Items by Africa Expat Wife

Africa Expat Wives Club

• Home renovation work in Kenya - and the rain keeps on falling

  Posted: May 8, 2012, 10:12 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  I think that it is fair to say that we are currently living 'in extremis'.
  
  

  Persistent Rain in Kenya - readers currently experiencing flooding in UK can sympathise!

  As I sat working on my computer this morning, in the small room which is now doubling up as one daughter's garret style bedroom, while needing a wee fairly desperately after my second cup of coffee – I wondered where on earth I might go to the loo.
  
  I had already headed out to a 7am exercise class, expressly for the purpose of having access to a hot shower afterwards and being able to wash my hair. The exercise wasn’t much fun, but it was worth it for the plentiful hot water.  As of today, the whole family will have to don raincoats and wellies in order to get a hot bath in our guest room, that is now no longer linked to the rest of the house.  It rains daily on or around 3pm - almost like clockwork.
  
  Since getting back from school, our eldest daughter says it's okay - "it's like pretending we are in the olden days."
  
  "I think we might be at the most difficult point of the build," my husband said down the phone from the comparative comfort of his office.  "You must make sure that they get that loo under the stairs working."
  I stifled a response.
  
  Our difficult loo situation at home was exacerbated by the fact that one downstairs bathroom was, at that moment, having its septic tank pipes cleared (blocked again through heavy use by the whole family, plus the usual tree root problem) and the one other loo option had no running water.  I'm also still rather dubious about the temporary corrugated iron manhole cover that has been placed over the re-routed waste pipe, right next to where the builders are working.
  
  I crossed my legs and thought about whether to go shopping – just to use the shopping centre loo. Then I thought about the time a few weeks ago, when after a 7 hour drive back from our Easter weekend – my husband retreated to the ‘wrong’ loo – where the waste pipe at that moment was sticking out, exposed, into the newly laid foundations. The memory of that night time fall-out (or should I say clear up) doesn’t bear thinking about.
  
  In the past few weeks we have had record rainfall (it was predicted to be low). The thunderstorms have been spectacular. Water has been pouring in through the open roof and in through all sorts of nooks and crannies, many that we had no previous idea about.
  
  Critically, rain water has been running over the newly installed and upgraded electrical distribution board. My husband got a major electric shock on Sunday, while trying to flip a fuse causing smoke and sparks to appear. We are both learning more than we ever wanted to know about electrics (much of our house still has 1930s wiring with cotton insulation apparently) and plumbing – and building in general. Oh and we’ve run out of buckets. All buckets are employed in water collection. Buckets are a precious commodity in this house!
  
  On the radio this morning, news played out that a 4 storey building in Westlands (central Nairobi) that was under construction, had collapsed. Fortunately no one was hurt. I wondered briefly if our house would withstand an earthquake, then I quickly switched channel.
  
  The Asian foreman made an interesting discovery during the demolition phase of the build. 3 boxes of large American Weatherby magnum ammunition - brass bullets for hunting circa 1950/60, were hidden under our old bath - wrapped in a plastic bag and in pristine condition. On the boxes is the image of an elephant.  The Asian foreman was extremely worried that they belonged to us.
  
  “Very dangerous”– he kept repeating.
  "Not ours" I said repeatedly.  We were nodding and shaking our heads at each other furiously.
  
  

  The Weatherby 'elephant' bullets found under the bath

  My husband meanwhile was beyond excited. We wondered if they had been hidden under the bath at some point after Kenya’s ‘Emergency’.  My husband searched for similar ones on Ebay immediately.
  
  “Wonder if we’ll find the rifle next?” he asked hopefully.
  
  Sadly, we've found nothing more exciting than a bat skeleton in the old, disused chimney and a dead rat or two have appeared.  The dogs look miserable.  The rest of the family have lost their minds and out-voted me in the decision to buy a puppy (not due to move in until July fortunately!).
  
  But I can’t complain. A palazzo is taking shape around us at top speed. Hidden in amongst the difficult cash flow decisions, constant power outages, site meetings, mud, wellies and my trying to meet deadlines and get some work done, amid all the madness – there are glimmers of what the house promises be like at the end.
  
  And every time the 25 builders get soaked in yet another daily rain storm – I feel so sorry.
  
  And when I see the watchman patrolling at night and stop him at around 9pm to chat and give him his bread and milk - and then say “sorry for the rain.”
  
  When he replies, “it’s okay Madam. Let it rain – it’s very good for us.”
  
  Then my heart bleeds.
  
  So I absolutely can’t complain at all.
  
  
  (p.s. I just emailed the bathroom fitting supplier thinking it was my husband I was writing to - and signed off with two kisses. (The bathroom fittings guy is about 23 and a bit shy)  Only realised my mistake when the reply came back - I think my wheels are definitely falling off!).

  
  

• Corners of old Nairobi

  Posted: April 24, 2012, 12:03 am by Africa Expat Wife

  I was driving toward Upper Hill on a bit of a muddy track/rat run because, as usual - traffic was horrendous and I was in a hurry - when I drove past this old house...
  
  
  I couldn't resist taking a closer look. 
  
  
  Look at the threatening crane overhead - not sure how much longer this house will be left standing!
  
  
  
  
  It looks like it could be in Surrey if it weren't for the bougainvillea around the balcony and the two beautiful palm trees behind.  There were holes in the roof - a bit like our house then!  I think that it's such a shame that these old buildings are not listed here.

  
  

• Earth Tremor in Nairobi and .. 'the house is falling down'

  Posted: April 17, 2012, 4:52 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Woke up this morning at 5 am to the sound of everything shaking.   It felt like it went on for ever.
  Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle.  The mirror on our dressing table, the windows, the doors.
  
  I saw the shadowy profile of my husband.  He was awake, head off the pillow - ear cocked at the sound.
  "what's that, an earthquake?" I asked, frankly frightened. "I wonder if the house will fall down?!"
  My question might seem like a bit of an over-reaction - but perhaps not if you see exactly what it looks like at the moment....
  
  
  

  Our house today

   As you can see, there's actually not much house left.
  
  At 5am, I wondered if bits of roof might fall on children's heads.  We currently are squeezed up together and actually living in the house while this is going on.  And it's rainy season.  We've had some fabulous thunder storms.
  
  When the tremor was over, I thought about how terrifying earthquakes must really be - my thoughts flicked to Japan a year ago. 
  
  Later this morning we learned that the reason for the tremor in Nairobi this morning was due to a magnitude 4.9 earthquake some 5,000kms off shore in the Indian Ocean 3 hours earlier.
  
  However, back to the house.  Having been musing over the idea of building a 2 storey extension to the house for the past 5 years - once we actually said 'go' (the plans were ready, city council approval etc) we were suddenly flung into chaos.  The build (or rather demolition first, then build later) is moving forward with terrifying speed.
  
  

  stone cutting - the lawn is history

  Unlike back home (UK) where you might have two or three builders working on a job like this - we have approx 25-30 people swarming all over the place.  Hand cutting stones to size, building walls, organising plumbing - then there are the obligatory groups of people chatting casually, sleeping on the grass etc.  Wherever you look, there's a collection of faces on the other side of the window.  The two Indian foreman speak a little English and a little Swahili - but not that much of either - so we are experiencing a little communication break-down here and there - but muddling through with sign language etc.  Not that I am complaining.  It's incredible.
  
  We moved out of our bathroom, two bedrooms our kitchen and dining room.  It was like moving house.  Bags and bags and bags of rubbish have been thrown out. (this was done during the hottest last weeks in March).
  
  

  part of our temporary kitchen (outdoor)

  Everything inside the house is now covered in dust - I have a slight choking feeling in the back of my throat as I type.  Every now and then there is the most terrifying crash, interspersed with relentless banging.  I had to laugh when, the other day, some workmen stood on one another's shoulders to get into our roof rather than use a ladder.  There is a distinct lack of hard-hats on site - and many large stones being thrown down from the second floor to the ground, from a significant height.
  
  Fortunately the original house was extremely well built in 1937 with proper foundations, so it seems to be able to withstand this onslaught (earth tremors notwithstanding).  You may be forgiven for assuming that all houses should be well built with proper foundations - but in fact they are not.  A friend took the roof off their guest house down the road recently, and as a result, the 4 walls fell in - re-roofing became a total re-build job.
  
  We were lucky enough to find out when the daughter of the original owner/builder of our house visited us, (click here to link to previous post: 'Our 1930s House') that her father was a British engineer and fastidious at that.  "You need never worry about this house" she said, "it's strongly built". 
  
  

  circa 1937, original foundations being built

  It should be exciting but I feel guilty about putting the old house under such strain and wonder constantly if it isn't horribly self indulgent to want a new family style kitchen and master bedroom with bathroom en suite (yes).  I've decided that I'm absolutely hopeless at 'grown-up' decision making and would far rather bury my head in the sand as regards - property, oh and and preferably children's schooling too...
  Oh yes, and the neighbours are now building too - they have cut at least 20 trees over the past 3 weeks.  Cue yet more crashing and cutting machines.  Not really a spectator sport!
  
  

  Our neighbour's plot

  
  
  

  
  

• "Well, my life just carried on.." Russell Brand, when asked why he wanted to write a second book

  Posted: March 14, 2012, 12:11 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Life carries on
  
  Here's a little glimpse of how life in Nairobi is 'going on' - as usual were are 'going on pretty well' thank you,.. except for the fact that it is...
  
  Hot and dry
  
  It's hot, hot, hot.  I don't remember it ever being this sweltering in Nairobi.  Thank goodness that it is a dry heat.  The earth is cracked, parched dry.  There's not a cloud in the sky.  My lovely new (christmas present) phone (that I'm still having problems operating - my kids are better at it than me!) tells me that it is going to be between 88 and 90 degrees every day this week.  Phew!  My little office in the eaves of the house is causing steam to appear from my ears.  My middle daughter just handed me a portable, battery operated fan that I think dates back to our days of living in Dar es Salaam. 
  
  And we have Comms Failure
  
  
  
  We've had a problem with communicating with each other and the outside world this week.  The internet has either been down, or slow and emails stalled in a million outboxes all over the region.  Why?  This is a good one!: - a month ago, a ship in Mombasa that was illegally parked, dropped anchor onto submarine fibre optic broad cables - cutting the lines and affecting comms in 4 different countries!  I think that a 'rescue' eMarine tech boat has now arrived at the port and they are undertaking repairs - which is causing further disruption.
  
  "the cut occurred when a ship that was docking, dragged its anchor on the cable, four kilometres from the Mombasa landing station on Saturday, affecting a significant proportion of the international fibre capacity in and out of the country."
  
  Click here to read more
  
  In the meantime, local phone providers have had to re-route via other cables and use satellite links - which has been costing them a fortune.
  
  Does this explain why Airtel are sending me notification of missed calls (with accompanying adverts) via SMS and calling me up with pre-recorded advertising messages - or is this more to do with the fact that they made calls so cheap during their price war (calls currently cost 1-3 shillings per minute!) - that they are now trying to claw some revenue back? (pole sana)
  
  And Building Work Imminent
  
  We've been planning building work on this house for a gazillion years.   Now that we have all the permissions, plans, estimates and quotes - we finally met up with the contractor who was absolutely horrified that we intend to stay in the house while work is carried out.  Now call me old fashioned, but this is the English way to do things.  Live in the dust and dirt - dig down to find the kettle to make some builder's tea.  I'll give you an example.  My sister-in-law had her 3 children sleeping in a row on the dining room floor a couple of years ago while her house was torn to pieces, then put back together again.  Situation normal. 
  
  Not so in Kenya.  Since the building boom began, everyone's expectations seem to have gone up - including the contractor's (and ours - otherwise we wouldn't bother modernising our house!).  More used to building 15 luxury town houses in one go - the thought of us 5 paddling round the property in amongst 25-30 builders is turning everyone cold from the architect to the foreman.  I have to admit that I too am now nervous...
  
  The proposal is to completely screen off two ends of the house with corrugated iron - leaving us to live in the dust cloud middle bit that remains.. which crucially does not include a kitchen (of course a new kitchen is my priority!).  I am now desperately thinking of alternatives for cooking for 5 for no less than 4 months.  Am thinking of relocating the kitchen into the garage somehow.  I thought of a 'bush kitchen' tent type of set up for 5 minutes, then realised that we're supposed to be heading into the long rains!  Ideas on a postcard please.
  We start in 2 weeks.  There goes Easter..we'll be packing up boxes.  What sort of a mess are we getting ourselves into?
  
  Oh yes, and Fire
  
  
  Last night my eldest called me to her bedroom window.
  "There's a really big fire at the bottom of the garden"
  I didn't come straight away.  'Whatever?' I thought. 'probably a bonfire - but it is tinderbox dry out there, so possibly an ill advised bonfire.'
  "No Mum, it's really big!"
  Interest piqued, I strolled over. Yes, the flames were leaping rather high, but I knew that there were no houses nearby, so it wasn't too deadly.
  
  To give you some background, we sold a bit of land on our property ages/years ago (too soon as it turned out, - the price of land has quadrupled since then) and the area has only just been cordoned off for building this year.  There's a large corrugated iron fence across the bottom of what was our garden and a private security company has been employed to station a guard on site every night.
  
  While I was vaguely peeping through the curtain, I gather from reports that came in this morning - that in fact all hell was breaking loose in the staff quarters behind our house last night. 
  
  Gladys, who lives on our plot was wondering why somebody was banging so hard on the metal (mbati) fence. - She thought someone was stealing the iron sheets so decided to stay indoors.  Meanwhile Jared, who also lives on our plot was frantically/heroically trying to help the nightwatchman who was stationed on the other side (with no water or tap whatsoever), handing buckets of water over the 12 foot fence (the mind boggles - Jared is not tall)
  
  After testing my daughter on her history topic (The Crusades), then wandering off back to my computer to browse through the gossip column on the right hand side of Daily Mail online (guilty pleasure - except I hardly know who all these UK celebrities are these days) - she called me back again.
  
  "Mum, there's a fire engine in our garden now"
  "Oh" I said, thinking - now this is hard to believe.  But sure enough, there were the blue flashing lights.
  
  I wasn't too concerned.  Everyone seemed to have got the situation under control, the flames abated and it was somewhat reassuring to know that functioning fire engines (albeit privately operated ones) with actual water on board do exist and can be called out in an emergency.
  
  To put this into context -  to see a previous post on a bungled fire fighting experience that appeared on Kenyan news.  Click here 
  
  In fact, having done the relocation guide - I learn that there are good emergency services (at a price)  the trick is knowing how to figure out where to find phone numbers and who to call.
  
  As I'm feeling helpful - I put a few here and late will post some more useful info on the 'page' tabs above.
  
  Emergency Phone Numbers for Nairobi
  
  
  Ambulance
  AMREF (Flying Doctors) [www.amref.org]  020-315454/600090.  Cell: 0722 314239/0733 639088
  
  Africa Air Rescue (AAR) [www.aarhealth.com] 020-2717374/5/6. Cell: 0722 314394/0733 636617
  
  St John’s Ambulance www.orderofstjohn.org/kenya 020-222396/224066
  
  Emergency plus Medical Services E-Plus (Subsidiary of Kenya Red Cross) [www.eplus.co.ke] .
  020-2655251/2/3.  Cell: 0700 395395. Or dial 395 from landline or cell phone
  
  Fire
  Nairobi Fire Department 020-222181/2/3. 020-335060/999
  
  KK Security (fire engine and ambulance) [www.kksecurity.com] 020-4245000/4445090.  Cell: 0734 622226
  
  Ultimate Security (fire engine and ambulance) [www.ultimate-security.net]. 020-3875475/95.
  Cell: 0733 778410/0722 725310
  
  Hospitals
  Nairobi Hospital, Argwings Kodhek Road hosp@nbihosp.org 020-2845000/2846000/2722160. 
  Cell: 0722 204114/0733 639301 (also a  new, fully equipped satellite on 2nd floor Galleria Mall, Langata)
  
  Aga Khan Hospital, 3rd Parklands Avenue akhn@akhskenya.org 020-3662000/020-3740000
  
  Gertrude’s Garden Children’s Hospital, Muthaiga [www.gerties.org] 020-7206000/3763474.
  Cell: 0733 639444/0722 898948
  
  MP Shah Hospital [www.mpshahhosp.org] 020-3742763/4/5/6
  
  Police
  The Kenya police Control Room (254-20) 2714995/2724154.  Cell: 0729 100712/999
  
  Central Police 020-222 222
  
  Well, I think that's all for now...

  
  

• Masai cricket - loving the photography!

  Posted: March 13, 2012, 12:07 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Meet the Maasai Cricket Warriors: The colourful semi-nomadic cattle herders promising to brighten up the sport
  
  By Lee Moran click here for:  link to original article
  
  PUBLISHED: 13:38 GMT, 13 March 2012
  
  These are the Maasai Cricket Warriors - the semi-nomadic cattle herders vowing to brighten up their sport.
  
  
  
  Ditching traditional whites for their colourful clothing and body decorations, the Kenyan tribesmen are in serious training.
  
  
  
  Donning pads and armed with bats, the men from the Laikipia region this week left their tiny village for the Mombasa Legends Cricket Nursery.
  
  Colourful: These are the Maasai Cricket Warriors - the semi-nomadic cattle herders vowing to brighten up their sport
  
  Out there: They ditch traditional whites for colourful clothing and body decorations
  
  Beach time: The players are aiming to be role models in their communities where they are actively campaigning against Female Genital Mutilation, early childhood marriages and are fighting for the rights of women
  
  They now hope to travel to the Last Man Standing 2012 World Championships in Cape Town next month - the crowning event of the global eight-a-side amateur Twenty20 cricket league.
  
  
  
  The players say they want to be role models in their communities by campaigning against traditional female circumcision and child marriages.
  
