Big cat diary

Tim and I started the week before last with a reception sponsored by Save the elephants and hosted by the British High Commission here focussed on raising awareness of the huge increase in poaching in Kenya and across Africa over the last couple of years. And we ended it with a family weekend away in the Massai Mara to celebrate Jamie's birthday. So, a very wildlife focused week (with the inevitable elections backdrop).

The poaching figures are pretty grim, with ivory from elephants and rhino horn the two most sought after items. Recent research suggests illegal killing of elephants has more than doubled in the last three years and its an equally sad story for Rhinos. Prices of ivory and horn are soaring and a culture of corruption and impunity mean the profits are high and the risks low for want to be poachers. But alongside these salutary figures and some horrible video footage of dead and mutilated elephants, the reception did give Tim the chance to chat to Saba Douglas-Hamilton again and put him in the right big cat frame of mind for the Mara....

After a year in Kenya we still hadn't made it to this world famous spot and as soon as I told the kids they could each choose a birthday destination Jamie was very clear he wanted to go to the Mara. It's between a 6 and 9 hour drive from Nairobi or just under an hour in a small plane - no contest I thought, despite a pretty significant price difference. The fun of a small plane, the speed of travel, the "free" air safari over Kenya including a fab view into a volcano just outside Naivasha.....but I hadn't quite factored in the impact on travel sick kids (even after lashings of stugeron all round). And by the time we arrived at our tranquil camp on the river (seeing elephants from the window as we came into land) there was a family consensus that we would drive next time.

Having recovered from the flight and had an evening chilling on the veranda by our tent and eating a delicious (and in Jamie's case huge) supper we were all restored and ready for our 6am wake up call complete with tea, hot chocolate and biscuits. And then it was a pattern of game drives, leg stretching and jumping in a pool, more drives, recharging camera batteries and eating lunch, more safari and then a cold beer or soda, a slide show about the animals and dinner before doing it all again on Sunday. And it was great.........

New folder View photos    Download all You are invited to view anne's album. This album has 31 files.

We saw so much, relaxed completely and had fun planing for a return trip with granny in October when its the migration. Luckily a combination of early starts, long days and plying the kids with larger doses of anti sickness drugs on the way back meant they slept rather than threw up. And Tim got the seat next to the pilot so it looks like a short flight is on the cards again for our next trip.






Anne

Ready, steady......

As Kenyans get ready to go to the polls tomorrow there's a nervous tension in Nairobi. It's broadly optimistic, with no one thinking there will be a repeat of the terrible, unexpected violence of 2008. But no one knows quite what it will be like. The Kenyans we know hope that their country is more mature than 5 years ago and has the confidence to sort its problems in court and not on the streets. But they are not quite sure and whilst they are hoping for the best everyone is getting ready in case it doesn't quite work out like that.
This being prepared just in case....is obvious in all sorts of ways. People who were here last time know that it was difficult to get to the shops and once there they were pretty empty. And it was difficult to get cash too and the mobile phone networks weren't robust. So there are longer than normal queues at the supermarket and the stall at the end of our road, as people take advantage of having February's pay cheque to stock up, just in case. The eggs had pretty much sold out from the main supermarket when Jamie and I went to get the ingredients for his birthday cake and post sleepover fry up yesterday. And people had at least 2 trolleys each - in a society where 95% of spend in supermarkets is with cash that is some pretty major stocking up. According to our guard there is no charcoal for sale in Kibera, one of Nairobi's main high density population area, and as that's the major source of cooking fuel tensions are already a bit higher than ideal.
On the money side, the Mpesa (mobile money) system here which has revolutionised how people send money home, pay bills, and generally manage their cash is showing a bit of strain. The network was down for most of Friday and its been difficult to deposit money into the system (which works on an assumption of cash in equalling cash out most of the time and is currently being swamped by people depositing much more than they are withdrawing).
For us, we have got in extra drinking water and beer, plenty of dry goods and tea, a supply of dollars (just in case we need to head for Tanzania and get visas on the border), a stocked freezer (balancing the risk of no power with the need to eat) and fullish fuel tanks. We have learnt how to use the new radios provided by my work and have had test sms messages from school and my work to check their emergency systems. The kids have had all sorts of emergency drills at school - jamie is most excited by the "lock down" which has all the kids diving under their desks whilst teachers lock doors and shut blinds - I suspect this is pretty routine training in schools in the US but its way beyond the usual fire drills I knew as a girl. They are on half term now (moved to coincide with elections) and lots of their friends have headed out of Kenya, with a fair few opting not to bother to return for the 2 week second half of term but to stay away till mid April and so avoid a Presidential run off. Those of us staying around are looking forward to using all those arts and crafts, word searches and board games that are stored away for rainy days. And we are planning a kids fun day for Thursday to avert the inevitable cabin fever (for both kids and parents) on the assumption that there should be a bit less uncertainty by then.
And against all this just in case planning there is real excitement. A great hope for Kenya's fairest and most credible elections yet, heralding its new constitution and real enthusiasm amongst many Kenyans for the elections, with lots of people I talk to planning to be at the polling stations for 5am to make sure they get to vote. But its a funny mix of hope and fear and certainly something to play by ear over the next few days.
Anne

