etc. But they can see that time will come and are excited by the prospect, even if the reality is likely to be a different matter.


Anne

School holidays - time for a trip to the museum

When living in London we would almost always go to one of the big museums in the school holidays so this week seemed the right time for our first visit to the National Museum here. The kids were a bit sceptical - I think more because they fancied an afternoon of computer games rather than any criticism of African cultural and heritage displays. But we all had a lovely time.

We started at the snake pit. Jamie had clearly done his research - those hours of Steve Backshall's deadly 60 viewing and card collecting have rubbed off. He was able to identify all the snakes and had all sorts of fascinating (and slightly scary) facts about them, particularly how venomous they were. He helpfully explained that the only way to tell the difference between the harmless grass snake and the 98% fatal black mamba (which turns out to be grey/green and named after the colour of its tongue) is when the latter opens its mouth and attacks you. Apparently grass snakes don't do that. We all agreed that this wasn't a great differentiator and it wouldn't be the best time to find out either.

After the excitement of the snake park the main museums's story of the evolution of man through fossils discovered in Kenya, including 1.5 million year old humanoid skeleton Turkana boy didn't quite capture the kids' imaginations. But I learnt a lot and we all enjoyed looking at the various tribal artefacts and display of African mammals. A local artist was also having an exhibition so we got a dose of culture too. I suspect this museum will become as regular a feature of our school holidays as our trips to South Ken.
Anne

Have landrover, now for a safari

After some top gear inspired debate and much searching we have settled on a second hand Freelander as our car here. And after many years of deriding mums who do the school run in 4x4s I have now become one - although the road quality and standard of driving here is a little different from Chelsea (at least that is how I justify myself).

And the Easter holidays and Tim's birthday seemed the perfect time to take it, and us on our first proper African Safari. Taking some advice from new found friends here we chose Amboseli, on the border with Tanzania and with Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop, as our destination.

We stayed in a really friendly hotel just outside the park and pretty much had the lovely pool there to ourselves so no anxiety about noisy splashing kids disturbing the tranquility. Jamie befriended the bar man and spent his down time inventing non alcoholic cocktails to sell to thirsty safari goers whilst Matthew and Katie went off exploring in the bamboo and sugar cane (when they weren't munching the latter by the pool.) And on our first evening we sat round a camp fire ostensibly learning about Masai culture but in reality star gazing - must remember to get the great star map app for our next trip

For our first venture into the park itself we went with a Masai guide who completely looked the part (sorry no photo - I'm not entirely comfortable taking posed shots of people i don't really know) and had a nasty looking scar from a struggle with a lion when he had been tending his cows a few years ago. He was great and helped us spot loads of elephants - Matthew abandoned his attempts to keep a tally in the first few minutes when we saw three huge groups in quick succession and tim and I got a little nervous when an impressive bull elephant started walking right towards us - photo is on my other camera and I don't have the right lead to upload it but take my word it was huge and I wasn't being a bit feeble! We also saw zebra, hyena, buffalo, wildebeest, warthogs, gazelles and finally a real treat of four lions stalking a wildebeest. The male in the group walked right past the freelander - it was good to be high up! Here is Jamie's photo - now his screensaver. Fortunately the wildebeest clocked what was happening and made its getaway. But, as Matthew observed, "that was very special".

Anne

Now we are 6

School holidays have started as, unsurprisingly have the long
awaited rains. The boys are thrilled as it means lots of time in front of various screens - they are making a rainy day activity "chatterbox" (those folded bits of paper where you choose a colour, which then reveals a choice of numbers and in turn a prediction or comment or in this case an indoor activity) to help them plan their time. Easter homework doesn't appear to feature!

We managed Katie's swimming birthday party last Monday despite the rain - she had a lovely time and is enjoying reading some new books and working her way through the arts and crafts her friends gave her. She hasn't taken off her new outfit since other than to sleep.








Anne