That was the week (or two) that was

It has been a long couple of weeks here absorbing the impact of the terrible attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. And I haven't quite known how to blog about it. I know I'm not alone with this. Having a much needed relaxing lunch with some mates a week after the attack, the three bloggers amongst us compared notes on how to begin. None of us knew. We opted instead to go back to our rose tasting and help our friend choose her party supplies. Much safer ground.

The attack itself stirred up all sorts of emotions for us all - i found a good article in The New York Times which summed it up pretty well for me. The Mall is about 10 minutes from where we live. We didn't go there every weekend - as a very good friend messaged on the day of the attack, she assumed my loathing for shopping meant we were safe. But we had been there a lot the previous saturday and it housed one of our favourite places to eat as a family. These facts were not lost on Jamie or pretty much everyone we know in Nairobi - this attack was far too close to home. But we are safe and whilst we know people who were there and who lost friends, our experience of the attack was an indirect one.

The last few weeks have also highlighted what good friends we have around the world, with loads of people getting in touch to check we were OK. I'm a late arrival to Facebook and mainly use it to post updates on our work community page or to stalk my friends and show through an occasional comment or well placed "like" that we are thinking of them. When news of the attack broke (and at that point it wasn't clear if it was a police shoot out with criminals - an almost weekly occurrence here - or something terrorist) I dropped a quick email to family to say we were safe. But my later very short timeline update reached so many people so quickly that I'm properly converted. Not convinced that will translate into a fuller timeline or more effective posting but I suspect I understand the social media angle to things like the Arab spring a tiny bit better than before. And it may take the kids a week or two more to be ahead of me in their digital footprint.

And we have benefitted from a real sense of community in Nairobi with our newer found friends here. Tim worked from home for a few days and was not the only parent spending much more time in the playground than the usual drop and dash. The kids definitely needed it alongside the usual routine of school. School was great, with lots of pre-existing emergency planning coming into play and carefully tailored sessions for each age group. And there has been plenty of coffee and popping in on neighbours and just listening to each other over the last few weeks. There's been the odd mojito and glass of wine too for the grown ups and a few treat DVD evenings for the kids, and a fundraising run at the weekend, all of which are helping life return to a more normal pace. And means next week I will be back to blogging about animals and beaches and life's little routines.


Anne

Family challenge

The last week has been dominated by "back to school", sorting pencil cases, finding (and already losing) lunch boxes, naming sports kit and reprogramming body clocks to an earlier all family start to the day. So far so good (if you ignore the back to school bugs that the kids have succumbed to) and everyone has been happy to see friends, catch up on news and meet some new people. We marked the end of the first week with a back to school disco, where Matthew opted to swim rather than dance and Katie tried to lead the girls to move like jagger on the dance floor.




And then we packed the car and headed off for a family challenge. This is a charity fundraiser organised by friends to support Kamili, a mental health charity. Teams of up to six (only 2 of whom can be grown up) compete in a series of challenges over the weekend with points awarded for effort and being supportive to each other as much as for performance. Everyone camps in a beautiful spot full of Zebra and giraffe next to lake Naivasha and the challenges are scattered all over the place so there's plenty of walking and cycling around and general fresh air as well as some orienteering and a chance to catch up with friends around the course.

Our first challenge was getting all the camping gear, 3 bikes and one reluctant child into the car - a few basic essentials for a night away.




We are now pretty good at putting up our tents and Matthew can pretty much do his alone until it comes to getting the pegs in the ground.







And then it was time for the challenges. 15 minutes for each challenge and 15 minutes to get to the next one. The afternoon saw us picking up balls whilst staying as a human chain, matthew and me describing a miro picture to the others for them to replicate, playing a numbers based version of twister, trying to lift a pot out of a large square without it touching the ground, and building a seaplane from kinnex. Something for everyone. There was a point mid way round where chocolate biscuits and bananas were essential and I suspect when we pore over the detailed data that's due to be on line later in the week (and which the boys can't wait for) we will see the performance enhancing capacity of chocolate.