Bullets and ballots

One of our Christmas cracker mottos (no jokes in Kenyan crackers) advised us that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Both have been frequent subjects of our family chats over the last couple of months as the forthcoming March elections here dominate the local media and the terrible shooting in Newtown filled the international news. Although gun deaths here are still nothing compared to the US, there are plenty of guns in evidence in Nairobi - armed police protect shopping malls, direct traffic and there are regular press reports of suspected criminals being killed by police during arrests. Almost all the employees of the Kenyan wildlife Service carry guns, although we are not convinced they will come across many poachers in the Nairobi national park car park. And we all wonder whether, in a crisis, these guns will actually help. Over a thousand people died in post election violence here in 2008 and a significant proportion of them were shot with police/army weapons.

As for the ballots,Kenyan Presidential elections have pretty much been the news since we arrived last year, over shadowing even their US equivalent. With the election date only 15 days away we are now into full swing of electioneering and posters have been put up all over town, and then covered with others' posters, which in turn have been fly posted over again.

Political rallies pop up all over the place, with lorries covered in posters, lots of music and loudspeakers and dire consequences for the journey home. We had the first stage of the Kenyan elections - some fairly chaotic party nominations - a couple of weeks ago and Kenya's first ever televised Presidential debate on Monday, with all 8 aspirants saying their bit. In true Kenyan style the debate started late, accommodated all 8 candidates only after a court case to allow the last 2 in the polls a voice, over ran and it was pretty tricky to spot any policy commitments. But really exciting for everyone to get a chance to hear from all the candidates rather than just their tribal default and whilst its still too early to see if it impacts on voting in 2 weeks time the polls suggest it may have. Memories of 2007/8 violence are everywhere but there is also lots of cautious optimism that the lessons have been learnt

The election itself is pretty complicated with 6 different votes, all on different coloured ballots all of which have to be posted in the right box. And lots of rules about handling "assisted" voters - those who cant read the ballot paper and so are allowed "a friend" to help them vote. Kenya is a highly educated country and one of the big lessons from last time round was over the surprisingly large number in this group. The Presidential vote is the highest profile but local Governor elections are likely to be as hotly contested, with all the potential that brings for localised problems. There has been lots of work to explain all this to voters and loads of ads on the radio urging peace. We are off to a charity Movie premier on Thursday to promote peaceful elections.

There has also been a lot of work since 2007 to reduce the potential for cheating. Snazzy electronic registration based on fingerprints took place in November - I watched the trainers learning how to use them at a local centre.

This is meant to stop dead people from voting (which happened at scale last time) and large numbers of names have been taken off the register in the last few months for registering twice so it looks like its having an effect. I'm hoping to be an election observer (assuming various court cases to stop the interfering international community from seeing what's really going on are quashed) and I spent Friday morning learning about a large number of ways people try and cheat so I know what to look out for and what to report. Of course any large scale corruption of the vote wont really happen at the polling stations but through pre election intimidation and post election manipulation of the figures. But I still suspect my experience is going to be a bit different from my friend Pat when she was an election observer in Tooting!