  
  And through their cricket they also try to promote healthier lifestyles and spread awareness about HIV/AIDS among tribal youth, they added.
  
  
  
  An online appeal for donations on the Maasai Cricket Warriors website said: 'By developing cricket and sports amongst Maasai youth and children the aim is to empower the youth in Maasai communities while enhancing their participation in community development, allowing them to become healthy, productive and well-adjusted members of society.'
  
  How would this kit go down at Lords? A batsman shows off his sportswear
  
  
  
  Inspirational: Through playing cricket in regional communities they are trying to promote healthier lifestyles
  
  
  
  Silhouette: The Warriors hope to play at the Last Man Standing 2012 World Championships in Cape Town next month
  
  
  
  Warm up: The Maasai Cricket Warriors seen limbering up on the beach during a training session
  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2114373/Meet-Maasai-Cricket-Warriors-The-colourful-semi-nomadic-cattle-herders-promising-brighten-sport.html#ixzz1p1LVFWAY
  

  
  

• Relocation to Nairobi, Kenya - the trials and tribulations of settling in

  Posted: March 7, 2012, 12:55 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  Ant Carnage
  
  Only 3 ants in my coffee this morning. I think I found the nest in the kitchen at the weekend and fortunately still had the dregs of an imported bottle of ‘Nippon’ powder –( as in - imported via my suitcase one summer in a moment of extreme foresight, or else brought in by a kind friend or member of my family). – I have never found a good ant powder in Nairobi, but a friend of mine said that her house help brought her something once that she called ‘chalk’ which apparently works a treat.
  
  Before tackling the problem, by Sunday morning our abandoned looking dirty washing-up that was sitting in the kitchen sink, was heaving darkly with a gazillion ants. The children squealed when they saw it. Throwing the dirty plates into my ‘pride and joy’ mini dishwasher was a fairly revolting tasks. I was up to my elbows in drowned ant carcasses. Others were still furiously running about.
  
  ****
  

  Photo from Telegraph article on expats settling-in (see link below)

  Thoughts on Relocation and settling in
  
  Apologies for the long absence. I’ve been writing a comprehensive Nairobi relocation guide and it has been a big project (currently running at x120 pages). I do know that if I was presented with a document like that on arrival I’d run and hide, so I’ve tried to liven it up with jazzy photos and coloured fonts in my characteristically ‘low tech’ approach. Never done desk top publishing.. it’s more a case of cut and paste.
  
  So it has been 3 weeks of long days sitting on my butt with just the occasional break, to get up and stretch or emerge squinting into the garden for 5 minutes before turning back inside – plus a few incidents of getting to 3pm and realising I haven’t brushed my teeth yet or – skipping lunch etc. And now the guide is nearly complete with all-you-need-to-know info on everything from; what to do at weekends, how to open a bank account, how much do international schools cost, which hospitals, how to find a house, stuff to do with kids, where to shop etc. Test me, test me – my mind is still racing...
  
  This guide (and of course the Africa Expat Wives Club forum – which is still active I might add!) has concentrated my mind on relocation and how people really feel about moving to Nairobi.   It reminded me that it really is an emotional journey.
  
  How does reality measure up to expectation?
  
  Personally I was thrilled to move here in March 9 years ago. This had a lot to do with the fact that we were coming from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Nairobi is a lot less hot, not humid, no malaria, far fewer bugs or snakes. Plus there were novelties such as an open fire and joy of joys, you can buy things like fresh mushrooms! But after the building boom of the last 10 years and with horrendous traffic getting worse by the year, is Nairobi really still the ‘Green City in the Sun’ that it was once famous for? Let’s face it, nowadays apartment living is more the norm.
  
  I think what often comes as something of a surprise after all the excitement of sorting out the logistics of the move - is loneliness. Going to live in another country, suddenly divorced from your former life, friends, family, far from your support network (and in the case of the trailing spouse, also your job, which is always bound up with personal identity, sense of self-worth etc) – can be immensely lonely. On one hand you are supposed to be grateful for all the spare time on your hands, your friends back home are jealous – more often than not someone is doing the housework for you - and perhaps you are grateful for a while - but the novelty of being in a new country soon wears off.
  
  The only thing to do is zip up your boots and give it your best crack. Having children in tow always makes life easier because of the school network and some companies are more supportive than others, but in the end for everyone, the only way to tackle this loneliness is to get enormously resourceful –
  
  Top Tips
  
   Go along to terrifying groups and meetings even though instinct tells you that you’d rather poke your eyes out with knitting needles than stand at the back blushing. In Tanzania, I joined the Hash House Harriers for goodness sake (hate, hate, hate running – singing in public and beer (especially warm Safari) – but I have to admit, it could be fun once the embarrassment subsided!
  
   Learn some Swahili. I know you can certainly get by without it as everyone speaks wonderful English in Kenya, but if nothing else – by learning the language you learn something of the culture and knowing a few words helps you feel included. Plus, encouragingly the effort to speak Swahili is always appreciated (unlike in trying to speak French in France where people deliberately pretend they haven’t the faintest idea what you are trying to say).
  
   Apply for a job (your own embassy is always a good start – the pay is lousy but it’s a mini support network nonetheless). Find out from them about any informal meetings/groups that you could join. Voluntary work is admirable, but it’s hugely challenging here and in my opinion only really recommended for people who have been living here for some time and are fully settled.
  
   If you don’t want to work, think of doing some online training in an area that you’ve always been interested in – teaching, web design, writing, do an MA/PHD? Working alone at home is not going to help much with loneliness, but it does help with self esteem.
  
   Join a gym. Exercise always makes you feel better and it gets you out of the house.
  
   Get creative. Start making things, in Kenya you can even get things made for you because we are surrounded by fabulously skilled artisans (fundis) who charge comparatively little for their time (furniture, clothes, leather belts and bags) – either for gifts or you could even send them back home for friends to sell?
  
   Pursue anything that you are interested in with dogged determination. You may be disappointed by a lack of formal sports facilities but there will always be an informal group of like minded enthusiasts gathering somewhere, be it motor biking, playing football or hockey, bicycling, stamp collecting – whatever. You’ll track them down in the end.
  
  Hope this doesn't all sound too patronising.  The good news is that Nairobi is a hugely cosmopolitan city, absolutely chock full of other people from other countries both from the region and overseas, many of whom might well be feeling exactly the same as you.
  
  Once you have settled in, I’ve noticed that people (myself included) wear those early, harder experiences of being new in the country, like a sort of badge of honour. Horror stories of misunderstandings and awkward situations get rolled out over dinners and coffees, new friends bond over them.
  
  If anyone else has any tips on how to get settled as quickly as possible, knows of networking groups for newcomers (I know that there is one Facebook group who meet regularly) or even if you just have a story on how it panned out for you – then please do share it by commenting – it might help.
  
  Click here for Telegraph article: 'settling-in is expat's biggest worry when moving abroad'.

  
  

• Tweeting policeman - innovative way for cash strapped police force in Kenya to fight crime

  Posted: February 20, 2012, 6:17 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  *taken from The Telegraph
  
  'Help, sheep missing': How Twitter is fighting crime in Kenya
  Twitter is being used as a crime-fighting tool by a tech-savvy village chief in Kenya. Francis Kariuki, the administrative chief of Lanet Umoja, has used the micro-blogging site for everything from tracking down missing sheep to stopping home invasions.
  
  Kariuki said that even the thieves in his village follow him on Twitter. Earlier this year, he tweeted about the theft of a cow, and later the cow was found abandoned, tied to a pole.
  His Twitter account is so popular that, he says, even the thieves in his village follow him.
  
  One night his phone rang at 4am warning him that thieves were invading a school teacher's house.
  
  He tweeted the message - and within minutes, villagers had gathered outside the house, frightening the thugs into fleeing.
  
  "My wife and I were terrified," said teacher Michael Kimotho. "But the alarm raised by the chief helped."
  
  Kariuki has also saved livestock with his lightning typing.
  
  One of Kariuki's crime-fighting tweets:
  
  "There is a brown and white sheep which has gone missing with a nylon rope around its neck and it belongs to Mwangi's father," he tweeted recently in Swahili. The sheep was soon recovered.
  
  Kariuki said that even the thieves in his village follow him on Twitter. Earlier this year, he tweeted about the theft of a cow, and later the cow was found abandoned, tied to a pole.
  
  Kariuki's official Twitter page shows 300 followers, but the former teacher estimated that thousands of the 28,000 residents in his area receive the messages he sends out directly and indirectly. He said many of his constituents, mostly subsistence farmers, cannot afford to buy smart phones, but can access tweets through a third-party mobile phone application. Others forward the tweets via text message.
  
  "Twitter has helped save time and money. I no longer have to write letters or print posters which take time to distribute and are expensive," Kariuki said.
  
  Often Kariuki's tweets are about minor thefts - but they can also take a more serious turn
  
  Kariuki, 47, said that he has been able to bring down the crime rate in Lanet Umoja from near-daily reports of break-ins to no such crimes in recent weeks. He also uses Twitter to send messages of hope, especially for the young and unemployed.
  
  "Let's be the kind of people that do good for others whether we get paid back or not, whether they say thank you or not," one recent tweet said.
  
  Kariuki said he intends to use Twitter to promote peace as Kenya prepares to hold another presidential election in the next year - the first since the 2007-08 postelection violence that killed more than 1,000 people.
  
  A recent report said that Twitter is enjoying big growth across Africa. It said South Africans use Twitter the most, but Kenya is second in usage on the continent.
  
  The research by Kenya-based Portland Communications and Tweetminster found that over the last three months of 2011, Kenyans produced nearly 2.5 million tweets. More than 80 per cent of those polled in that research said they mainly used Twitter for communicating with friends, 68 per cent said they use it to monitor news.
  
  Beatrice Karanja, the head of Portland Nairobi, said the findings show that the use of Twitter is part of a revolution for governments that want to open dialogue with their citizens and businesses that want to talk with their consumers.
  
  Rachel Bremer, a spokeswoman for Twitter, said her company wasn't aware of Kariuki and his innovative use of Twitter, but she called it "a great one."
  
  "We are constantly amazed by the ways people all over the world are using Twitter to communicate," she said.

  
  

• Flash-mob etiquette

  Posted: February 20, 2012, 12:44 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I'm just wasting time looking at Stella McCartney's innovative 'flash-mob' fashion show that took place at the weekend.  It made me smile.
  
  I'm not really au fait with flash-mobs, but for those who are out of the loop - the flash-mob is where people in public spaces suddenly burst into choreographed dances (usually because they are promoting something) leaving the remaining 50% of the people in that same public space feeling bewildered but hopefully, entertained.  The flash-mob will start with one person doing something strange, then five others join, then ten, then suddenly more until you might have hundreds dancing around you.
  
  The Stella McCartney London Fashion Week Flash-mob
  The only flash-mobs I've seen have been on TV or Youtube.  The one in Jamie Oliver's series on bringing healthy eating habits to the US where ee staged a flash-mob at a college where 50 odd students broke into a 'stir-fry-athon' accompanied by funky music.  There's also that big one in the movie 'Friends with Benefits' with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake - in fact I think that there were 2 in that movie, the Time Square one (below) and the engagement one in the train station at the end (yes, the movie was a bit corny).
  
  Friends with Benefits Flash-mob
  I don't think that we are about to be treated to any Flash-mobs in Kenya any time soon (sadly) - but I do have one question on flash-mob etiquette which is; can one join in??
  
  Wouldn't that be funny?
  
  How would Stella McCartney feel if some of her fashion show audience got carried away and decided to grab a dancing, swirling model and invite her to a non-choreographed waltz.  Nose put out of joint?
  
  Could be awkward...!
  
  The Jamie Oliver one...
  
  
  Jamie Oliver's Marshall University Flash-mob
  I recently watched a Wedding Video where the whole thing was conducted as a Flash-mob, with grannies, aunties and ushers all dancing and mouthing to song words.  Now that was fun!!
  
  Related post: Social Media - Veritable Minefield

  
  

• Happy Austerity Valentine's Day

  Posted: February 14, 2012, 1:12 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  Our wedding anniversary is the day before valentine's, so I have my roses already - lucky me!  My husband swerved into the shopping centre on the way back from collecting our daughter from school yesterday evening.  He bought fab flowers with roses, lilies and swirly silver painted sticks - all set into oasis - which my daughter had to then balance on her knee for the rest of the way home.  I wondered what was taking them so long.  Meanwhile, I scribbled my husband a card.
  
  A word to the wise - having a wedding anniversary on 13th Feb is a great cost saving idea.  It wasn't something that occurred to us straight away - but we've since learned that because you go out for dinner the night before valentine's, you actually pay a 'normal price' for your dinner and less for a babysitter - plus there's no problem with your favourite place being booked out or too busy.  Yay!
  
  To be honest, we didn't actually bother going out last night - austerity don't you know - and the fact that it was a monday, we were knackered after a busy weekend and had to get up at 5.50am this morning as it's a normal school day etc etc.  So it was a night in for us, with the Downton Abbey Series 2 box set, and a boiled egg because neither of us was very hungry. 
  
  Fortunately for us in Kenya, a bunch of 20 roses costs about a pound ($1.5) - because they are farmed here (no ranting about flower farms here please).  If you want top notch 'export' quality - you are looking at pushing the boat out to two pounds ($3).  A big fancy arrangement, 10 pounds tops.  Hooray for austerity!
  
  Married for 13 years.  Oh the romance!...

  
  

• 'Mum, I can see a caterpillar'

  Posted: February 10, 2012, 11:33 am by Africa Expat Wife

  'I can see a caterpillar.' - statement of fact.
  'No you can't.'
  'Yes I can.'
  'No you can't.'
  'Yes I can.'
  'Nonsense.'
  
  We are all sitting around the table for Sunday lunch (outside).  This reminds me of conversations I used to have around the table as a child - history is repeating itself - but that was another era.
  
  'Well, where is it then?' My husband demands, stalking around the table.
  'There.'
  'What there?'  Disbelief.  'That's just a leaf!'
  'No it isn't, it's a caterpillar.'
  Now my middle daughter is now prodding her cauliflower gingerly with her fork.
  
  'Oh yes, it is a caterpillar.'  My husband grabs the offending cauliflower floret and hurls it across the grass. 'Never mind.' He says,  'Now get on with the rest of your lunch.'
  
  
  
  No one has much of an appetite anymore.
  'Do we have to eat the rest of our cauliflower?'  All 3 daughters ask - spotting a window of opportunity - a viable excuse to skip the veg.
  'Yes' I say firmly.
  
  Then, a few moments later, I feel guilty.  I grab one of the 3 pieces of remaining cauliflower from our 6 year old's plate.  I can't help noticing that this one has a caterpillar's cocoon hidden on one side.  I point surreptitiously to it, to show my husband while no one else is looking.  He raises an eyebrow.
  'Okay, no one has to finish their cauliflower.'  I say.
  'How many caterpillars do you reckon we've already eaten?' My husband asks, staring down at his empty plate.
  
  ***
  
  Now - it's not even as though this was an isolated incident.  Almost EVERY time I cook broccoli, there is accompanying wildlife that goes with it.  If I'm lucky the little green camouflaged blighters will float to the top of the boiling water as I cook - then I can spoon them out with the skill of a surgeon.  It's more difficult when you are talking about aphids or eggs.  The irony is - our kids like broccoli!!  I can't bring myself to strike such an iron and vitamin rich veg from their diet.  Occasionally, I feel cheered by the fact that perhaps this time, we've escaped the caterpillars - by some miracle, I'm cooking and the broccoli appears to be caterpillar free- but then I find one - and I know that there are bound to be more.
  
  I think back to the days when I was a self-indulgent and spoiled student - I was fussy...cutting the rind from my bacon and the fat from my lamb.  Times changed.  As a newly-wed I found myself routinely seiving weevils from flour, picking stones from dry rice before cooking and tapping ants from the sugar bowl.  (By the way - it's so dry that now ants are back in the kitchen with a vengance). I've even been known to negotiate around the mould in a refridgerated jar of pesto sauce.  I'm not proud.
  
  Lettuce is just the same.  I took some leaves from a Tupperware in the fridge that I'd painstakingly washed in boiled and filtered water a couple of days before.  From a leaf on my plate, popped the rearing head of a caterpillar - looking at me, looking at you.  I had no idea they could survive in the cold and without air for so long.  'Incredible resilience' I thought, before flicking it out of the window.
  
  I know that I should be grateful that pesticides and sprays have not made Nairobi's veg into plasticated, chemical filled GM shadows of their former selves - like the ones you see in supermarkets back home where rows and rows of carrots and leeks are of the same size, weight and colour- but somehow I really don't feel all that that grateful when literally face-to-face with the wildlife that is inhabiting my food.
  
  The most famous 'dudu' related incident in our family is when our middle daughter (it always seems to be her), bit into some mango that 'tasted funny'.  She looked up at the rest of the family and we all witnessed the image of a maggot writhing round between a large and beautiful front tooth and the top of her gum.  My eldest daughter since then has felt completely vindicated in her decision never to eat fruit.
  
  What is the opposite of vegetarian?
  