After a chilly night under canvas and a stove cooked breakfast we were ready for day 2 where we got the wet and muddy challenges with katie coming into her own stemming water flowing out of a large pipe and balancing on a slack rope over the water and Matthew came into his own in the mud.


Jamie was our able manager reading out instructions and plotting our route on the map. All three kids loved the soda tasting challenge and Tim could have done without discovering that the thing he'd tried to identify inside a closed box was a desicated mongoose - I got a coconut shell! All in all it was a great weekend, for a good cause and we even got a medal to show for it. We are now just wondering how it might translate to a park in south west London.........

Full House

We have just waved goodbye to some friends who have been visiting Kenya and us for the last couple of weeks. It has been great fun and the kids have really enjoyed having a full house for the last weeks of the holiday and taking our friends and their 2 young kids to see the sights. We've seen elephants and giraffe in Nairobi, hippos and flamingos and all sorts of other birds near lake Naivasha and elephants and much more with Kilimanjaro as a backdrop in Amboseli. We've also done loads of swimming, some catching up with Nairobi friends and Matthew fitted in a 4 day cricket tournament, narrowly losing in the final (held at a very faded former international ground which was just great for him). Tim and I also managed to get on with the daily chores, go to work, complete school uniform shopping and keep the house stocked with food and drink. Its been busy!

Naivasha & Amboseli View photos You are invited to view anne's album. This album has 19 files.

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Up until now most of our visitors have just been passing through and stay for a few nights, either as part of their work with Tim or to have a weekend break once the work is done. All our visitors provide a good excuse to go to some of our favourite places again and for the kids to talk about Kenya and make the most of having different people to read bed time stories or play sport with in the garden. We in turn make the most of our guests by stocking up on UK news and treats and asking for volunteers to detangle Katie's hair - a task she has deemed both her parents incapable of.

I grew up in a house full of visitors and enjoyed meeting new people and big, noisy mealtimes. But I also know that isn't for everyone and its important to let people have space to do their own thing. that's of course much easier here where even if we are in the cooler part of the year kids can be outside most of the day. Having a huge 8 seater landcruiser also helps with outings as everyone just bundles in. And there are always people around at home so no-one has to go if they just want to curl up at home and read. The help at home also made me brave enough to suggest our friends' kids stayed with us for a few days whilst their parents went to see the wildebeest migration in the Mara. Tim opted to go away for work and I had an insight into life as a mother of five - it was relatively straightforward all things considered but after 48 hours I knew that we were right to think 3 is enough for us.










Anne

Reflections from a London staycation

We have just had a great "staycation"in London with many thanks to the friends who lent us their home for nearly all our trip, reducing the need to live on the move and out of bags in order to see friends and family. Despite a few concerns about how a major fire in Nairobi would impact on our plans, we got back to Kenya without a hitch a fortnight ago, including getting through immigration in record time. Its great to be home and sleeping in our own beds but returning to a country with wedding tents for its airport and getting home to no power and some flakey internet has caused me to reflect on some of the differences we noted during our time away.

First of course is the traffic. Its not just sitting in jams - that happens in both London and Nairobi. But, as the kids observed, the roads are more ordered in London with fewer bumps and almost no-one hurtling at you down the wrong side of the road. The smooth journey experience is not to everyone's liking and Katie was quickly missing the Kenyan bumps that stop her from feeling car sick. We have already put that right with a bumpy journey to Naivasha and a 700km round trip to amboseli complete with lorry dodgems on the Single track congested road from Nairobi to the coast.

Then there is security. We are very used to our compound life here, living behind high walls, electric and barbed wire fences, with alarms and guards and lockable reinforced steel internal doors. But it does have an impact and Matthew was shocked to discover we had driven all the way from Hastings to South West London without locking the car doors. It was also a bit odd to be able to see into front rooms rather than high walls as we walked through our London neighbourhood. And the kids also a bit tense about making sure I'd set our friends' house alarm and also about being out late at night in London.

The mix of traffic and security here has also really reduced the amount of casual walking we do and, as every time i'm back in the UK, I really enjoyed walking around London. This was not viewed universally as an improvement - the kids see real advantage in being driven everywhere. As drivers in Kenya, Tim and I feel rather differently!