Anne

London calling....

I've spent most of this week in London for work, leaving Tim and the kids to fend for themselves at home. At a long lazy sunday lunch last week before I headed to the airport I was asked, work aside(?!), what I was most looking forward to. Of course catching up with family and friends was my immediate and clear answer (even though the work schedule didn't leave enough time to see very many people at all). And that was indeed the highlight of the trip. But it was also just good to be in London again. Here are a few reasons why.....

walking: Our life here doesn't have much room for routine walking. We do some walks in safari parks and I do the occasional short walk to get fruit and veg from the stall on the corner of our road although I more frequently just stop in the car on the way home. But unlike in London, we don't walk to school, or the shops or between work meetings because its too far, too dusty and polluted, too hot or too wet and sometimes just too unsafe (because of erratic traffic including driving on the pavement in the day and fear of crime at night). And it was great just walking everywhere, day and evening.

tuna sandwiches: There are loads of great places to eat in Nairobi and you can get pretty much any type of food you like but I haven't yet found a tuna sandwich to compete with my preferred lunch choice from "pret".

the tube: It may be pricey, overcrowded and hot and full of people pushing and sneezing and not quite as reliable or accessible for all (including if you have heavy bags full of goodies to take home) as we would all like. But there is something reassuringly familiar about the coloured lines on the map. And it works and gets you all over town in a nearly guaranteed amount of time without the need to sit in traffic. Coming from Nairobi that's more than enough to recommend it.

crisp winter mornings: Very beautiful, refreshing and unlike any mornings here. Lovely.

Of course it's not all great - austerity Brittain is clearly biting and although we live with much greater general levels of poverty here, there is something particularly challenging in seeing that the developed world doesn't cope with this any better than the developing one. On a less profound level it was also strange to be cold and I missed Tim and the kids.

And now its really good to be home. Back in time for Katie's assembly this morning where they managed to fit gangnam style into the story of the boy who cried wolf - twice! And for Matthew to do some poetry reading at school tomorrow. The sun is shining, I have replaced winter boots with flip flops and am just about to jump in a pool to shake off aftermath of all those tuna sarnies and an overnight flight. Given that i started off in a row with twins under 1 and a newborn across the aisle, was asked to move to make room for their cots and willingly did so only to find myself amongst a bunch of immigration officers accompanying a few people home, including a baby, it may take more than a quick dip to keep me awake this evening. Nice lazy weekend ahead.

Anne

Hi-de-hi

Tim and I have never been natural campers, both enjoying the comfort of our own bed, a good night's sleep and a warm shower too much to want to spend many nights out under canvas. We had been together for at least 8 years when we first camped together, for some great friends' hen/stag do - I was the "best man" and although I was let off any organising (or part in choosing what to do) it meant we had no choice but to go along. We borrowed a tent from my brother, an air mattress from friends and tested our ability to put it all up in the front room of our London flat so as not to embarrass ourselves in front of hardened campers.
How times have changed. We're still not natural campers but the mix of young kids (who love the idea of camping and the time spent outside with friends even if they struggle to sleep well) and the cost of staying in hotels as a family of five and the amount of room we occupy if staying with friends coupled with living somewhere with relatively predictable warm, dry weather and a great outdoors means camping is much more part of our lives now. We own 2 tents (which even I can put up without a need to practice), sleeping bags,mattresses - we still have the air bed we borrowed 10 years ago, gifted because our friend never wanted to camp again - camping stoves, cooking gear and of course head torches and lamps galore. And last weekend we bundled it all into the back of our car and set off to join friends in a field right by lake Naivasha.
The weekend was organised by a really lovely family who leave Nairobi next week after 4 years here. They will be very missed both in the school mums net and at work and about 20 or so families with kids between 6 months and 11 came along to mark their departure. Early anxiety from Matthew that it would be all girls and all under 7s were soon dispelled when he recognised a fellow 9 year old from sports fixtures at a rival school and they bonded over a football and Matthew's "tracks and signs" book, trying to work out which animal poo belonged to what - the only one they were absolutely confident about was the tortoise (?!) so I think they have some way to go. Jamie rekindled his early years passion for horses and spent hours riding, leading others on a pony and hanging out at the stables. And Katie disappeared with the afore mentioned u7 girls.
We had a great weekend, with huge games of kids' football, rugby and cricket organised by a few dads, horse riding, toasting marshmallows, bbqing, drinking beer, breakfasting with giraffe's and spending time with friends. Tim and I opted out of the midnight hippo hunt but went on a lazy Sunday morning boat trip on the lake instead and saw loads, along with fishermen and great bird life. We came back to Nairobi tired but reminded that the faff that is packing up is reduced a bit in the absence of howling gales and torrential rain, and when there is a small army of people around to help put it all away, clean out the car and wash out the icebox when you get home. Definitely more glamping than camping.