  I think that carbs and meat only is the only safe diet from now on.
  
  p.s.  I think I told you about the time when the gecko fell into my coffee.....without me noticing...(shiver)

  
  

• I can't remember the last time it rained...and the trials of working freelance

  Posted: February 6, 2012, 12:06 pm by Africa Expat Wife

   Okay, obviously I do remember the big November rains, and possibly a shower at around Christmas time - but since then it has been Dry, Dry, Dry here in Nairobi.  Everyday is unfailingly sunny - clear blue skies.  I keep looking at the weather forecast and only find a week's worth of round orange suns in a row.  I'm not complaining.  It's heaven, but I do notice that the once green grass is starting to crisp up.  The leaves of our potted yucca plant have been blasted yellow by fierce sunshine.  And water is beginning to be a vague concern - as is usual for this time of year.  We've had to order a few water trucks since the City Council supply has dried up.
  ***
  It's exam week this week for our eldest daughter.  She's only 11 but somehow the build-up has been seriously heavy going this time.  Kids are under so much pressure these days.  The school tries to strike a medium, suggesting: 'start revising over Christmas' and 'don't overdo it - yawning children do not perform well in exams'.  Peer pressure is as much about parents as it is children.  The result - we seem to have been focused on these bloomin' exams for months, whether we like it or not.
  Admittedly, I'm not very good at 'revision guidance' either.  Yesterday I found my daughter faithfully re-creating her already beautifully executed diagrams from her science book (she loves drawing)- with a lot of painstaking colouring-in.  The Tiger mother in me flipped - 'Colouring in?! WHAAT? How about trying to just read through the book and absorbing some of the facts!' 
  She'll be itching to leave home in just over a year's time - but I'm still not sure we'll be willing to let her go - poor thing!
  ***
  "I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at 9:00 every morning." Peter De VriesAt the moment I am supposed to be 'working'.  Freelance.  I didn't realise how much 'talking about work' and correspondance/meetings for 'lining up work' would be involved before actually DOING any work. 
  
  For instance - we talked about me taking a train trip to Mombasa for a travel mag.  I did my research and got very stressed (last time I went on the train it was delayed for 5 hours).  Then the day before I was due to leave, the trip got cancelled - apparently the Mombasa/Nairobi train will not be taking passengers for the foreseeable future while repairs/upgrading are carried out on the carriages.  Phew. 
  
  Other 'leads' seem, stubbornly, to prefer being 'in the pipeline' than actually bearing fruit.  Contracts look promising enough for me to feel stressed - about the prospect of being stressed and inundated... hopefully..sometime in the foreseeable future - but best not to bank on it yet.  Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how many years it's going to take me to pay back the cost of the work permit.  As you can appreciate - at the moment this is difficult.
  
  So, not wanting to waste time, last week I sent the Tiger Mother article to The Telegraph Weekend - "We did Tiger Mothers last Saturday so won't be covering it again for some time."   Duh (their Tiger Mothers story was posted online just after I sent my email).  Piqued, I stick the article on my blog instead.
  
  I had an enjoyable time ordering snazzy business cards from uk.moo.com - however, not sure if they will ever reach me in Nairobi via conventional post (cost of DHL was prohibitive).   So I only ordered 50 cards and console myself with the fact that it's unlikely that anyone will be interested in lifting them from our postbox en route (as has happened with children's birthday presents etc in the past).
  
  ***
  
  I've also been having fun familiarising myself with the local printer's shop.....
  
  First of all I took a flash drive in there and it got infected with a horrible virus.  It was a very clever virus actually, some dodgy files appear on your flash disk named 'porn' and 'sexy' (please believe me! - none of my friends did - they just laughed in my face) - I didn't notice this until I got home, then when I did put said flash disc into my computer, anything I Googled took me straight to an advertising website. Word documents disappeared. Everything was unravelling.  When I worked out that this was a virus (with the help of a v. patient and also indignant husband who swore blind that he was not responsible for the 'porn' infection), then confronted the print shop (why on earth would I have anything saying porn or sexy on my flash disc I ask you?!) - the shop assistant admitted they had a problem - and that they'd had other complaints.  They swore that they'd finally call in a technician 'with a powerful anti-virus' to deal with the problem.
  
  The second time I went into the same print shop (it took a couple of weeks to get over the first experience), I asked for 2 documents to be printed out and bound.  Admittedly they were quite big documents (100 pages each).
  
  "Colour or black and white?" the lady asked.
  "Um, oh let's go for colour." I said blithely. "Why not?  It would be nicer."
  
  I went back an hour later.
  
  "Not finished yet."  They said.
  "Huh?"
  "The printer is very slow."
  
  I go home.  Went back two hours later.
  
  "Well that will cost you around 100 pounds." they said. (Okay not quite - but 10,800 shillings!! Gasp!)
  
  "WHAAAATATAATAAT?"
  
  "Well, if you'd asked for black and white it would have been more like 25 pounds."
  
  "So why didn't you say that in the first place?!"  I choke.
  
  "You didn't ask." (She's right - I didn't).
  
  I learn that many customers don't think to ask the price and don't particularly mind paying.  I notice a pile of x1,000 USAID documents piling up on another desk. 
  
  "I guess USAID didn't ask." I say.  (Apparently they did, and they negotiated a small discount.)
  
  "Why aren't your prices clearly displayed anywhere?" I counter - still in shock.. now getting bolshy...
  
  "We don't do that - we don't want our competitors knowing what we charge."
  
  I'm in that fug - a red mist - that I know will be impossible to get out of here without blowing a fuse at some point - but deep down you know it won't help - so I do my best to keep cool.  Focus - deal with problem in hand.... 
  
  (It reminds me of a situation that I often find myself in Nairobi.  You  are at the till and suddenly get asked to pay more for an item than the price tag shows.  The shop assistant tells you, 'sorry, we got the pricing wrong - but if the computer says it costs more - that's that' -  You find yourself thinking nostalgically of Trading Standards back home; how selling something for more than it's advertised price is ....illegal - and then you give up - because there's no point in arguing, you are not so principled that you are able to hand the item back so you hand-over the cash - and leave the shop feeling robbed of a bargain.)
  
  So - back to the printer's.  That's all my profits wiped from the first commission in one fail swoop.  Trying to negotiate the price down after the 'fait accompli' was no joke.  I don't (quite) lose my temper, but swear that I'll never go back to that shop.  However, inevitably I probably will go back (if I'm not banned) because it's convenient and who I am trying to kid - I'll get over it.
  
  I do actually have a couple of commissions to get on with now, but as you can see I'm procrastinating as usual.  One is an article (at my suggestion) describing the highs and lows of working freelance - I thought that was apt - goodness knows I could do with researching the subject. 
  
  - I don't think that I'm going to be very good at this. 
  
  Note to self no 1. Go and buy printer cartridges.
  
  

  
  

• Commuters in Nairobi and the infamous Nairobi fly

  Posted: January 31, 2012, 12:36 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I did the early school run this morning.  We left home at around 6.05am.  Admittedly, it's only the second time I've done this run (my husband normally goes) but now I'm filled with ideas over how to change the world for the better (of course).  Namely, high-visibility vests for pedestrians and cyclists.  I saw a couple of people wearing them today and they really are effective.
  
  If I was a government/aid organisation and had a budget to save lives in Nairobi, this is what I'd invest in.  I might start with handing out high-viz vests to employees of private guarding firms (they are to-ing and fro-ing from their posts at dawn and dusk), then roll out to everyone else because these days I would guess that the majority of employees in Town are leaving home in the dark.  I think I'll pop down to Nakumatt and buy a few now
  
  Once I was lambasted for suggesting that the sun in Kenya rises and sets quickly - apparently it was too crude a generalisation and was told that of course there are different kinds of dawn and dusk from region-to-region.  I stand corrected, but coming from England where dawn and dusk can drag on for hours, there is a marked difference here.  I left the house in pitch darkness this morning, when I arrived at my destination 20 minutes later, it was like someone had flicked up the blind.  My husband always says driving at dusk and dawn is dangerous because your eyes (retina) are switching from rods to cones at dawn - he always has the technical answer.
  
  The good thing about getting on the road early is that the dreaded traffic is far better - an hour later and you are looking at the worst kind of gridlock (I saw the School bus with our youngest daugter inside it, inching along at an agonising pace when I was on my way back home).  The down side is that it is still dark and because there is less traffic, everyone is driving very fast.  Today there was a man wearing a navy fleece, manually pulling a very long and heavy piece of machinery (a tarmac roller?) across both lanes of Ngong Road in what he thought was a suitable gap in traffic.  I didn't see him until I was on top of him.  It was heart in mouth stuff as I jabbed at the dashboard to find the hazard lights.
  
  When we got to school, my eldest refused to get out of the car. She had the internal light on and was reading her book. 
  "It's so cold in the pool!" she said, "there's something wrong with the heating at the moment." 
  I felt awful, but coaxed her out and said. "Well we're here now, you might as well swim."
  
  However, when I got to the pool, I heard the coach say clearly,
  "Hurry up, get changed everyone, in you get, the water is very warm!" 
  I raised an eyebrow at my daughter who was now defiantly reading her book on the poolside stands and refusing to undress.
  
  Perhaps part of the eldest's reluctance to swim can be attributed to her 'Nairobi Fly/eye' burn that appeared on her leg last Wednesday.  It's a lot better now, but the whole experience has been traumatic. 
  

  Nairobi Fly/Nairobi Eye - commonly found after rains

  
  Last week she came back from school complaining that she had got some sunburn on her leg.  I thought that this was odd, since when did you get a localised sunburn in a particular patch on the inside leg by the knee?  There was a small mark on her other leg too.  We slathered on some Sudocream, but the mark continued to get worse.  Soon she was limping, the area was hot.  By friday/saturday it looked like really quite a deep burn indented into the skin.  I felt bad for her but guessed it was a Nairobi Fly - if you crush them off your skin they secrete a nasty acid - if you spot one then it's best to blow it off -but often people encounter them without realising, then they get a burn.  We've seen so many around since the big rains in November.

  This is not my daughter's burn, but you get the idea..

  Typcial that it was this daughter who was the first in the family to get 'stung' by a Nairobi fly.  She still has a jellyfish scar on her neck from 3 years ago.  I hope this one isn't going to add to her collection.  You do hear of people getting Nairobi fly stings on the eye - now that's nasty.

  
  

• Tiger mothering ... even in Nairobi - or should we say lion mothering?

  Posted: January 30, 2012, 6:03 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  The beginning of this school term has been like charging headlong into a maelstrom - then the realisation that I've turned into - a tiger mother.  Here's an article I wrote about it:
  
  
  “You’re becoming another one of those tiger mothers aren’t you?”
  
  The line was breaking up, surging as it was across the airwaves from over 6000 miles away, but the accusation was unmistakable and to be honest with you, it stung. Even in Nairobi, I had heard about Amy Chua and her mothering techniques.
  
  I’ve always prided myself on a lazy, laid-back approach to mothering which sees the television go on at 7am on weekends to ensure my husband and I get a lie-in. Fortunately, at the ages of 11, 9 and 6, the children are old enough to reach the fridge door, so I am reassured that no one will die of hunger and, with any luck, they’ll have enough sense not to stick their fingers into a power socket. I’ve perfected the art of tuning out indignant bouts of crying that result from yet another inter-sibling spat. Unless blood is drawn, then there’s no need for me to get involved.
  
  So why the ‘tiger mother’ comment? I was attempting, over the phone, to describe the process of getting back into a term time routine. Then I happened to mention that two of the three had been asked to join the school swimming team which involves early morning swimming training ... in an outdoor pool ... at 6.30am. (I have to admit, this did take a while for me to get my head round). The reaction of my mother? Unbridled horror.
  
  Grandparents today are a bastion of old values – they see it as their role to ensure that modern parental madness does not jeopardise the welfare of their grandchildren. But are they fighting a losing battle?
  
  “It was never like this in our day.” They might say, “Whatever happened to just reading a book?” Or; “Being bored makes for a more resourceful child.”
  
  For their words of wisdom, I am grateful. Deep down I know they are right but resisting overwhelming peer pressure to push one's children is another matter entirely.
  
  In the past our children had no choice but to fit in with us. When we took our eldest daughter on a road trip to Northern Zambia, we were armed with nothing but a plastic tape recorder, nursery rhyme cassettes and bread sticks. She was eighteen months old. In Tanzania, weekends were all about beach trips and boats. When all three children were small, a friend of mine asked me what I meant by the term ‘free play’. I laughingly explained that it was leaving the kids to get on with it, figuring that clearing up and the application of a plaster or arnica onto the odd bump or graze was a small price to pay for an hour’s peace. I’ve also been devilishly tactical in my approach. For instance, I put blinkers on the children whenever they have been in sight of horses. My efforts have been justly rewarded by the fact that none have the least inclination to ride.
  
  However, since September, life has gone mad. I have been sucked inexorably into the vortex of pressurised parenting. Modern life seems almost too frenetic to bear. We might live in East Africa, but our full timetable is equal to those of modern mums the world over: Monday; drums, Tuesday; guitar, Wednesday; cello, Thursday; Piano. (The irony is that not one of them has ever reached the heady heights of Grade one!)
  
  My organisational skills are deplorable, not helped by the fact that I find writing lists abhorrent: Pack match kit, shin pads, tennis racket. Make sure scruffled copy of poem is memorized. It’s all whizzing around in my head. When the girls leave the house before dawn, I pray that we haven’t forgotten to pack school shoes, or perish the thought; knickers!
  
  Our six year old still seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that school is optional.
  
  “Please can I stay at home today?” she says for the fifth time in the space of half-an-hour. “I’m tired. I’d really like a day off.”
  
  When I say “no” for the final time, she rejoins perceptively,
  
  “I know why you want me to go to school. It’s because you want to be alone!”
  
  And she’s right. After a rushed breakfast punctuated by complaints of shoes being too tight or tummy ache, there is the blissful hiatus of day time, at the end of which one must steel oneself for an evening of heightened emotions (not least mine), where not only do tired children need to be fed and bathed, but heckled through homework, harassed over play lines, reminded to do revision and motivated into music practise. This generally involves a lot of shouting.
  
  Weekends that once involved outdoor adventure in Kenya, picnics or slothful leisure time in the sun have now been replaced by agonising hours spent at noisy swimming galas, ferrying children to dance practice through hellish traffic and sitting through choral concerts; all of which our children take part in gamely enough, but do not excel.
  
  Presumably what drives us is the knowledge that the childhood years from 6-to-12 are critical in harnessing a child’s potential. There’s no doubt that coached and hot-housed children do get good results in the short term, but with all this relentless stimulation are they happy? Last night I found I was haranguing my middle daughter over the drum piece she was practicing.
  
  “Is this really the piece your teacher wants you to play for next week’s tea time concert?” I said, thinking of the forty-odd other parents that will be attending, “I’m sure you can do better than that.”
  
  In the cold light of day I feel ashamed. Turns out in my case, the tiger mother tag is true. Whatever happened to ‘free play’?
  
  ***
  P.S.
  RIP the school tennis coach who died suddenly last week.  He was very popular with a lot of the children and will be sorely missed.  His passing has elicited a lot of talk of death in our family.
  "Mummy," our 6 year-old said, "I hope you and me can die at the same time?"
  "Why?"
  "Because then we can both hold hands on our way up to heaven"

  
  

• Breaking news - ICC cases confirmed against 4 suspects

  Posted: January 23, 2012, 4:43 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  1.30pm: Glued to the TV - don't dare get up for a wee.  You could probably hear a pin drop in Kenya at this moment.
  The Hague/court say they are mindful of their decision affecting stability in Kenya and the weight of their onerous decision.  I know that the ICC has their work cut out - not only with having to wade through huge amounts of evidence, but in the local newspapers there have been numerous stories of ICC witnesses (some under witness protection, others in Kenya) either disappearing, turning up dead or suddenly recanting their statements.
  
  So far we know that charges will be confirmed against four of the 6 suspects...ie. that is the court deems there is enough evidence to make these cases admissable.  That they are innocent until proven guilty, of being indirect core perpetrators of Kenya's post election violence.
  
  1.40pmSo far:  William Ruto, Joshua Sang - charges confirmed against them - the case will go to trial.Henry Kosgey - charges not confirmed - case dismissed.
  
  Next:
  Uhuru Kenyatta, Francis Muthaura - Charges confirmed.
  Hussein Ali, (former chief of police) charges not confirmed.
  
  OMG!
  
  Kenya's political scene suddenly in free fall!
  
  2.30pm:
  
  
  William Ruto is on the local news at the moment, looking deflated for the first time ever, making a lengthy statement about his faith in justice, appreciation of the support of his wife and belief in God..
  The telegraph - click for coverage
  BBC news - click for coverage
  

  Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto - presidential aspirants but a case of crimes against humanity to hear at The Hague first

  BTW - It's 85 degrees and sunny every day in Nairobi at the moment ...

  
  

• ICC confirmation of Charges pending..

  Posted: January 22, 2012, 12:49 am by Africa Expat Wife

  
  Here in Kenya we are awaiting, with great anticipation, for the ICC ruling on whether charges will be confirmed against those 6 prominent figures deemed most responsible for masterminding post election violence in Dec 2007/Jan 2008, which left over 1,300 Kenyans dead and more than 300,000 people displaced from their homes (many are still living in temporary accommodation as Internally Displace Persons/IDPs today).   I'm not sure why the overseas newspapers are making so little of this - it surely is the most momentous day for Kenya in decades - certainly since independence.  The outcome could not just the political map but decades of impunity - everything.
  
  Charges against the 6 (above) include being criminally responsible for; murder, forcible transfer of population, rape, persecution and crimes against humanity.  These strong words come as a shock to read because over the past four years it has been easy to forget about the horrors that went on in those dark months after the last election; for years now it's all been buried under a shroud of politics - smoke and mirrors.  We tend to forget about the victims.  They are not able to shout loud enough.
  
  It is a fairly drawn case. 3 of the group represent supporters of President Kibaki and 3 for Raila Odinga who contested the result of the last election.  Who are they?  Click here for previous post
  
  The public will learn of the Hague decision at 1.30pm on Monday (the accused will hear the outcome one hour before the public via email).
  
  There are concerns that there will be some sort of adverse reaction by the public on release of the ICC verdict - whether by supporters of the suspects, or opposers - depending on the outcome - street protests etc.  The British foreign office have sent their usual warning to avoid public gatherings/demonstrations etc.  However, I suspect that all will be peaceful - whatever the outcome, there is bound to be a sense of relief.  And afterall, who will want to organise a politically charged demonstration when those on the stand are accused of manipulating the emotions of the masses to serve their own political ends?  In fact, how strong is the public support for these 6?  How much do people really care for them?  And how organised are the near to silent victims if the suspects are acquitted?  Would they really demonstrate?
  