Tattoos were another thing we were all struck by. They just aren't a feature of life here for obvious reasons. But in the scantily clad heat of a London summer we spotted them everywhere we went. I fear I may be getting old......

The laundry fairy is another major difference. Having managed perfectly well for 3 weeks with a handful of machine washes (at least in part because the boys lived in cricket whites that they wanted to stay muddy so they could enter a "dirtiest trousers" contest on the course they did), our washing machine has been running almost constantly since we got back. And piles of newly laundered and ironed clothes keep appearing in cupboards. We do have friends staying but I'm still not sure quite how to account for this particular difference. Not that I'm complaining.

There are plenty of things to occupy a family in London and Nairobi and whilst we spent lots of our time in London doing things we do here - playing loads of cricket, outdoor swimming with a trip to London Fields Lido with my cousin, seeing friends, reading, lego and messing about in the garden - it was great to have a bit of a change. I saw lots of films with the kids, we went to museums, enjoyed the Beano exhibition on Southbank, braved Chesington, ate out at different places and climbed trees and picked blackberries on wimbledon common. Now we are back home the kids are just enjoying being with their things, seeing wild animals, going swimming, more cricket and messing around in the garden. But they have talked lots about the things they did in London and clearly enjoyed the variety.

And as with our trip back last summer, the highlight for me was long summer evenings (mainly warm), reading in the garden, having drinks with friends, walking back from our outings in the light. I know its balanced by short winter days but we will be here then, enjoying the sun and the standard 630-630 day. Best of both worlds.

Anne

London city break

With 8 weeks of school holidays the kids have been very keen to spend a bit of time in the UK with friends and family. So on Sunday night we headed to the airport, crossed the sea and arrived at our friends' house in SW London in time for breakfast, a bit of early morning screen and to walk their boys to school.

This is the same school our kids were at before we headed off to Kenya and its where the younger 2 will almost certainly return (council allocation processes allowing) when we get back. So as well as stretching our legs after the flight and helping out our host so she could get to work on time, the walk to school was a lovely way to start the process of catching up with friends. Matthew hung around the school gates, not wanting to be overwhelmed I think but the others were straight into the playground to hear all the news.

They have since all been into school and spent time with former classes watching movies and winding up for the end of term, giving me the treat of a couple of uninterrupted coffees with my mum friends getting the latest on school politics. It's been a bit odd for Jamie as his former class mates are all moving on to new schools, whilst he is still a year away from being one of the top dogs at his school in Kenya. He is the clearest of the three children that his school in Kenya is great and he has far more opportunities than he did at his London school. And yet he's realised on this trip more than before how much his friends matter and how tricky he finds it when they are dispersed. We've had a good chat comparing notes, bemoaning the inadequacy of Skype and planning some great trips for the future.

For now our plan is just to hang out with friends and cousins for the next 3 weeks and enjoy all London and Sussex has to offer in the summer. And we've made a pretty good start at that.

Ashes to ashes in Nairobi

Kenya has a bit of a mixed cricket scene. At times in the past the national side has played to a pretty high standard but rugby has taken over the and seems to get the press and donor attention. There are still a fair few clubs around Nairobi for folk interested in playing. All are slightly faded and there's a sense that clubs are formed around ethnic groupings rather than a true mix of local talent which, to be fair, is a bit like the cricket club scene in SW London. But Tim has hooked up with a few people in different clubs and gets the occasional game when diaries allow. We are looking forward to being part of a charity match against the Maasai cricket warriors some time in September. The kids' school raised money for this group last year and I'm being challenged by the boys to set up a juniors match at the same time. That really will make me a cricket mum!

Finding good youth cricket opportunities outside school hasn't been that easy. The best, a really friendly club run by former Kenyan International cricketers and very local to us, was a bit shambolic when we pitched up 18 months ago. But its grown since then and our kids have also got to know some cricket lovers locally so know far more people there and enjoy it more. They have also seen that you don't need all the gear to be able to whack a ball around effectively or to bowl at pace. So whilst they are keen for a bout of cricket in England's green fields this summer, they are equally happy playing with friends on a dusty football pitch with their own ball and shared bats. And with the school holidays underway there has been plenty of that.