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Anne

How does the garden grow?

As anyone who buys fine green beans in Sainsburys knows, agriculture is a major source of exports here. The mix of equatorial sun, warmth and a good rainfall around Nairobi all make for great growing conditions. There is a saying that if you plant a stick it will grow. Its very lush on the coast too, with cashews and coconuts everywhere. We drove past miles and miles of pineapple fields on our way to Mombasa the other week - a new sight for us all. Green beans and asparagus are shipped abroad along with the best of the Kenyan tea and coffee crops, although there's a growing market for good coffee in Nairobi (if at a price beyond most Kenyans and honestly not entirely related to the various mums I hang out with). And there's a major flower industry around Lake Naivasha, about an hour from Nairobi. Huge bunches of roses can be bought at most roadside corners in Nairobi for the equivalent of a couple of pounds.


There are some less good aspects of this industry - lake Naivasha has been heavily polluted by nutrients running off the flower farms and is now massively over run by water hyacinths - the equivalent of Japanese knot weed. Katie and Matthew spent a happy hour clearing the Lodge's pond of this weed when we stayed near the lake with my mum but I'm sure a month later it will all be back. It's the same in lake Victoria and a real challenge for environmentalists - there are some projects trying to turn these plants into biomass as a source of energy and one guy we met who advises the PM here is very optimistic about one of these. The flower industry is also apparently cleaning up its act (or so I reassure myself when I can't resist the lovely blooms) so fingers crossed something works soon as some beautiful places are being rapidly damaged.

Back at home, and fertiliser free (if you ignore the manure from our driver/gardener's cow) we are enjoying the fruits of our garden - squash, beans, chillies, potatoes, spinach, salad, fennel and rhubarb with regular bunches of bananas. Katie happily crunches though sunflower seeds too, harvested and dried from her sunflowers in September - the next crop is doing well and she's looking forward to showing the cycle of seed to flower to seed in her science lessons this term as part of learning how things grow.


















The maize and avocados look like they will be ready soon too, and the Passion flower I planted on the back wall in July is about to fruit.

And with luck we will get to them before the monkeys who we spotted in our road the other week find them.

I would love to claim credit for any of this but I can't really. The hard work has all been done by Bernard who is clearly a farmer at heart who also drives, looks after the kids, does my shopping, advises me on life in Kenya and generally provides life support for our household. Tim has put his back into the garden too, building steps through the bananas and working out how to direct the torrents of water that rip through the garden when it rains away from the veg - the hours we have spent building waterways and damns with the kids on rainy UK beaches are paying off!

Standing with Bernard earlier, harvesting beans in the mid morning sun with beautiful birds flying round us and then reading about snow and fog and minus temperatures in the UK really did make me feel on the other side of the world.


Anne

Happy birthday Matthew

As a mum I spend a fair of time saying "not now" and "no" to the kids (or "maybe, which they all know means no but I don't want the row now). And when I'm not directly denying them their wants I'm often busily trying indirectly to do so by encouraging them to stop doing things like fighting, or spending endless time in front of various screens, or eating like savages, or leaving their rooms in a state...... As our most physical child and as the one with the lowest boredom threshold at the moment Matthew is probably the main recipient of this mothering approach. So when he asked a couple of months ago if we could spend his birthday on the beach it was almost as much a treat for me as it was for him to be able to say yes. No need for any stalling "let me think about it" or "I'll need to check with dad". Just yes. And where?