  Meanwhile, it seems that all 6 suspects are confident that they will be exonerated tomorrow. They've been maintaining a high profile today, attending church services (perhaps seeking divine intervention?), and being followed by the press, smiling and dancing in public rallies.  Behind those smiles, there must be nerves cracking through.
  
  Two of the suspects, William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta, plan to run for president this year (assuming that there will be elections this December - but that's another story) and they maintain that they will not be knocked off course, even if charges are confirmed against them.  In fact, they are two of the key presidential aspirants in the race.  However, it's complicated.  If they do have a court case hanging over them and charges are confirmed, this will undoubtedly change the political outlook for the next government.  For more from the local press; The Standard, click here
  
  Ironically, Uhuru (grandson of Kenya's first president) and Ruto, have formed a strong alliance since belonging to totally opposing sides during the last election - how fickle politics is.  Uhuru was allied to the current President Kibaki, and Ruto to Raila Odinga.  Many question why Kibaki and Odinga were not called into the Hague investigation since they must have known a little of what was going on.  Are the 6 scapegoats/fall guys.  Ruto and Uhuru plan to be together in a hotel in town, along with fellow MPs, to watch the verdict read out and then hurriedly work out their next step.  Legally they are allowed to continue their race for president, even if they do have a court case hanging over their head - but the reality may be that few will be willing to put too much faith in them.  Surely their integrity will have been compromised.
  
  Francis Muthaura, Head of Public Service is one of the most powerful members of Kibaki's cabinet today.  Hussein Alli, former police chief and current postmaster general - may well have to resign.  We are still waiting to hear what the outcome is over the Nancy Baraza case (the deputy Chief Justice who pinched the security guard's nose and threatened her with a gun..?!).  The age of impunity is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold.
  
  My question is, (and I had the same question in the Amanda Knox case) - if those 6 are acquitted, therefore not responsible for organsing the violence after the last election - and the public perception here is that the violence very much was organised - then who is?  Mr Nobody I suspect.

  
  

• Trivia - traffic, school and snow

  Posted: January 19, 2012, 5:11 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Temporarily, we have had to re-think our daily routine.  Why? Because school swimming training has begun.  It's complicated.  My husband is not only taking a packed lunch but a packed breakfast to work.  Forward planning is necessary.  Invariably things get forgotten.  Yesterday our middle daughter forgot to pack her school socks (she managed to borrow some).  The day before, my husband forgot his lunch.
  
  The children are supposed to report to the school pool at 6.30am, dive in and swim a gazillion lengths.  It's only just getting light in Nairobi at 6.30am, so the children have been driven to school in the dark.  This, for us, this is a new state of craziness (we were already getting them up and out pretty early) - but each cloud has a silver lining.  There's far less traffic at 6am, so their route to school takes half the usual time.  Traffic is getting so dreadful in this city that getting up in the dark is the only answer to beat commuting time.  As long as we forego alcohol, put a line through our social life and make sure we are in bed by 9.30pm - then it's fine...
  
  ****
  
  Our eldest daughter recently returned from her much anticipated school skiing trip. It was an enormous success. Many of the 35 children had never seen snow before. Apparently there were lots of expressions of; “Wow, this is so not like the snow in SkiDubai”. (funny). It brought memories flooding back of when we showed our three snow for the first time a couple of years ago. I can just remember their astonishment when they realised that snow was actually wet! Wet trousers, freezing hands. Convincing them in centrally heated rooms that yes, they WILL need their coats! 
  
  When my husband first saw snow, he was in his teens. When the teacher caught him gazing out of the window at snow falling, he was reprimanded.
  
  
  “But it’s snowing,” my husband said.  A friend of his helpfully piped,
  
  “He’s never seen snow before, Sir.”
  
  So they stopped the French class and let everyone go outside, especially to see him experience snow for the first time ever.
  
  (BTW Are you not loving the David Attenborough Frozen Planet series showing on DSTV on Monday nights?)
  
  When she got back, because their flight arrived late, my daughter was given a day off school. It was a sweltering hot afternoon and as I lead her through the local shops/dukas to run errands such as; nip to the hardwarem return the dvd to the shop in the basement next to the stinky downstairs bar that always has a TV blaring, and then outside, past the poor woman in a wheelchair, hawkers with flowers, fruit and second hand clothes, broken pavement, dust, beggars and so on, to find Daniel who has glazed eyes and shaky hands and a bandage (which intrigued my daughter), so that I could swap the dodgy dvds (not working) that we’d bought from him on Saturday.  I asked her, “are you having a little bit of a culture shock?” She nodded.

  
  

• Karen Blixen and Denys Finch Hatton's grave today

  Posted: January 18, 2012, 11:18 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Karen Blixen's former house in Nairobi

  Having lived in Nairobi for years now, the Karen Blixen legend is still as enduring as ever. When I first moved to the area, I absolutely loved visiting Karen Blixen’s house which has been wonderfully preserved with some beautiful antiques (other items are reproduction, I think many are from the movie), a wide veranda, old outdoor kitchen with original utensils and then a rolling lawn with a view of the hills that does not ever disappoint. The house is small, but packed with atmosphere, the smell of polish, wood panelling, animal skins laid over creaking floorboards, fresh flowers and sunlight seeking its way through gauzy curtains into darkened rooms. I used to like visiting the house at the end of the day when there were few other visitors and often went alone and wonder how on earth Meryl Streep and Robert Redford fitted into that narrow bed.. but I have to admit, it’s years since I’ve been inside the house now.
  
  

  Karen Blixen's bedroom

  
  Although many of those 1930s characters who lived in Kenya were pretty dissolute and not very much to be admired, I still think it’s a shame that many 1930s colonial buildings are gradually being eradicated; either left to fall into ruin in the countryside or being sacrificed in the face of Nairobi’s aggressive building boom where any square acreage is being cleared for offices, apartments or town house complexes. You do still see the odd old house on a half acre plot, with quirky low tiled roofs tucked behind Chiromo road (one of these used to belong to Ewart Grogan), cowering beneath the spectre of road construction work going on around Museum Hill on a massive scale – but these are few and far between. While progress is undoubtedly a good thing, a peep into the past is also fun. The Macmillan library in the centre of town is still very much on my wish list of places to visit – but I’m not sure what I’d find if I tried going there today. (Do let me know if you have been there anyone?)
  
  
  Anyway, in the holidays, we went in search of Finch Hatton’s grave. Fortunately my husband had already passed by there on one of his boys motorbike forays, so he knew roughly where it was located and also knew that the road around the foot of the Ngong Hills had been recently graded (smoothed out). My mum who was visiting from England was dead keen to go find the grave – she’s an absolute hound for any kind of local history, so we decided to visit the grave then follow up with a picnic on the Ngong Hills on New Year’s Day. To be honest I was also keen. I love the Meryl Streep/Robert Redford film and remember clearly weeping buckets during the funeral scene at the end.
  
  

  Sign to Denys Finch Hatton's grave/memorial

  When we reached the bumpy track that leads vertically upwards with a roughly paint daubed sign, I wimped out and decided to park at the bottom – Unfortunately for them, I had two children in the car and my Dad. My husband, in another car (we had the dogs with us too) motored up happily and pulled into a large grassy field while my father and I literally dragged the younger two behind us up the slope to the smallholding where the grave is located. While scaling the steep hill, I said to my youngest (6) – look, those children are walking quite happily (admittedly downhill) – to which she replied - but they are USED to it! (I’m not sure how I felt about that comment!) Nonsense, I said.
  In fact, it was only a 5 minute walk from the bigger road. When we reached the top and turned in to the farm, there was a lady to greet us wearing in a blue woollen hat and knee length skirt. She said that she lived there with her granny and personally tends and manages the grave site – (as well as charging 300 shillings entry per adult). 
  
  

  Secret garden, entrance to the memorial today

  The lady had some printed out information about Denys Finch Hatton – she said that there was so much information on the internet on Denys – that she’d decided on one story only. Sensible, I thought, but I was hot (after the climb) and a bit bothered, so didn’t read the info. Instead, without preamble and having been given a hand written receipt for 1,200/ for 4 of us (the kids went in free), we were led to an unprepossessing corrugated iron door in a high hedge. This was a far cry from the open plains where lion once lay on the grave; it was more like ‘The Secret Garden’.
  
  

  The obelisk

  Once inside, the 12 foot obelisk and plinth were dwarfed by a hedge that ran all around the postage stamp sized plot. Although the granddaughter had indeed made a good attempt at gardening around it, the original brass plaque has been replaced by a blue one and the overall impression was claustrophobic. If you stand on the plinth and crane your neck to the left, then there is a gap in the hedge big enough to give you a glimpse of the breathtaking view that once would have lain out in front of and all around the grave. I wondered if Denys was turning in his grave – My Mum said that he probably would have been happy that the place was being well looked after.
  
  
  

  Lions on Denys Finch Hatton's Ngong Hills grave (from the movie)

  Our picnic was a success, if a little rushed. Up on the top of the windy Ngongs we frazzled in the blazing sun. The dogs, once finally out of the car, sniffed around distractedly but didn't stray far.  There were some boys who were selling Masai trinkets and a couple of other picnic-ing families up there too. We then drove the length of the winding road behind the Ngong Hills, where, eerily, we saw a plaque commemorating one of former President Kenyatta’s political adversary’s whose dead body was ‘found’ there.
  
  Nairobi tour ideas for history buffs:
  
  The National Museum on Museum Hill (suggested reading; ‘A guide to the Birds of East Africa.’ A novel by Nicholas Grayson . The museum still organise bird watching walks and lectures)
  
  The railway museum (see the actual carriage where a man was pulled to his death by a lion in Tsavo on the lunatic express) – previous post: Down at the Station - man eating lions of Tsavo
  
  Karen Blixen museum (full of atmosphere – try and visit low season when there are fewer coach loads of tourists)
  
  Finch Hatton’s grave – if you are up for an off the beaten track adventure.
  
  The Norfolk/Stanley hotels. Both have original long bar areas.

  
  

• Happy New Year in Nairobi - Security threats nothwithstanding...

  Posted: January 13, 2012, 3:31 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  This update is so long overdue, I hardly know where to begin... apologies for that..
  
  We've had a couple of tentative emails and text messages asking if we are alright in Kenya - particularly in view of the recent scaling up of the security threat/foreign office travel advisory.  In fact, in Kenya we are very much alright, security threats notwithstanding.  The sun in shining.  After a mega sized 'short' rains in November which lasted 6 weeks, the country is looking particularly green and beautiful for this time of year.  In previous years, the drought has meant that this time of year has been particularly dusty and desperate - as cows are herded into the Nairobi city centre in search of any remaining pastures and there are food shortages, but this year, dams for hydroelectric power are full of water, although the rains damaged some crops we are not in bad shape on that front.  The Kenya shilling is thankfully back under control (1$-87 Kshs), we still have a cooking gas shortage but petrol prices are due to drop a little next week. 
  
  For me, the run up to christmas was the usual whirl of visitors, children at home and then ordering hams and turkeys that turn out to be so enormous that you have no idea how you are ever going to eat it...but somehow you do.  Thinking about what to give everyone for a present - sadly, due to my distracted state, my husband ended up with precisely nothing for Christmas from me - a fact that I'm more than ashamed of and plan to rectify for his birthday next month - that is.. if I get my act together of course.
  
  Obviously, living here, there's not just your own family to consider with regard to gifts, but also the people who work in our house.  As well as the usual xmas bonus, Nakumatt vouchers are always a good idea as they can be cashed in all over the country and this year I gave solar powered light sets to our house staff before they headed out of Nairobi to visit family over the holiday period.  These apparently were gratefully received at the other end.   There are loads of portable solar lights on the market these days, and most sets can charge a mobile phone from the solar powered battery too.  You would be amazed how few people in rural Kenya have access to the grid and since the price of kerosene for small lamps has gone through the roof, many people are forced to resort to sitting in the dark in the evenings at the moment.....and it gets dark early here...
  
  In Nairobi, the number of random security checks have been stepped up - particularly on arrival at shopping centres.  Foreign office staff have been advised to spend no more than 20 minutes in such places (where possible) - I honestly don't see how this advice makes any sense at all - who knows which minute is going to be an unlucky one if disaster does strike?  The majority of people are just continuing life as usual while keeping fingers quietly crossed.  There was an interesting BBC report that said that Nairobi and indeed Kenya is such a cosmopolitan melting pot, made up of so many cultures mixed together, Kenyan, East African, Western, Asian, Arab - that it's almost impossible to keep an eye on what is going on.
  
  I've been watching the story of Nancy Baraza (known for her fiery temper), acting deputy Chief Justice - with utmost interest.  She is reported to have insulted a female security officer at Village Market on New Year's eve, when she was asked to undergo a routine security check on entry.  Apparently Nancy pinched the security woman's nose then threatened her with a gun (which of course Ms Baraza denies) - sadly for Nancy - the CCTV cameras were running.  The whole incident has now gone to court - her career hangs in the balance.  The security officer is sticking to her guns.  We also find out this month (before the 20th Jan) whether or not the 6 leading figures accused of organising 2007/8 post election violence - will have charges confirmed against them or dropped.  A couple of them are planning to run for presidency in the  upcoming 2012 elections.  Can't wait to find out what happens!

  
  

• UK dash - secondary schools

  Posted: December 7, 2011, 6:28 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  We’ve had a solid month of rain here in Kenya – of the like, I’ve never seen before. Roads are more potholed than ever, storm drains flooded, rainfall records for the past ten years have been broken. Each day of November brought with it giant rain storms, threatening black clouds and thunder, or else a drizzling mist of rain all day. So, in this wet weather, with roof leaking and power outages of up to 12 hours per time, my husband and I decided to escape to England for a week, ostensibly to look at secondary schools. It was something I thought we would never get around to doing, but when my parents-in-law (heroically) offered to babysit and we realised we had enough air miles for two return flights, we figured - why not? 
  
  So what if we are in the midst of the biggest financial crisis of all time - global upheaval, the euro on the brink, UK parents selling the family silver to afford school feels - to hell with it - why not? (We must be mad)
  
  
  As you can imagine, there is peer pressure . You may think that sending your kids back to UK is just a British expat thing, but it’s actually also a Kenyan trend to send your kids overseas for the best education that you can afford (UK, the States, Canada, Switzerland). However, you may be asking yourself at this point, why, if we need to scrabble around for air miles to go back to England, do we have the gall to consider UK private schools that cost up to £10,000 a term? It’s a good question.
  
  
  I think that the 7 schools that we visited were bemused by our ramshackle arrival too. While in Kenya I had made appointments willy nilly in order to make the most of our trip, our appointment schedule kept changing (hang on a minute, which Cheltenham had we booked to see? Cheltenham Ladies or the other one? I wasn’t sure) – admittedly I/we’d not done much research beyond looking at a few websites and borrowing a friend’s copy of ‘The Good Schools Guide’. There were a couple of schools that we really wanted to see, others were schools we were just curious about or happened to be driving past (useful for comparison, I thought).
  
  To add to my woefully bad planning, my husband’s Movember beard that has now become something of a bushy fixture (I keep reminding him that we are in December), joined with the fact that he insisted on wearing what he calls his khaki green ‘protester’s’ coat to all our appointments because frankly, it’s the only coat he’s got - must have combined to make an odd impression. I didn’t do much better. The only waterproof coat I own is a fake leather brown jacket.
  
  The first school we arrived at (direct from Heathrow after a night flight - fuzzy mouthed) was my old school. It was an open day. The other prospective parents were wearing exactly what my mum and dad used to wear back in the day when I was at school – red cords, tweed jackets and/or skirts, Guernsey jumpers. It was like we’d stepped back in time.
  
  I won’t bore you with the details, but all the schools were great. They all had overwhelmingly good facilities - with theatres, indoor pools, sports centres, gyms, stunning historic buildings, extensive grounds - almost everyone had a new science block, half a dozen master’s or teachers per subject (all willing to indulge us with a chat), jolly matrons and lovely students were selected to show us round. I did notice that the girls tended to wear thick foundation and short skirts at co-ed schools, whereas at all-girls schools they didn’t bother, but other than that, they were similarly good.
  
  We returned to a knackered but resilient Granny and Grandad who had clocked up two hours in solid traffic on the return journey of one school run and also managed to put up the Christmas tree - to another weekend of yet more power outages and two out of three of our children ill. My mother-in-law said on a number of occasions; “I’m so glad you’re back!”
  
  More confused than ever, I’m not necessarily convinced that UK schools are worth sending our children to another continent and re-mortgaging the house for.. but I may change my mind as time goes on. At this point, it is hard to imagine our eldest daughter at 13 – although time is already running out. At least the weather has cheered up over the past couple of days. Perhaps it’s a sign?

  
  

• Post office in Kenya and the trials of dealing with local emergency services

  Posted: November 16, 2011, 11:50 am by Africa Expat Wife

  
  My husband announced last night that he might like to be a postman one day. I said that’s fine but he’d be hard pushed to be one in Kenya since there’s no postal delivery service here.
  
  It brought to mind the story from a year ago.  The 5 year olds in my daughter’s kindergarten class did a school project which involved writing and posting a letter to their parents. The parents dutifully filled in an address on a form, then the children wrote out a (brief) letter and addressed an envelope. Then followed a class trip to the local post office to ceremonially post the letters, after which 10 tots crossed the road to buy a bag of crisps in the shop.
  
  We use my husband’s work P.O. Box, so the letter from our daughter had some distance to travel, but other parents held their own P.O. Box in the exact same local post office – which meant that letters had only to travel from the post box, to an individual numbered box in the same room.
  