Both boys have been doing cricket training to help keep them occupied and exercised and to get ready for next term's sporting endeavours. We have sorted through cricket kit bags that have been living under the stairs for a few months - my lingering doubts about the origins of some unpleasant smells from said kit bags were answered when it turned out the cat really did wee in them when she got locked in the house one weekend. Probably did everyone a favour putting all the trainers through the wash too though!

The boys take their sport seriously and play endless ball games in the garden, roping in our guard when they can particularly if a ladder is needed to fish balls off roofs and out of hedges.

But they are very clear that each sport has its season (even if seasons other than rainy and dry aren't really a feature of the Kenyan year). Last term was rugby and football so that dominated early evenings and weekends outside. And its only now, helped by the excitement of the ashes and an excuse to watch lots of telly with dad, that cricket has come to the fore again. Tim spent last weekend hanging up the netting we've got to save our windows, one of which still has a taped hole from a previous errant cricket ball. And Matthew, who shares, if in a less compliant manner, Stuart Broad's approach in waiting to be told he's out, is covered in bruises from Jamie's body line bowling. Katie is keen not to miss out and has decided that bowling is the safest option if she is going to play with her brothers. She was so pleased to get Matthew out in her first over the other day - even Matthew smiled, whilst of course explaining that her run up brought her too close.......


Anne

School's out

I read today that teachers in the UK are going to strike over pay and workload. Here we are also in the midst of a strike by Kenyan teachers over pay and conditions. State state schools have been closed for weeks and thoughts that there might be a deal last week have quietly disappeared from the news. Here, the strike and associated debate has highlighted the challenges of delivering on a Presidential acceptance speech pledge to give every school child a laptop. Having seen inside a few primary schools when I was election monitoring in March, I have always found the laptop pledge hard to grasp. Most schools I saw were struggling to keep light bulbs in the ceiling lights, had one plug socket (at most) in a classroom and no obvious sources of backup power. Nor were there any lockers to keep books, let alone laptops safe. And there was certainly no internet connection. Plus The schools I saw were all in urban Nairobi which makes me wonder even more about how this initiative could work for children in rural schools. So I'm inclined to think the teachers have a point asking the Government to focus on the basics first.

But enough politics particularly as I'm only following that debate from the sidelines as the international school our kids are at is not affected. And anyway no one is there just now as we are already a week into the school holidays. As I'm sure happens for every child and every school, we have had our moments but on the whole it has been a good year for each of our three kids and they have all finished on a high, excited about their next teachers and classmates and looking forward to being back in September almost as much as they are looking forward to not being there for 2 months.

On the last morning of the school year I skived off early from a work team building work session to get to the kids' speech day. Having been last year I knew I could safely turn up a while into the proceedings and still get to see the important bits but I did start to get a bit anxious when stuck in traffic for much longer than even I had anticipated. I shouldn't have worried. An hour after the start, when I'd been safely seated for a while the speeches were just coming to an end- I have no idea why they have to take soooo long and I'm not even a bored child. Nor had I missed the musical delights of a Maroon 5 song played by 12 year olds with trumpet and sax or the rendition of Dolly Parton's Jolene by a couple of 13 year olds with an acoustic guitar. But at least I got to clap as both Katie and Matthew walked on to stage for their prizes - proud mum!

Luckily Jamie was only pleased for his siblings as he is still basking in his goalkeeping prowess which saw his team win the local football tournament the week before in a gripping (and not very comfortable mum viewing) final which ended in penalties. How does Andy Murray's mum do it?

But the end of term also brought more farewells to friends. One of Jamie's great friends is heading back to Paris and another is moving to Burundi so shirts have been scrawled on and email addresses exchanged. Our family chats about these departures and about what we will do when it's our turn to leave show me that whilst our kids, like most of us, like the known in life they are confident that they will make and keep friends wherever we go. I'm sure they would have felt that without this African adventure but I can't help thinking it will have boosted them a little along the way.