Matthew wanted to return to the place we went to in October - for a child who has adapted fantastically well to his new life, new school and new friends here he really doesn't like too much change! So after a very nice Nairobi New Year's eve having friends to dinner, opening the fizz before midnight on the basis that in our international lives time zones are really irrelevant and at our age we should all be in bed soon after midnight anyway so there was no need to wait for the sake of waiting. And a very mellow New Year's day swimming and BBQing with more friends, we packed our shorts and snorkels and headed off to the coast to get the sand between our toes.



Its made for a lovely start to the year and a very nice end to a month of school holidays - we swam, snorkelled (including Katie who has only recently become a confident swimmer and declared her first proper look under the sea to be awsome), read, built sandcastles, went sea kayaking, made new friends, chased crabs on the beach, enjoyed watching the sun setting on the indian ocean, played uno, saw a few people we knew, and just had fun hanging out together. As I had done in October I occasionally looked up from a sun bed to suggest a trip out, for an ice cream or to East Africa's largest snake farm but I was always rejected in favour of more time in the pool. Jamie's record was a cool 9 hours one day, coming out only for a hasty lunch and an occasional fizzy drink with added sugar - a speciality of the pool bar and one of the attractions for the kids. With the kids very happy and occupied Tim and I were able to have a lovely dive each and Tim also decided to learn how to windsurf. But a lack of wind put paid to his final final lesson this morning and deferred it to our next visit - not that we need any excuse to come back.








For Matthew's birthday itself we thought we would start the day by going dolphin watching. The weather was ideal - the sea in the bay was flat as a pancake and it wasn't too sunny to risk frying the children on a boat trip. So we negotiated a deal (of sorts) with one of the guys on the beach and set of with a group of others to see what we could see. Matthew up front as Birthday boy.

We looked and looked, with the kids turning slowly greener as the ocean swell grew beyond the shelter of the reef. Absolutely nothing as far as the horizon. But presumably thinking their tip would be larger if they actually found dolphins, the boat crew seemed determined to press on, ignoring both Tim's suggestion that they turn back as the visibility was so good it was evident we weren't in the right place and the fact that two of the 4 kids on board were repeatedly throwing up. In the end they accepted what had been clear for some time and turned back. Just as they did a mobile phone rang to say dolphins had been seen on the other side of the bay. But by then the queasy feeling was spreading and even Matthew who prides himself on not getting travel sick had had enough so we jumped out on the beach and let the remaining adults set off for more hunting. 10 minutes later, after a restorative lemonade and swim in the pool Jamie was tucking into a second breakfast - poached eggs on toast with bacon, Katie was running off to play cards at kids club and Matthew was deep into a water polo game. 45 minutes later the boat and our former company spotted dolphins and jumped in for a swim with them. We were all really pleased they had found some and all really glad we hadn't had another 45 minutes on the sea.

After this slightly shaky start to his day Matthew had a great time. We had agreed he will get a few presents from family in the next couple of weeks rather than on his actual birthday but he was really touched when the main guy we deal with on the beach gave him a bracelet and a little girl who had become a firm friend with Katie presented him with a homemade card. He was also secretly pleased, if claiming to be mortified, that we had organised a surprise cake for him. This was presented to him after dinner by various kitchen staff processing out of the kitchen carrying a flower festooned chair for him to sit on whilst banging pans and spoons and signing to him (as appears to be the norm judging from similar displays we've witnessed). Jamie and Katie fled from the noise in embarrassment but were quickly back for the cake, which Matthew happily shared around the children in the restaurant before settling down to a card game with a group of the older children (now that he is 9).

And now its back to Nairobi and work and school and a busy couple of months for everyone before our next break. But despite an hour or so delay on our return flight (more playing of cards called for)

and rain clouds over Nairobi, I suspect it will take a few days for the sand to disappear from swimsuits, bags and between our toes and for Matthew's memories of turning 9 by the beach to fade.

Anne