  A good friend’s daughter was so excited about the prospect of her parents receiving her letter, that the next morning she absolutely insisted that she and her mother check their mail box before going to school. With trepidation, they opened the box with their small key from the outside, then imagine their delight and surprise when an actual HAND was on the other side, putting the little girl’s kindergarten letter in the box at that very moment! Not such an arduous task for the postal worker on that occasion!
  
  We don’t really miss the door-to-door postal delivery here, but there are plenty of aspects of the local (admittedly reasonably priced) service which, not to put too fine a point on it, fail to measure up to standards we would like.
  
  1. My father-in-law sent a postcard from Kenya to England last year. It arrived in England 6 months later. The recipient asked; “did you have a lovely holiday?” Reply; “What holiday?” He now puts all of his postcards in envelopes as they tend to arrive quicker.
  
  2. Family and friends have sent birthday and Christmas presents from England via the conventional postal service here and the gifts, mysteriously, never arrived. This caused awkwardness when friends/family fished for a thank you and we had to admit that we hadn’t received anything, thinking they had forgotten. This happened the other way round too when we sent parcels from Kenya to England - cue more fishing emails and text messages on 'did you get the package'.  It's all most disappointing.
  
  3. If parcels do arrive in Kenya from overseas, then you are summonsed to the post office to pay duty on the package. If the sender has written an accurate ‘perceived value’ on the postage label (or bumped it up to look generous), then you end up having to pay that same price again in local currency as an import tax, in order to get your package released. Top tip: get relatives to write ‘no commercial value’ on the ticket at the post office their end.
  
  4. Personal magazines received in clear plastic packages via subscriptions, tend to be distributed on the street via a street vendor. At the very least, your ‘free gift’ will be long gone.
  
  So what is the answer? We try to ask friends and family to post parcels to whoever is due to come and visit us next in person, or send important letters with somebody who might be going to England next. This system is not without its drawbacks too: –
  
  1. If you are the unlucky person who happens to mention a UK visit, then you are inundated with requests to post unstamped letters and parcels by all and sundry – which necessitates a special (and expensive) visit to queue up at a UK post office immediately you arrive (jet lagged) at the other end. Nobody in Kenya ever knows how much a first class stamp in England costs these days, since Royal Mail don’t put it on the face of the stamp any more.  So friends who want their mail posted in England tend to foist a handful of Kenya shillings on you just as you are headed to the airport, an amount that bears no relation to the cost of the UK postage.
  
  (Top tip, buy a book or two of first class stamps in advance when you are in England, there is then a Royal Mail website that allows you to calculate the cost of posting your package fairly accurately based on dimension and weight.)
  
  2. Alternatively you might be the hapless visitor to Kenya who plans to go for some winter sun at Christmas. Within days of booking your flight, curious parcels addressed to not just family who you know, but also total strangers (friends of friends) will start appearing at your door, or pouring through your letterbox. You’ll end up bringing at least one, if not two entire suitcases filled with someone else’s parcels leaving no room for your clothes or toiletries . When an official at Heathrow asks you; “is there anything in this bag that you did not pack yourself?” You are at a loss to answer truthfully. Who knows what’s in there?
  
  The upside of our local postal service in Kenya is that you tend not to be swamped by junk mail.  You only receive the bare minium - local bank statements/bills etc.
  
  ***
  In fact, we European and US citizens are thoroughly spoiled by services that we take for granted when back home. No offense but if you dial 999 in Kenya or indeed the correct number for your local police station etc, then you will invariably get an automated message saying: ‘The number you require is out of service/not accessible’.
  
  When a wailing ambulance pulls up behind you on the road in Nairobi, you are surprised at the sight of it (it’s so rare), to the point where you forget what you are supposed to do (get out of the way) – the ambulance in question will generally be a small mini-van from a private hospital.
  
  If you are worried about being in an emergency situation yourself whilst in Kenya, the best thing to do is have your local doctor/clinic numbers on your phone so that you can contact them in an emergency to ask what to do/where is the best place to go.  GPs will often recommend known experts at a particular hospital that specialise in broken bones/heart problems etc.  It's not a bad idea to familiarise yourself roughly with the route to the nearest private hospitals (Karen, Nairobi, Aga Khan, Gertrudes Garden). Also, join AMREF flying doctors and store their numbers in your phone too.
  
  It's not just ambulances.  Police often like to catch a lift to a crime scene in your car because they rarely have fuel for their own vehicles. In Tanzania an expat’s house was burning down. A private security firm’s fire truck arrived after a tip off and asked the individual in question to give credit card details before they were willing to tackle the fire since the guy in question was not a subscriber to their services. City council fire services are pretty desperate and let's be honest, fire engines can take hours to arrive, if at all.
  
  The YouTube clip below taken from the local news recently speaks for itself! At least the newsreader has a sense of humour, though not so funny for the ones who were actually there!
  
  

  
  

• Prince of Wales and Camilla sweat it out in Zanzibar

  Posted: November 9, 2011, 12:10 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Charles and Camilla arriving at Zanzibar airport.

  
  Seeing this photograph of Charles and Camila in Zanzibar brings memories flooding back.  First time visitors to the island, nothing can prepare you for the extreme humidity and heat.  And they are actually wearing jackets poor things?!  'Hot' does not even nearly begin to describe it.
  
  In 1999, my husband and I came from February in England to Zanzibar on honeymoon - I nearly died (not literally, but felt pretty close thanks to a bout of food poisoning).  I'd never been far beyond Europe in my life, or to a developing country.  Not at all well travelled, it all came as a huge shock.  Pale and sweating, after two weeks in un-air conditioned 'eco' huts and bandas, we caught the ferry over to the mainland, to Dar es Salaam,  in order to start a new life in the tropics.  At the time, I can't understand why it never occurred to me that we must have been stark, staring mad to attempt such a transition.  12 years later and still in East Africa, the culture shock of first arriving in Zanzibar is still as fresh and clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.
  
  The Telegraph article did say that Camilla had to withdraw from her tour round the Sultan's palace in order to have 'a little rest' for 5 minutes, but otherwise she seems to have coped admirably.  I'm sure that the pearl encrusted jacket/dress she was wearing was a bit to heavy though - and doesn't look like a natural fabric (sack the stylist) - perhaps she could have taken a leaf out of Kate's book and chosen more of a breezy, summer frock.  It's always a tricky balance in strictly Muslim Zanzibar and Dar, but cool linen shirts and unlined long skirts were my staple in those days.  It was always agony to be so hot and yet compelled to cover up at the same time. 
  
  They even threw themselves into the dancing - well done!
  
  

  Charles dancing/throwing shapes in 90 degree heat

  They were then due to attend a garden party at the British High Commissioner's residence in Dar yesterday, which would have been be very civilised - barring the toxic smell of effluent that invariably washes over that garden from the direction of Salander Bridge and the estuary.
  
  My husband grew up in Mombasa.  His Dad's advice for any lengthy, formal occasion in the tropics (and he endured quite a few) was always, "sit or stand absolutely stock still, as still as you can - then you can cope.  Fidgeting just makes the heat worse."
  
  

  Dark/airless gift shop in Zanzibar

  The dark, airless gift shops are also typical and haven't changed in decades.  I spent many an hour in these places, desperately figuring out how these sort of christmas presents might go down in wintry England.
  
  I gather that there was a lot of brow mopping between the royal couple.  Camilla's hair would have started to flop as sweat tricked down her back and thighs.  My guess is that the royal couple will be relieved to be boarding a plane to the cooler climbes of Kilimanjaro today.
  
  

  Emerging from the House of Wonders, beginning to look dishevelled

  
  

• Family fun day - volunteering

  Posted: November 8, 2011, 3:59 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Fireworks Ban in Nairobi

  
  It was an odd sort of November 5th and Diwali in Nairobi this year, with all fireworks banned due to possible confusion over security threats and grenade attacks that have been threatened by Al Shabaab since Kenya began its 'incursion' into Somalia to flush the terrorists out.
  
  A strange atmosphere pervades.  There was a real worry that the Safari Sevens that took place in Nyayo Stadium last weekend might be a target for attack but fortunately all went smoothly.  Somebody summed it up for me yesterday,
  
  "Are you still shopping?" they asked.  I was in a large shopping centre (quieter than usual)."Yes, of course." I said, trying to show some famously British bravado in the face of adversity. "why wouldn't I be?"
  "Well, it's okay until it happens" he said, "...if you know what I mean."
  
  ****
  
  To be honest, while the cancellation of fireworks display might have come as a huge disappointment to many children, it was an equally huge relief to plenty of adults, especially those responsible for the pyrotechnic displays.
  1.  On the upside, cancelling fireworks meant that nobody got killed or maimed at the Karen Club fireworks display, which usually takes lack of health and safety measures to a new level - with small boys throwing firecrackers and lighting their own fireworks willy nilly; toddlers and teenagers alike all disappearing into the poorly lit wooded area, mud, chaos, parents drinking heavily and failing to keep an eye.
  
  2. Our (better policed) school fireworks display was reduced  to a 'family fun day' from 1pm-4pm, in aid of charity (Kigulu school in Kibera) and despite fears that the whole thing would be a damp squib without the firework crescendo - it was in fact a great success.  The school does normally lay on a 'family fun for charity' organised by the parents association, from 4 until 7pm when the fireworks take place, but this year the whole thing was moved forward in the day so that it included lunch and we were all safely long gone before dark.
  
  ****
  Every year I promise myself that I will join the school parent's association (especially since I now have 3 children at the same school) and every year I somehow manage to swerve it.  This time I failed to turn up to the first meeting because I didn't read the newsletter, so then managed never to enter the loop of organising anything.  I don't like meetings or commitment but have to admit that I do have a bit of a weakness for volunteering on the day.  You are generally supposed to just do an hour of volunteering but I'm a bad example.  I get very possessive over my 'pitch' and often find it hard to hand over, then walk away saying in loud, martyred tones; "do you know, I was stuck there for two and a half hours!" - but obviously it was only because I wanted to be..and just want everyone to know how marvelous I am.
  
  My all time favourite is the lucky dip where I'll selflessly give hours of my time to collect money and watch little faces light up at each gift and tell the kids to put their rubbish in the bin.  There's always a rumour amongst the children that inside the lucky dip is at least one mobile phone (I think there was one once, in the past) - so it's always by far and away the most popular stand.
  
  

  lemon tart (not mine!)

  On the family fun day on Saturday, I arrived feeling ultra sheepish because not only had I omitted to 'sign up' on the PA volunteer sheet but I'd also forgotten to bring my much slaved over Jamie Oliver lemon tart for the PA coffee shop stand.  Frustrated and angry at myself, I stood around for a bit, sorely tempted to get back in the car and do the minimum of an hours round trip back home to get the tart.  My husband was gainfully employed running his rhino charge car rides (that's a whole other story) and a very efficient rota of teaching staff had been roped in to help.  My kids ran off and disappeared with their friends immediately.  I felt like a spare wheel.
  
  My fortunes changed when I was distracted by noticing the Head of the PA negotiating with the men who had been hired to turn up with the giant inflatable hamster balls that children could get inside and roll around, also known as 'Zorbs'.  She was trying to hand over tickets and sort out a system but it looked like chaos, she was already mobbed by children who angling for the first go while the balls were being inflated. 
  
  

  Zorb in motion

  
  Seeing an opening, I swooped.
  
  "Need any help?" I asked innocently.
  
  The head of the PA was efficient;
  
  "Um, why don't you go and stand over there and get all the children to follow you" she said, "then get them to queue up and group into bunches of five.  We want the balls to start over there so that they can roll down the hill."
  
  I took up my position in full sun without a sunhat, but not before first trying (and failing) to steal a stake and ropes queuing system from another, less popular ride (that stallholder was most indignant).  Undaunted I strode off to my position like a pied piper with children following and arranged some rounders posts for effect.  After I'd got the children into sort of a rough queue that they kept falling out of in boredom, I stood awkwardly at the top of the hill wondering what to do.  The hamster balls were still being laboriously inflated - it was taking ages.  Undaunted I wrestled the ticketing system and float from the head of the PA's able teenage assistant and started selling advance tickets furiously.  The problem was that when I'd sold all the tickets and the first ball turned up, there was a scrum of children all claiming that they were first.  Using the numbering on the tickets was also hopeless becuase they all wanted to go with their friends.
  "Have you got any kind of system going here?" One dad asked pointedly.
  
  Why anyone would want to climb inside and inflatable ball in the midday sun, then roll down with four friends tumbling on top of them was beyond me, but boy - they kept coming.  It soon became clear that we were NOT going to be using the harnesses that were inside the balls.  I had to group the children roughly by age mates to prevent crushing, fortunately to some extent they did this themselves.  Some protective parents looked concerned.  One dad (but only one) pulled out his crying child from the ball and told me that he "didn't think it was really suitable for the younger ones".
  
  
  

  loading zorb

  Hey ho.  Meanwhile, I was having a ball - literally.  Yes, I had also forgotten to bring my hat so I was burning up, it was hot, no shade - my own children kept running up to me every five minutes asking for money for other rides and stands and I was getting a little confused between the PA money and my own - but at least I had a job!  I was manhandling children in and out of the balls (some quite heavy), getting them to take off their shoes - was given responsibility of holding the odd bag or pair of glasses as they rolled, trying to make sure the balls didn't crush the tree sapling that was in the way and all the while shouting at the top of my voice;
  
  "Look out Below!" as the two children filled balls went hurtling down the hill ready to knock down innocent passers-by.  Then,
  "Push harder, put your back into it!" when they had to roll it back up again.
  
  I chatted to other kids in the queue while they patiently waited, sold more tickets, counselled smaller ones who had bought tickets but suddenly (and understandably) had second thoughts about getting in, put an emergency call into the chief organiser when I ran low on tickets or high on cash.  I was in heaven.
  
  As usual, when a reliever turned up, I wouldn't go - when I did finally hand over, I kept popping back to see if she was okay, only to find that she had implemented a much better queueing and ticketing system than me..I guess I should have simply been grateful that nobody suffered any broken bones.
  
  As I put my feet up in the evening and bit into some lemon tart, I had the warm and noticeably smug feeling wash over me of a good job well done.  Roll on next year...ha ha..

  
  

• Reading books and visitor season

  Posted: November 2, 2011, 12:26 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I'm ashamed to say that it's been ages since I've actually read a book.  Following the Eurozone crisis and the local news avidly, then reading lifestyle columns online is one thing  - but getting inspired and lost inside a book is something else - and much better for the soul I imagine.  Plus they say that you can't write without reading - so that's where I'm going wrong!! - I say to myself...
  
  So, I went off to the library yesterday and got 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' by Edmund de Waal and am already totally stuck in.  I recognised the book cover from a magazine profile and grabbed it hungrily from the shelf.  From what I can make out so far, it's a family history woven around a collection of inherited Japanese netsuke which crosses continents; Europe and Japan, and generations.  Review here.  My only problem now is a husband who likes to snap the light of as soon as his head hits the pillow - so I'm having to find stolen moments to read during the day.
  
  In the meantime, we are all entering the expat 'visitor season' that will reach its climax at Christmas but for many people may well trail on until February or March next year.  Having had a wet week or two here in Nairobi with accompanying frequent power cuts and dreadful traffic, the sun is now very definitely shining, the sky is blue and this week my parents-in-law arrive, followed closely by my own parents - both sets keen to escape the English winter gloaming for as long as possible.. They generally arrive pale faced, then do lots of sleeping and read copious numbers of books while here - and where normally I'd make a quick sandwich or instant noodles to be eaten by my computer at lunchtime when the kids are in school, it's now my duty to put my book to one side, step up the in-house catering stakes and get organised. 
  
  Last night we realised that we'd got the date wrong of my parents-in-law arrival.  It's not the first time we've done this - my parents once had to call us from Dar es Salaam airport when they got here one sweltering February morning to say 'just wondering if you are on your way? Are you collecting us?  My husband dropped everything at work and there was a frightful scuffle at home as we rushed to get beds made and flowers put in the guest bedroom.  So we realised last night that the parents-in-law are getting here tomorrow morning, not Friday - and I've invited friends for supper the same evening...(something I'm rarely organised or energetic enough to do).  Not sure where we are all going to sit.  Oh well.  A friend suggested hiring a freelance cook - I'm sorely tempted.
  
  I wonder if I can take my book to my daughter's rounders match this afternoon?
  
  My husband was sent the links to these two old (circa 1990s) French & Saunders comedy skits on expat wives - horribly un-politically correct - but just had to share!  WARNING - EXPLICIT CONTENT, SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND OFFENSIVE.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

• Security warnings - a quiet weekend in Nairobi nonetheless

  Posted: October 31, 2011, 11:08 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Henry Wanyoike and his running partner Joseph

  
  My husband ran the 10km at the Standard Chartered marathon with quite a few of his work colleagues and our gardener, and managed not to get bombed by Al Shabaab.  Phew.  So glad that the incredible charity event went off without a hitch (they even dodged the rain that has been pouring down intermittently all weekend) and people turned out in record numbers as usual. 
  
  I felt a bit shifty and guilty for not running once again on Sunday morning once again when my husband's alarm clock went off - not least because the spokesperson for the charity 'seeing is believing', Henry Wanyoike, paralympic and gold medal winning marathon champion - came to our kids school on a sports day recently with his running partner Joseph and gave us all an inspiring motivational talk.  He lost his sight when he was 19.  Read more about the marathon here.  When it came close to the time, as usual I had excuses aplenty - next year we'll do the family fun run at least, ... promise.
  
  Shopping centres that were quiet(ish) on Friday following security warnings, were heaving once again (and chaotic) by Sunday.  There certainly is general fear of terror attacks - a taxi driver I met on Saturday said,
  "Have you seen these Somalis, carrying two guns each?  They are not afraid to die.  That is why we Kenyans fear them."
  
  While people are certainly behind Kenya's move into Somalia to fight Al Shabaab and are continuing life as usual, last week, hotlines were reportedly jammed with calls by Kenyans reporting sightings of anyone vaguely resembling a Somali in the city.  A friend's work colleague said that it has been common for passengers to refuse to board a bus/matatu if there is someone who looks like a Somali already inside.  And yet, the person arrested and found guilty for the two grenade attacks of last Sunday/Monday on a nightclub/bus stage - was Kenyan.  I wonder what will happen next.  Nothing hopefully.
  
  For the latest Economist article on Kenya's war on Al Shabaab - click here

  
  

• Should we be worried? Kenya v al-Shabaab

  Posted: October 27, 2011, 3:50 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Kenyan Soldiers

  During the past week or so, events have been moving fast.  The recent kidnappings that took place within Kenya, (Lamu, Kiwayu, Dadaab) served as a catalyst which saw Kenyan forces going into Somalia on 16th October to seek out Al Shabaab, in spite of Al Shabaab denying any involvement in these crimes.  Much of Southern and Central Somalia is under Islamic militant Al Shabaab control and the humanitarian situation in Somalia has come to a head.  Over recent months, Kenya has seen tens of thousands of Somali refugees cross the border into Dadaab camp daily due to the ongoing civil war and drought in the horn of Africa.  Dadaab Camp is designed to hold 90,000 refugees - there are now closer to half a million there.  Many fear that the camp is shielding members of the al Shabaab group too, who may be passing in and out, posing as refugees.  It's now the largest refugee camp in the world.
  
  

  flooding at Dadaab

  I think that this is a proud moment for Kenyans, the majority of whom are 100% behind the action, even in the face of grenade attacks that took place Nairobi in a downtown nightclub (Sunday) and during a busy time for commuters in the city centre (Monday) - suspected to be Al-Shabaab retaliation (though these are certainly not the first grenade attacks to have happened in Nairobi).  People vow to continue as normal in spite of reports of security threats.  Police presence on city streets has visibly been stepped up and Police chief Mathew Iteere managed a coup on Tuesday when his cops arrested a Kenyan man with a stash of 13 hand grenades and numerous guns within a Kayole estate (thanks to a tip off) - who admitted to being responsible for the 2 recent attacks in Nairobi and a member of Al Shabaab. Read related BBC news article here
  
  

  security threats

  Meanwhile, in the Eastleigh area of Nairobi, commonly known as 'Little Mogadishu' - many Somali immigrants without proper papers have gone into hiding fearing a police crackdown in the area will see them sent out of the country.
  
  

  Map showing Kenya's proximity to Somalia

  
  The consensus is that Kenya's hitting back in order to defend her (somewhat porous) borders has been a long time coming.  The fact that Kenya has been brave enough to wade into lawless Somalia which has now not had stability for 20 years and after the stinging defeat of US forces in Black Hawk Down in 1993, is something that foreign powers are extremely grateful for too.  American Ambassador Scott Gration says that the US agrees with Kenya's military action in Somalia and while they are not part of the offensive they pledge to continue to give 'training on terrorism' and support Kenya with its security issues.  The French are helping with more practical logistical support, helping with transportation of soldiers and weaponry in and out of Somalia.   
  
  A set back came about when on Monday, the president of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia suddenly changed tack from openly supporting Kenyan military action, publicly announcing that Kenya was working in partnership with the TFG in Somalia, to announcing that he does not want Kenyan forces inside Somalia but only wants Kenya to train and provide logistical support for his troops. MPs in the TFG Government have expressed surprise and disappointment at their President's remarks, causing further confusion and ordinary Somalis came out waving Kenyan flags and burning images of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in towns in southern Somalia such as Dhobley Town where Al Shabaab has recently been flushed out to demonstrate.  People there were reported to have been saying; "We want Kenya and Somalia to fight Al Shabaab in every corner.  We do not have any other hope for life" . 
  
  In Dadaab refugee camp within Kenya, sadly many medecins sans frontieres staffers and other foreign aid workers have left since the kidnapping of two female Spanish aid workers there last week.  The Kenya newspapers showed a photograph of an empty and abandoned MSF health clinic in Dadaab.
  
  It's also been raining heavily in Southern Somalia which has made the entire Kenya offensive very difficult since the outset, though Kenya has overpowered Al Shabaab in many towns and is apparently making good headway. 
  
  On Tuesday 2 more foreign aid workers (a US woman and a Danish man) working for Danish Refugee Control were kidnapped from inside the northern part of Somalia in Puntland which came as a surprise since up until now, this area has been considered relatively safe and is not under Al Shabaab control.   The story is that their Somali guards/staff were complicit in organising the abduction.  They have been arrested. 
  Read more here
  
  The fact that many of the the kidnappings have involved foreigners, means that the expat community who have historically been fairly exempt from local political upheavals and disturbances are now feeling spooked.  But I don't think they have any particular reason to react in this way - especially if they avoid places near the Somali border - which the foreign office has advised people to do.  I personally am not planning to visit Dadaab camp, Somalia itself or the very north coast of Kenya any time soon and I'm willing to bet that very few people not involved in the war or aid effort are.
  
  There have been rumours of security warnings about possible targets for attacks being large shopping centres and places where not just Kenyans but expats hang out which has caused a frisson of alarm amongst expat housewives that I know - but these sort of security warnings are fairly common here and I don't think a particular cause for alarm.  The reason foreigners have been targeted for kidnap is because of the perceived increased bargaining power they hold for ransom. I don't see that they would be particularly a target for bombing - and the recent grenade attacks showed a lone al Shabaab militant choosing easier targets of a low security bus stage's and bar, rather than high security shopping centres.  Toughen up gals!! 
  
  One (curiously a South African) friend said, "doesn't stuff like this make you feel like going home?"
  "No!" I shriek - envisaging myself in the future as an old expat granny in Kenya driving about with a shotgun on the passenger seat - still saying; "it's fine, it's fine!"
  Instead I said;
  "Might I remind you that Europe and the States is in the most godawful mess at the moment?!"
  I think I have to stop being such an obsessive consumer of news, but I know where I'd rather be.
  
  Raila Odinga is in hot water over missing 'Kazi kwa Vijana' (jobs for youth) World Bank funds totalling Kshs 33 million that have gone missing under his watch.  The project was cancelled on October 11th after the World Bank had undertaken a 4 month investigation into accounting discrepancies.   His enemies in politics (Will-i-am Ruto etc) are revelling in it.
  
  Meanwhile, the capture of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi and the mobile phone footage of his grisly end was played out over the weekend, with shocking details of his final hours still emerging....

  
  

• Trip to State House

  Posted: October 23, 2011, 2:28 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  State House, Nairobi

  
  My husband received an invitation to celebrate Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) at State House. We figured, ‘why not go?’ We haven’t got much else on. 20th October used to mark Kenyatta Day, but since last year it was decided that it's better to celebrate a more generic heroes day instead.
  
  Working out what to wear was tricky. My husband said,
  
  “it’s Kenya, you could wear anything you like.”
  
  At the time I made a “tsk” sound and yanked yet more dusty wedding guest style clothes from the cupboard. Suffice to say, there were jackets that have not seen the light of day since the 1990s.
  
  Before leaving my husband got a text from a KC mate. ‘What are u guys up to?’
  
  ‘Going to state house for tea.’
  
  ‘What the hell are you putting yourselves through that for, you plonker.’ Was the response.
  
  I looked outside; it was raining, thundering as well. Suddenly the idea of going to State house was less appealing. My husband and I looked at one another. “Are we mad?” We asked. “Shall we just stay at home?”
  
  But cancelling at this late stage seemed churlish, so we tooled along to State House – umbrella in hand. I have to admit that I felt something of a rush to drive up through the main gate to the colonial (built 1907) white washed edifice. There were lots of people in uniforms, smart suits, fleets of shiny Mercedes, red number plates everywhere. White tents were arranged around four sides of an acre of clear lawn.
  
  We were shown to Area E. There was a program on each chair. After selecting a couple of chicken wings, fish fingers and spring rolls from the Sarova Hotel chaffing dishes we carefully selected a dry seat (rain dripped through the tent here and there). Meanwhile Kibaki, Raila, Kalonzo and the various VIPS in attendance, having emerged along a red carpet from their ‘sit down’ lunch, took their places in the rather more substantial looking ‘top tent’ to watch the entertainment. It was hard to see them properly. There must have been a thousand people there.
  
  The outfits of fellow guests did turn out to be varied. I noticed that in the roped off area next to us, everyone had been allocated packed lunches in white cardboard boxes. Scouts came round intermittently to collect soda bottles and rubbish. There were ladies in shiny suits, headdresses, Sunday best and mixed in with others wearing jeans. The majority of men were wearing suits. Along the row along from us were two ladies in brown leather robes embroidered with cowrie shells holding cleft sticks and there was a man in a real colobus monkey skin cloak.
  
  Entertainment was mainly choral (mostly school choirs) with a couple of traditional dances thrown in. The Indian girls from Oshwal School suffered from a technical malfunction when their music cut out. Others lost the mike from time to time. I noticed that a lot more ‘acts’ had snuck into the formal order of events and looked at my watch more than once. My husband was reading a book that he’d downloaded onto his mobile phone. After half a dozen choirs, a couple of old men came on to sing. Apparently they were real heroes with a talent for music (again, not listed on the program of events). The MC announced:
  
  ‘And here is yet another mzee (old person)’.
  
  As one act finished, another filed on, then another and another. I watched the a dozen large brown kites circle overhead and watched the grey clouds move off, then thanked goodness that it was cool. I had sat on a wet patch and wondered if my white skirt had gone see-through. I saw a big school choir waiting then have to admit to feelings of relief when they were turned back due to time constraints. Time had obviously run over. We’d been entertained for a solid hour and a half by this point, apparently this was enough for even President Kibaki.
  
  

  Dancers

  
  Next dance troupes, choirs and ‘heroes’ took their positions along the periphery ropes to greet President Kibaki and other ‘leaders’ who were getting ready to go ‘walk about’ with about 20 body guards and other supporters in tow, progressing slowly around 3 sides of the square. Ululating, drumming and whistles blowing, many of the dancers were in fantastic regional dress, but again, too far away to see properly. As we took our places by the rope, my husband found a chair in the front row with his name on. We would definitely have got dripped on there.
  
  “Oh well” I said, “shall we go home.”
  
  A few individuals were already filing out. Only prayers and a closing hymn were left on the program. We snuck out before the crush.
  
  An interesting experience, but admittedly not one that I’ll be in a hurry to repeat soon.

  
  

• Kenya at War

  Posted: October 19, 2011, 2:55 am by Africa Expat Wife

  “Al-Shabaab is used to pinching the bottom of a goat (Somalia's Transitional Federal Government) and now that they pinched that of a lion (Kenya), that is more fiercer and more prepared, it should be in for trouble,”
  
  said Prof Buyu of United States International University - Africa
  
  

  Kenyan soldiers on parade

  
  The BBC news on Monday night had a ticker tape running along the bottom that said; "Kenya declares war on Somalia"   More accurately Kenya are declaring war on Al Shabaab who are the Al Qaeda of East Africa.  Kenya has joined forces with the Somali Trasitional Federal Government to help flush Al Shabaab militants out of their strongholds in Somalia (it took four years for the TFG to get them out of Mogadishu).  There was a brief news item on the subject that followed.  Tonight, Tuesday - Kenya had dropped of the BBC news entirely.  I'm a bit fed up with the BBC and their endless sensationalising, though it's important news nonetheless.
  
  Meanwhile, I understand from the local newspapers that Kenyan forces had gone into Somalia days before any public statement was made.  So covert was this operation that the press had to use archive photos and footage of Kenyan soldiers to run with the piece (much of it taken from the Promulgation Ceremony of the new constitution in August 2010).  'Invading Somalia' to fight Al Shabaab seems to have been a pretty ballsy move that has come without much, if any warning.
  
  Local Kenya newspapers say that towns within Somalia which are Al Shabaab strongholds have already been overpowered by Kenyan forces.  Their next target is the strategically important port town of Kismayu, through which much of the Somali piracy money is filtered to Al-Shabaab.
  
  Now there are increased security threats to Kenya.  Internal Security Minister George Saitoti told all Kenyans to be on the look out for suspected Al Sabaab militants who might be working undercover within Kenya, plotting to wreak destruction inland.  Hotline phone numbers have been set up. 
  
  Quote from The Standard news:
  
  On Monday, the Al-Shabaab militants warned of reprisals in Kenya if Nairobi did not withdraw its troops.
  
  
  On Tuesday, the terror gang repeated the threats through its leader, Sheikh Hassan Hersi, in a voice recording on a supportive radio station. "They attack us by air and on the border; we must unite and fight back until we clear our territory.
  
  "The Kenyan Government will lose many people and assets because of its intervention in our territory," he added.
  
  Meanwhile, local news channels ask viewers to pick up their phones and send in text messages along the lines of; "any words you might have for soldiers now going deeper into Somalia - (this does not require a yes or no answer)."  SMS messages are charged at 5/- higher than normal call rates.
  
  Al Shabaab also maintain that they were not responsible for any of the recent kidnappings within Kenya.  Kenya say that all the kidnappings were definitely orchestrated by Al Shabaab, apparently the Kenyan Government has irrefutable evidence.
  
  It's scary but there's also an air of unreality about it all.
  
  
  RIP to kidnapped French woman Marie Dedieu, who we heard today has died while inside Somalia.

  
  

• Pirates and kidnappers - Kenya

  Posted: October 14, 2011, 4:49 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Somali pirates?

  It's been hard to bring myself to write anything much this week - there has been such a slew of bad news for Kenya.  The only good news is that it's raining (though rain causing havoc on the roads in Mombasa I hear). 
  The Kenya shilling fell further, bottoming out at 107 to the dollar (so far) - new all time lows keep being recorded daily, in spite of various efforts to stabilize the local currency.  We have an election coming up next year, but no one seems to be able to decide on the date.   Politics is as chaotic as ever.
  
  It was almost beyond belief to hear that two female Spanish aid workers were kidnapped yesterday from right inside Dadaab refugee camp where 400,000 Somali refugees are now living.  Authorities believe that the hostages were whisked off deep into Somalia, their Kenyan driver was shot dead during the abduction.  Last month a male Kenyan aid worker, a driver working for Care International, was also taken (Guardian newspaper).
  
  As an outside observer and in no way party to any inside information, the really disturbing development is not just that the kidnappings have turned from sea to land, but the fact that after being kidnapped, many of the victims are not heard of since.  No ransoms demanded, just nothing, silence.   You can't even begin to imagine the plight of the victims who, after the trauma of abduction, are thrust deep into Somalia facing who knows what kind of hardships and depravity.
  
  The Kenya police and government issue platitudes that Kenya/Somali borders are being secured and manhunts have been launched, but we know that the local police service is woefully ill equipped, borders are almost impossible to police or secure and who even knows how much political will is there to get these foreigners out?
  
  The Dadaab incident came hot on the heels of the Kiwayu/Lamu midnight abductions of women from tourist destinations also near the Somali border.  A 56 year old British woman, Judith Tebbutt, was taken from a barefoot luxury beach hotel Kiwayu, north of Lamu on Sept 11th, on the first night of their stay.  Her husband was shot dead during the raid.  Then two weeks later, French woman Marie Dedieu, age 66 and wheelchair bound, was taken hostage from her holiday home.  Police attempts to intercept the kidnappers before they slipped away to Somalia, apparently resulted in two Kenyan navy/policemen drowning.
  
  Understandably, these two incidents have seen Lamu tourism die a death for the foreseeable future.  It's apparently a ghost town today (barring reporters).
  
  What's frightening is that these days there's a real dearth of information once victims are kidnapped - I understand that this is necessary for the safety of the hostages, however, the rumour mill tells us that hostages are very often taken by one gang, then 'sold on' from gang to gang until someone is willing to stick their neck out and risk brokering the ransom deal.  Thus the hostages are moved, location to location and there's a long time lag before any information is released.  It would be heartening to think that there was any recourse for the kidnappers, that they at some point would face justice, but because Somalia is now a lawless black hole, the likelihood of this happening is depressingly slim.
  
  I think that advising people in Kenya to steer clear of anywhere close to the Somali border where possible is sensible.  Even though these are isolated incidents, the damage to Kenya tourism is inevitable.

  
  

• Banking developments

  Posted: October 7, 2011, 2:06 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  The Central Bank of Kenya announced a 400 point interest rate rise to 11% in order to combat high inflation and stabilize the local currency, the Kenya Shilling, which has rapidly lost value against the dollar over the past couple of months (see previous post).  Bad news for those with loans and mortgages, however local commercial banks and money markets have been reportedly impressed by this show of affirmative action from the often dithering regulatory organisation.
  
  At the same time, the UK's Bank of England announced a second massive round of quantitive easing - QE2 (the first was in 2009), in order to counter the effects of global economic slowdown.  Bad news for UK savers and pensioners.  The question being asked is; will this work?
  
  www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8812260/World-facing-worst-financial-crisis-in-history-Bank-of-England-Governor-says.html

  
  

• The First Grader movie about Maruge - the oldest Kenyan primary school pupil

  Posted: October 6, 2011, 5:26 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  The First Grader

  Watched a TV review of a British film called 'The First Grader' last night. Not sure how it managed to fall so far under my radar since it was released in May (US)/June (UK), but often foreign movies and documentaries made about Kenya are poorly circulated here. The TV program I watched was one of those reviews that basically tell you the whole story line and a lot of behind the scenes info too - so I'm not really sure I need to see the movie now - but I think I'd still like to - if only for the footage of Kenya and use of real school children as actors.
  
  I am gutted that they didn't call the movie 'Form One' - which would have been a lot more apt and less corny, however, it's the true story of a man in his 80's who asserted his right to free primary education in 2004 when the Kenya government announced that primary education would be free for ALL (Kenyans). My husband remembers hearing this story on the radio (Kiss FM) and being aware of it at the time back in '04. I am ashamed to say that I was not.
  
  The only problem is that the man, Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge, faced strong opposition to his plan. His teacher Jane (with a curiously South African sounding accent in the movie) championed the old man's right to learn to read and write - she too faced threats and abuse from local authorities and pressure from her husband to give up the old man as a lost cause. The sub plot is an exploration of the old man's personal demons from the past - he had been a Mau Mau freedom fighter and, once captured, was abused by the colonial officers who imprisoned him as a young man.
  
  I gather that international reviewers found the movie fairly saccharine and the directing too focused on tugging on the audience's heartstrings (a lot of close ups of the lead's rheumy eyes etc), but that the actors' performances (particularly the children, Jane and the old man) were actually very good, effectively saving the performance from sickly sweet.
  
  In 2005 Maruge got the chance to fly to New York to speak to the UN about the importance of primary education.  Having endured the loss of his property in 2008 post election violence and a subsequent stint in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp (while continuing to attend school), in June 2008 Maruge was moved to Nairobi to a retirement home.  Undeterred he 'reported' to a new school in Kariobangi.  What a character.  Sadly Maruge died in 2009 of stomach cancer.
  
  Movie Trailer:
  
  
  The real Maruge:
  

  
  

• Will the Global Financial Crisis be the making of East Africa?

  Posted: October 6, 2011, 5:12 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  An impertinent question I know, however, I just had to ask.  It sort of follows on from the last post.
  
  Since the financial outlook globally is now so dismal, surely Western governments will have to cut, even suspend their aid budgets to Africa for now?  The Wealthy West has suddenly become the Indebted West and for a while presumably East Africa and other developing nations will be left to fend for themselves financially? - So what happens if aid money is no longer flowing in to prop up corrupt governments and government officials?  Will this global financial crisis represent the beginning of a sea change in Africa? 
  
  My favourite pet subject is the perceived value of foreign aid to Africa - I'm talking, in the main, about the government-to-government kind.  I heard a rumour that UK aid money to Kenya is going to be pretty near to zero next year.  Not sure if it's true - but even though David Cameron promised to ring-fence aid at the beginning of the crisis, he could never have anticipated how difficult today's financial situation has become, so it is sounding more and more like a real possibility.
  
  Without the slush fund of foreign aid that has been pouring into the country over the past 50 years since independence, Kenyan politicians might now just have to shape up and personally deliver on some of the promises they make to the Kenyan people.  Just look at how far Malaysia has got in those same years?
  
  Am I being naive here?  Whatever happens, things are about to change.
  
  
  

  
  

• Wot no local currency? Kenya Shilling is the worst performing currency in the World.

  Posted: October 4, 2011, 4:25 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  The Kenya Shilling crash

  
  It’s been a glaring issue for a while now, accelerated over the past couple of months, but what has happened to the Kenya shilling? For years the shilling traded at around 80-81 to the US dollar, yet last week it hit a record low of 104.20, losing 24% of its value in this year alone. Speculators say that the exchange rate could still plunge further to 110/even 120 shillings to the dollar. Disaster. Inflation is high (now 17.3% - the original Government target was 5%), some commercial banks have already raised interest rates and economic growth forecasts for this quarter have been scaled down due to the slide of the local currency.
  
  Who is suffering?
  
  Everyone, but most of the burden is being carried by the common man who must absorb increased food and transport prices uncomplainingly. The local chemist, a lovely man at the bottom of our road who works a 12 hour day, 7 days a week, was saying that his small business has been hit hard.
  
  “Pharmaceutical products are costing 30% more these days. It’s okay for the exporters but real Kenyans are suffering badly.”
  
  I think that a lot of people/the powers that be, have stuck their head in the sand for a while hoping that the shilling would rally – but now serious questions are being asked all over the place, MPs have asked for Parliament to look into the issue, Raila Odinga has taken action by creating a task force to help stabilise the shilling. Even President Kibaki felt he had to address the issue. He made a public statement at the ASK show last week, to say that the Central Bank and government agencies will institute measures towards stabilising the exchange rate of the shilling and overall level of domestic prices. Watch this space.
  
  Why?
  
  So why has the value of the shilling spiralled downwards in this alarming way? It’s a pressing question for me personally since we are K shilling earners and property owners in Kenya. Frankly, it’s worrying. After copious reading of local newspapers, it seems that there are various contributing factors in this sudden devaluing of the local currency, though it cannot be put down to a single cause. I am confused.
  
  1. 2012 Elections
  
  The first rumour I heard (back in July) was that the shilling depreciation, was that this is a common phenomena before each Kenya election. The theory is that value of the shilling is artificially pushed down so that foreign dollars being brought in from overseas will buy more local currency to fund election campaigns. In that case it’ll pass, I thought to myself. It hasn’t.
  
  2. Insecurity due to US and Eurozone economic crises
  
  The Eurozone is a major trading partner of East African countries. Rising economic uncertainties elsewhere in the world are undermining prospects for exports, official aid and private capital flows (incl money coming in from the Diaspora). Local markets are nervous. Overseas demand for Kenyan export goods such as flowers, tea, coffee and vegetables are expected to fall if they hasn’t already.
  
  3. Lower rainfall/Drought
  
  A poor season also led to lower domestic production of food. Another consequence of low rainfall is a higher price of electricity. As I understand it, Kenya still relies heavily on hydro-electric power. When dams are low, the government buys in diesel generated fuel from private firms as a short term measure. A higher cost of power is particularly a burden for manufacturing. Check out the ‘fuel cost charge and forex adjustment’ charges on your electricity bill.
  
  4. Higher cost of Imports
  
  While many larger companies have been absorbing the higher cost of imported goods for some time now, hoping that the local currency crisis was a temporary glitch, they will now start passing on higher costs to their customers. For instance, Safaricom last week announced higher tariffs and call rates for their customers because they can no longer carry higher costs their end on customers’ behalf.
  
  5. Currency speculation – rows between Central Bank and Commercial Banks
  
  The Central Bank has accused commercial banks of hoarding US dollars with a view to making more money as the shilling value falls. Commercial banks have accused CBK of sending out mixed signals (i.e. pumping dollars into the economy then talking about raising interest rates to attract forex/dollar investors to the country) and a general failure to address the crisis properly.
  
  Self perpetuating problem: Foreign investors have been exiting the economy since August as a result of the weakening shilling. Leading Kenya economist Aly Khan Satchu estimates that the Kenya economy has lost $1.1 billion in forex for this reason.
  
  There’s a general crisis of confidence that the Central Bank is not able to properly defend the currency and whatever it does next will be too little too late.
  
  “The shilling is falling because of a behind the curve monetary policy strategy.” Aly Khan Satchu said.
  
  
  What next?
  
  My fingers are tightly crossed that the situation will improve. After all, how much worse can it get? While Kenya’s problems may pale slightly against the debt crisis being played out in the rest of the world, they feel real enough here.
  
  Let’s hope that Kenya strikes oil in the Turkana district/Lamu basin by the end of the year, as is widely speculated they will. Geological surveys are complete, all the signs of oil are there and drilling rigs are being manoeuvred into position as we speak. What will the discovery of oil do for Kenya? Does the Kenyan Government have the wherewithal to manage the country’s resources to the benefit of Kenyans on the ground or will it sell out? Needless to say, the Chinese are already poised to be first in line for raw materials.

  
  

• Procrastinating...

  Posted: September 27, 2011, 2:36 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So far this morning I have, read the newspapers - i.e. yesterday's: Nation - (inflation and road accidents), Standard - (Hague trial, Charity Ngilu water ministry corruption probe), Business Daily - (global markets plunge, Facebook launches Timeline, pircay increasingly a problem, 14 seater matatus get a reprieve) Star - (Thika highway update, Mbau says election should not be held in December) over a slow breakfast - then had a bath in the guest room as the water everywhere else in the house has run out.  Got dressed.  Said hello to water delivery truck men who failed to come yesterday - made them tea plus bread and jam to keep them sweet.  (always worth having those guys on your side). 
  
  I silently curse the Nairobi Agricultural show/Trade fair that starts today (more than 200 companies participate) and will take place in Jamhuri Park every day this week until Sunday.  Once a year, whenever it's the show - we fail to get city council water.  The show also means even more horrendous traffic than usual on Ngong Road and a gigantic struggle to get the kids home from school - which, at the end of the week, may well culminate in driving right out of Nairobi in order to get home again the back way over bumps and through villages in order to avoid showground traffic.  Friday will be the pits because not only is Friday normally bad traffic wise but Kibaki is visiting in the afternoon (with his motorcade) and rain/storms are forecast that day as well - oh hell. 
  
  Oh well, at least we have power.
  
  Moved to my computer and read the Telegraph online: UK news (British shipwreck, treasure found) World news - (morbidly fascinated by the Amanda Knox case and whether Putin had a facelift or not.  Also looked at Wangari Maathi's Telegraph obituary and thought it was a bit lightweight), Financial news - (have gold prices topped out?  Is the world officially in recession yet?) Fashion news -  (trying desperately not to be interested whether or not Kate Middleton will be on the front of US Vogue next month).  Then, shame-of-shame - moved on the Daily Mail online.  Read an article about being middle class and out of work in the UK, then moved onto Jessica Simpson's dreadful choice of holiday wear and the fact that Angelina Jolie and Gwen Stefani shared a kids play date.  Secretly curse the fact that I have internet connection ... but don't really mean it.
  
  Losing the will to live.  Actually have so much I ought to be doing, wrote a list on post-it notepad in an attempt to organise myself but the list is a bit too scary, everything on it requires an input of time and effort - Pull myself together.  Consider that I should have gone to gym this morning because it would have been a better use of my time, didn't go because thought I'd be better off at home getting things done.  Remember that I should be emailing my mum and mum-in-law to say thanks for sponsoring our eldest on a charity walk she did at the weekend.  Skype messaged a friend.  Checked by blog comments, then statistics, then went on to look at Google Analytics.  Can't make any sense of them and who cares anyway.  Now writing this.  Can't wait until 11am when I will allow myself to go downstairs and make a cup of instant coffee.
  
  Oh dear. Tragic.  Please somebody tell me that I'm not the only one who can make procrastinating last two or three hours...or more?!

  
  

• Looking forward to 2012 elections as we experience 'interesting times'...

  Posted: September 26, 2011, 9:43 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Next year is election year, not just for Kenya but for the United States of America and Russia too. The political climate is already heating up.
  
  The date of the US presidential election is set for 6th November 2012. President Obama knows exactly the time frame he has to win back popularity after a beleaguered presidency marred by economic crisis and resistance to reform. Meanwhile, in Kenya, in spite of premature political jostling for the 2012 leadership race, the date of the Kenyan presidential vote is still not decided. A clause in the new constitution inaugurated in August 2010 stated that elections must take place in the eight month of election year, but due to Kenya’s own delays in implementing constitutional reform, MPs within current government have attempted to push out the election date to a probable December 2012, while civil society have protested the change, stating (and I paraphrase) ‘please let’s not start all this business of amending of the new constitution already!”
  
  Casting our minds back just a few years, who can forget the joy that we felt to see a Kenyan-American elected to the most powerful political seat in the World. There was celebration in Kenya, a national holiday was announced, ‘Obama Day’. We were all in desperate need of good news, still reeling as we were from a flawed Kenyan election only months before that had brought the country, quite honestly, to the brink of civil war. In the States and Europe, the banking system had very recently undergone a collapse caused in part by the US subprime mortgage market, however, at that point we thought that the worst was behind us.
  
  Could we ever have predicted that a shaky Kenyan coalition born out of an election marred by manipulation, bloodshed and infighting, would have somehow endured its term.  That Putin would be running for President yet again in Russia, while Obama’s election in 2008, so full of optimism, would mark the beginning of a wave of yet more ‘interesting times’ on a global scale.
  
  We might never have guessed that in May 2010, Britain would chose to rule itself by Coalition just like Kenya; that autocrats in the oil rich Middle East who enjoyed ultimate power for decades would be toppled by people’s revolutions during an ‘Arab Spring’ that was given momentum by online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Natural disaster has also played its part, most notably through chaos caused by the earthquakes in Japan. A global economic crisis that hit at the heart of the developed world in 2008 is still causing shockwaves, unbalancing nations that we once considered infallible. Today, Europe’s currency is under threat, there’s mass unemployment, a double dip recession looms, governments are making drastic spending cuts to compensate and international banks that were once considered ‘safe’ still threaten to fail.
  
  There is an old Chinese expression that goes; ‘May you live through interesting times’. It’s regarded as a curse. Why, because ‘interesting’ tends to be defined as troublesome and uncomfortable. The world has certainly had an interesting ride over the last few years since Kenya’s last election. In 2012 world leaders and voters alike can only pray for ‘boring’ times ahead.  Fingers crossed.
  
  
  RIP Wangari Maathai - Tireless Kenyan environmental conservationist, visionary, founder of the Green Belt Movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and by all accounts, all round exceptionally nice lady, died today aged 71.
  
  

  Wangari Maathai

  
  

• Gap Yah Africaah..

  Posted: September 22, 2011, 1:16 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I am shamelessly lifting content here  - but found this today and found it so funny.  Dont't be offended.  To the uninitiated, Orlando is the spoof of a British, ex public school, gap year student - Tim Nice but Dim. 
  
  I have it from the horse's mouth that 6th form British public school kids in England 'literally' don't find this very funny - owch!
  
  Loved the original gap year sketch on Youtube (link below) but this one on Africa makes me smile.  It's very 'Prince William' - who on his Tusk Trust website interview proclaims to have a "deep love for Africaah".  As you can imagine, love the reference to the thorny issue of aid to Africa too.
  
  P.s.  British children, or their parents, do pay up to a hefty 4,000 pounds to 'gap year' specialists in UK who arrange their trips to Africa to include helping out at local schools etc.
  
  
  The Gap Yah Plannah: Africa
  
  Orlando, the YouTube phenomenon, gets busy sorting out 'Africah's isssues'.
  
  

  Gap Yah Orlando Charmon - 'what's so funny?'

  
  "It was just like, hello, sense of achievement"
  
  By Orlando Charmon
  
  So, obviously a lot of my trip so far has been pretty, like, whimsical, but Africah is when things became raally serious. Forty-one per cent of Africans consider their living standards to be subsaharan, and there are also isssues. My trip to Africah hopefully was able to provide a wesstern presssence for the resolvation of those isssues. I came to Mombasah on a mission, and it was a mission I had found on the internet and paid £3,000 for.
  
  I was working with an organisation called PovWatch Africah and I was going to be part of the final solution to poverty. We all met up in a hotel conference suite in Nairahbi and it was pretty exciting to meet everyone – like the first day at school. And also because a lot of people were from my school thah. Spent the morning in classes devoted to telling us about techniques and treatments for dealing with a worms infestation so we could teach this to people in villages.
  
  A whole morning learning about deworming. Raaaaancid. At lunch, everyone was talking about isssues and like about how colonialism was just literally raally bad except for when it stopped people from genital mutilation. Some guy had read a book that said that giving aid to Africans was actually a bad thing and the girl opposite me was like, "why are you doing it then?" and the guy suddenly got all like, "well, it's just an opinion…" and didn't raally say anything else. Chump.
  
  The week of finding out about isssues followed by beers (lash 'n' learn) went by pretty quickly, then we were sent off to live with some random rural tribe.
  
  The village we were sent to (can't remember the name of it – something African) was quite nice. It turned out that we weren't actually educating them about deworming though, we were there to build an orphanage or something. I even asked around the village to see if anyone wanted to be educated about deworming and they didn't, so I got stuck into the building works. The work was pretty difficult, but I quite enjoyed it. We didn't get that much done as the Africans kept taking the tools from the girls and doing their jobs for them, which led to a kind of merry-go-round of work with everyone swapping just when they were starting to get the hang of it.
  
  It was actually raally worthwhile working out thah, and quite satisfying at the end when we had a big ceremony for finishing the building when the chief thanked us for "labouring so hard in the construction of my new house. All of my people thank you for your contribution to more efficient-making government of this country."
  
  It actually raally meant a lot to make a contribution to the lives of these people who have nothing compared to us. But before we came, they didn't have this big house, and now they have a big house, and it was just like, hello, sense of achievement.
  
  For the whole six weeks I was out in that village, I hardly used my phone – they didn't have coverage, except on the top of a nearby hill where people would go to send texts – it was just like I couldn't be bothered, cos I was too busy helping the tribe. Everyone should have to come here, just so they realise. It's like the land speaks to you. I realised the beauty of Africa was not what we could do for it, but what it does to us.
  
  Pretty phenomenal. I wanted to stay forever and live alongside these noble people, but I had a luxury safari booked.
  
  • This extract is from The Gap Yah Plannah by Orlando (Fourth Estate). The book is available from Telegraph Books (£9.99 plus 99p p & p). Order on 0844 871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk. Out on September 29. Also available as ebook and audio edition
  
  
  
   
   
  

  
  

• Africa Expat Wives Club forum

  Posted: September 21, 2011, 12:11 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Over the summer, the Africa Expat Wives Club forum (click here to read or use the link on top left of this page) got invaded by spam...  I didn't realise how out of control the spam had got until a friend pointed out the problem. 
  
  There were posts on how to buy Facebook friends, how to chose a wig (a favourite of mine; 'even your pet can wear a lace wig') and what to do with Viagra and then there was gobbledegook in Russian and goodness knows what else.
  
  Anyway, I've cleared the rubbish off - a horribly time consuming task - only because I'm an idiot and realised that there was a shortcut to deleting posts on my fiftieth or sixtieth attempt.  Now I can see that it's not a bad resource - there's info on what to pay domestic staff - things to do for expats in search of friends, where to live, what schools to send your kids to, where to get curtains made - where to buy a mattress (a strangely popular forum?!).
  
  Many thanks to all those who have contributed to these discussions, notably Juniper, Morikins, Suzanne, clairel, ajpeters and many more.

  
  

• Nairobi has ground to a halt

  Posted: September 16, 2011, 6:22 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Apologies for the long hiatus in writing ... I needed to take a very deep breath (especially after that Sarara pos).  Now I'm ready to return and 'get everybody's backs up' (this is how a friend recently described my blog) once again.
  
  It's true, Nairobi has ground to a halt, why? Because of the traffic.  I heard on the radio last week that Nairobi's traffic is ranked fourth worst globally after Mexico City, Shenzhen and Beijing.  I can well believe it.
  
  I used to think nothing of nipping into Westlands, crossing up to Muthaiga, shopping on Mombasa road whereas now the mention of any of these places sends an absolute chill down my spine.
  
  Last week I opted to drive my kids into school rather than use the bus because our youngest (aged 6) was starting there for the first time.  Sweet.  However, after four days my sentimentality had simply turned to road rage. I was spending more than 3 hours in the car each day to travel just a few kilometres.  I'm ashamed to say that at one point, while static in traffic, I told my kids that we should leave Nairobi and live in England instead (unforgivable!), just because of the traffic.  They all looked a bit upset.
  
  After a couple of days in, I learned that you have to tackle the problem of Nairobi traffic by employing the tactics of a soldier in combat.
  
  1.  Never let down your guard - anything could happen - generally a mini-bus/matatu will appear out of nowhere, someone will indicate left then turn off right, pedestrians step out, you get carved up.
  2. Employ covert ops - leave the house before dawn (or after 10am).  If you are on the road by 6.30am you can get anywhere you want to go in 30 minutes.  6.50am and you are looking at an hour's travel, minimum, 7.30am - 2 hours.
  3.  Keep calm.  Getting apoplectic with rage when the umpteenth person has cut in front of you will not help with your blood pressure problems.
  4. Channel your aggression - have the courage of your convictions and push out at junctions - don't give in to last minute nerves or reservations.
  
  
  

  storymoja Hay festival at Nairobi Railway Club grounds

  When my mum emailed me to tell me that she had read about a Hay/Storymoja literary festival taking place in Nairobi this weekend, I was excited.  When I looked at the website and saw that the venue was the Railway Club Ground, my heart sank.  It didn't help that on the website, the Google map had the red arrow pointing at exactly the wrong place - somewhere on Forest Road.  To get there would be a nightmare in Nairobi traffic.
  
  However, I felt brave.  Ready for battle; I set out mid morning leaving a generous hour for the journey (we are talking about a venue that is only 5 or 6 kilometres from my house).  All was going well until I made the schoolboy error of falling off Upper Hill the wrong way, only to find myself doing a loop at less than walking speed round Uhuru park, all the while jammed in city traffic along Kenyatta Avenue and Uhuru Highway, with traffic lights on roundabouts that didn't work and policemen holding us up. 
  
  I finally arrived at the showground at 11.15 after already doing a U turn inside the Railway Club itself which is on the opposite side of the road (the lecture I wanted to attend started at 11am).  I arrived at the Railway club grounds.  There was no one there and I wondered if I was in the right place but at least there were some promising white tents across the way. 
  
  Once parked up, an askari (watchman) dressed in green ambled over and told me to re-park my car 'properly', ie at a 45 degree angle rather than straight.  I looked around the deserted field and wondered if he was joking.  Apparently he wasn't.  Another askari joined him and I was outnumbered.  I also wondeedr if there were any loos in the vicinity.  A coffee before leaving home was ill advised.
  
  I get to the ticket sales tent.  There are a few trendy young people manning it, but no programmes for the weekends events and other people are vaguely stringing up bunting and sticking banners into the ground here and there.  Wires to sounds systems snake across the grass.  I ask if any of the lectures have started. 
  'Yes' an organiser says, 'I think they started five minutes ago.'
  Not too bad, I think to myself - I'm now nearly half an hour late.
  
  The travel writer from London that I'd gone to listen to did not looked impressed by my late arrival nor, to be honest, was he impressed the paltry turn out of fifteen people tops.  A technician was testing a microphone in the tent throughout our session, there were various other crashes, bangs and interruptions.  As the sun appeared from behind a cloud at around midday, the tent began to get swelter inside. 
  
  From past experience of attending these writers' workshops in Nairobi, I knew before arriving that the well-known foreign writers who have been invited to exciting Nairobi to look out for fresh/new Kenyan talent are disappointed to see some washed-up mzungu housewife tagging along for the ride - but I guess you have to develop a thick skin and get what you can out of these situations anyway.
  
  We all had to produce a short piece of travel writing highlighting a place or aspect of Nairobi life that is unique, interesting and off the beaten track - then read it out in front of everybody.  Again, scary.  Some of the Kenyan writers were indeed very good.  My voice cracked as I read my piece and I'd made it far too long.
  
  A Telegraph journalist from London who sat in on our session asked at the end;
  'Will you come back to any other events over the weekend?'
  'Um, I'm not sure - it's the traffic you see.'
  
  I then spent another hour sitting in traffic to get to the nearest shopping centre en route to the children's school to pick up a coffee and some lunch - in the shopping centre carpark, my parking space was stolen by someone who carved me up through the barrier at the last minute - after I'd patiently waited for 10 minutes for a couple of ladies to take their time loading bags into the car.  Another 3 hours in traffic on the clock already and I wasn't even home yet. Grr.
  
  Off I go now, blazing into Friday afternoon's finest rush hour.  It's sure to be an adventure. Suddenly I wonder why I ever leave the house?!
  
  Let's hope that all these new highways that have been under construction for what seems like years now, will make a difference once they are finally open.  As it is, this city is unworkable.
  
  
  p.s. We went to England over the summer and used a GPS while there. We bought one last year on ebay for the visit, then somehow lost it during the year in Kenya so had to buy another one since having a Satnav is far preferable to tense map reading.  Having said that, we did find ourselves inexplicably travelling down some random green lanes having relied completely on our new best friend 'Tom Tom'.
  
  My question is; does anybody else's husband look at the estimated arrival time on the satnav and then take this time on as a personal challenge - some sort of throwing down of a gauntlet?  His foot presses to the floor as he tries to shave minutes off our arrival time.  Adding minutes while stuck in traffic ups the ante - not only do we have to beat the original journey time estimate but make up lost time too...

  
  

• UK in flames!....

  Posted: August 10, 2011, 4:15 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So rioting and break down of law and order in England... Havent we seen this somewhere before?? We are in the Uk now. This morning my husband received a text message from a colleague in Kenya asking if he is alright? Ha ha. How quickly the tables turn. Judging by the Nation Media sms-es we keep getting, the Kenya press are all over the story!
  
  
  I'm wondering when we are going to see BBC reporters Orla Guerlin, Lise Ducet or Dan Brown reporting from the ravaged centre of Croydon, Clapham or Manchester?

  
  

• Ice skating in Nairobi

  Posted: July 20, 2011, 12:46 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Nairobi's very own ice rink

  
  Went ice-skating with the kids today... in Nairobi (again)!! 
  
  I've blogged about the place before but I still can't quite figure out how an ice-rink can sit on the second floor of a building without the weight of the ice causing it to crash down to earth.  I think that the Panari Ski centre/hotel skating rink (tried to put a link here but apparently the website was dodgy) has definitely put its prices down recently.  Today it only cost 350/- per child and that includes boot hire.  I could have sworn that last time it was nearer 800/- (adult price).  I was pleasantly surprised.  It's generally pretty quiet there and you often get the rink almost entirely to yourselves.  The ice rink is solar powered too, which is pretty cool.
  
  When the kids unfailing start chanting every single holidays that they want to go ice skating, I try to put them off.  My default answer tends to be; 'no'.  It's the white knuckle drive down Mombasa road that is a disincentive for me.  Plus there's the fear of terrible injury - children getting their fingers sliced off from passing skaters, a kamikaze small child who takes you or your child out, crippling you for life (a friend recently damaged her knee badly in exactly this type of scenario).  Last time we went, a small boy fell spectacularly and got the most enormous bruise on his head, topped off by a small cut.   My daughter once nearly got garroted by the safety bar.
  
  Fortunately today's visit went smoothly.  It was a children's birthday party, so I couldn't say no and I'm happy to report that the experienced was great!  The kids have these little penguins or bars that closely resemble a zimmer frame, to help them balance and they do work a treat.  While we were all on the ice, with around 25 children of ages 5 and up skidding around like Bambi on skates, a couple of things struck me.
  
  1.  It's probably a point of survival to teach your child to skate.  As a parent, train them to skate (it should only take a handful of visits), then one day when they are older and they want to go with friends (without their Mum or Dad) you can be fairly confident that they have the skill set required and your job is done.  You won't be handing the survival of your child over to an unwitting fellow parent or worse, no parent at all. 
  
  2.  Suggest that kids wear gloves (if you own such a thing living in Nairobi that is?!).  Our 'soft' children who are used to year round sunshine soon found that it's much more pleasant to put a covered hand on the ice than a bare one and started improvising by using socks on hands.  Jeans are also a good idea, as are long sleeves.  Sweaters are not obligatory, it's not really that cold...
  
  3.  It's a very good thing that we are only allowed to skate for one hour.  Why? Because the first half an hour is spent with people feeling a bit shaky and uncertain clinging to the sides.  During the following 15 minutes, you build confidence.  The last 15 minutes and skaters are downright cocky.  It's definitely time to GET OFF THE ICE!
  
  4.  Apart from obviously carrying a full scale medical kit, also carry drinks and biscuits in the car for the long journey home - children are invariably exhausted, thirsty and starving all at the same time..  It softens the blow of sitting in obligatory traffic on the queue up to Stadium roundabout.
  
  
  

  Panari Sky Centre

  
  
  Useful info: 
  
  The rink opens at 11am, the runs one hour sessions with a break of one hour in between.  So 11am-12pm, then 1-2pm etc right up until 9-10pm.
  
  Ice hockey - Wednesday evenings and sunday mornings.... not that I'm going of course!!
  
  

  
  

• Boarding school and traffic - in Kenya

  Posted: July 14, 2011, 4:34 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Peace and quiet

  
  I had the most surreal experience yesterday.  We had a night where there were no kids in the house!! (They were off at holiday camps and sleep-overs).  After all these years (11), it felt completely bizarre and I have to admit, rather nice.  I sat for 24 hours in blissful quiet.  The sun was shining.  I ate breakfast alone.  The house was tidy.  I felt like I was living in a hotel!
  
  There were no requests for this or that, no complaining of feeling 'bored', I didn't find myself cajoling or nagging my 6, 8 and 11 year old kids to do homework or chores, no shouting (we do a lot of that in this family).  Having let freedom go to my head, I subsequently ruined it by having a blazing row with my husband over who was going to make the supper.  He was then furious and green with envy that he had to set his alarm to get up early for work while I had the whole house to myself for another few golden hours.
  
  There's a very compelling advertising campaign at the moment for a well known private boarding school in Kenya.  There are banks of posters attached to lighting poles all over Nairobi that have straplines such as,
  
  "why sit in traffic? Let your child do something more interesting."
  
  Laid out underneath is a photo of a uniformed child reading a book, or practising a musical instrument, or playing sport - ...at boarding school of course.
  
  Traditionally the school in question has been full of the children of farming families or people living in remote areas without access to good schooling but this has recently changed.  Since the traffic is indeed so bad and getting worse in Nairobi, the campaign is actually working.  Quite a few Nairobi parents that I know, in spite of having a choice of at least half a dozen fantastic private schools in town, have recently decided to move their kids there, shifting from day school to the boarding system.  When I ask why, they invariably say,
  
  "Because poor precious soandso sits in traffic for an hour and a half each day at least going to and from school!  So we thought it would be for the best for our child." 
  
  Even after hellish revision with children recently and endless arduous school runs, plays and performances etc. it's generally on the tip of my tongue to say,
  
  "But how does a boarding school replace daily hands-on parenting, traffic notwithstanding?!?!?"
  
  (I feel in a position to say this since I boarded in England from the age of seven to seventeen.)
  
  However, after my blissfully quiet 24 hours - I can quite see how boarding school might be a tempting option.  Apart from the fact that I'd almost inevitably end up rowing with my husband...Grr!

  
  

• Contraversial blog posts! Sarara Camp

  Posted: July 12, 2011, 12:29 am by Africa Expat Wife

  I feel like banging my head against a brick wall here - but, like a dog with a bone, I'm afraid I'm not letting this go. 
  
  My Sarara Camp post elicited a slew of racially motivated comments when I alluded to the fact that the camp had been 'given' to the local community and top paying foreign tourists were, in some way, 'donating' to the local community by staying there.  "AHHHHHH - I hear you all scream again!"
  
  HOWEVER, I'm blocking my ears and carrying on.  The truth is, (in spite of the fact that any publicity is good publicity) I really feel I have done the camp a disservice by not expressing properly what it is going on vis-a-vis them and community conservation in Northern Kenya.  I apologise for that and I know that your bug-bear is not with the camp but with how I explained what they do...So I am now going to expand so that EVERYBODY understands the point that I tried putting across so clumsily in my previous post. 
  
  Yes, I am an outsider to Kenya, a foreigner, but I'm just laying it out as I see it I'm afraid.  I think this further explanation is an exercise worth doing because there are amazing things going on up in Northern Kenya and very few people actually know about it. 
  
  I do ask any of the pervious 'Anonymous' nay-sayers to read this post and comment again if there are any further questions, so that together we can have a full understanding here.
  
  Background to the Mathews Range area - a bloody history
  
  In the early 1970s, the Mathews Range was absolutely full of game.  The perfect environment for elephant and rhino among other animals such as reticulated giraffe and Grevy zebra.  However, In 1977 there was a ban on legalized game hunting in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.  Without the infrastructure of shooting blocks and visiting hunting parties who had been paying top dollar to visit the less inhabited areas, North and East of Kenya became extremely exposed to poaching, mainly by Somali Shifta who came into Kenya in their droves to poach ivory and Rhino horn. 
  
  In less than 10 years, it is estimated that 30,000 animals were killed.  Very little remained.  Rhino were killed off completely, a few frightened elephant scattered and without them the landscape turned quickly to dense bush, a harsh environment for other to live in animals too.  The landscape became barren and unpenetrable.
  
  We all know that Meru and Kora National Parks were ravaged by poachers (if not, read Born Free or Born Wild by lion conservationists Joy Adamson and Tony Fitzjohn respectively). 
  
  The same problem was experienced within the Mathews Range forest eco-system except obviously this area was not a gazetted national park.  Local pastoralist communities, for instance, living in and around the Mathews Range, who historically have been marginalized both politically and economically in Kenya and prone to longstanding ethnic rivalries, were terrorised, murdered; literally caught in the crossfire.
  
  In 1989, when Ian Craig and his friend Kinyanjui were camped out on a hill right opposite what is now Sarara and by chance witnessed a whole herd of elephant being massacred by Somali poachers, they were shocked but also motivated to act.  They felt that the appalling situation could not continue.  The first step Ian Craig made was to encourage the local community north of his ranch Lewa to build Il Ngwesi, a community run camp which continues successfully to this day.   But a larger area needed security.  The Mathews Range is vast.  His next idea was to set up a camp at Sarara even further north, intended as another avenue through which funding to secure this fragile area could be raised.
  
  Nothern Rangelands Trust
  
  Working with the Kenya Government, in 1995 The Northern Rangelands Trust was established in partnership with The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy etc.  Please click on the link above, because it makes interesting reading.  The NRT's role is to provide an infrastructure for local communities to communicate and ensure security in the area.
  
  To quote their website:
  
  The Northern Rangelands Trust has an expanding membership of Community Conservancies and encompasses over 3 million acres. It provides these communities with a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences, and is a technical, advisory and implementing organisation for its members.
  
  Specific objectives of the Northern Rangelands Trust are:
  •Ensure the conservation, management and sustainable use of the natural resources within the Trust Area;
  •Promote and develop tourism and all other environmentally sustainable income-generating projects within the Trust Area;
  •Promote culture, education and sports of the residents of the Trust Area;
  •Promote better health of the residents of the Trust Area through the provision of better health services and facilities;
  
  •Alleviate poverty of the inhabitants of the Trust Area through improved social services, provision of employment and establishment of community-based enterprises;
  •Promote and support trusts, corporations, NGOs and other charitable organisations with similar objects to those of the Trust.
  
  BUT - organisations like the Northern Rangelands Trust need funding.  So this is where a vital place like Sarara comes in.
  
  The Complicated bit:
   
  Sarara Camp falls under the umbrella of the Northern Rangelands Trust (an area that now covers 3 million acres) and is located within an area called the Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust (which was initially 180,000 acres and is now 850,000 acres in size).  It goes without saying that The Trust doesn't OWN this vast area land, the Trust is set up to benefit the people who already live there.
  
  When the Namunyak Trust was set up and it was proposed that a camp might be built for tourists, whose profits would benefit the local community, there was instant distrust amongst the local community.  Are white men trying to take our land?  However, before setting up Sarara Camp or The Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust there were a lot of meetings with members of the local community to address this sensitivity, a lot of communication, a lot of discussion with elders.  It was a long, process. 
  
  The NWCT headquarters are now located in Wamba and the trust is administered by locally elected community elders.  Ian Craig and the manager of Sarara Camp are also on the committee. 
  It's worth pointing out here, that setting up Sarara was also a leap of faith for those who came in to build and run the camp.  Which overseas tourists would want to come and pay to visit an area with no animals?  However, they believed (with what appears to be blind faith) that with a new found security, the animals would return to the area.  It has taken 15 years but today we can see that animals have come back - though there is still a way to go.
  
  Securing the area
  
  But how to ensure security in this fast tract of land? 
  
  There are now 40 scouts in the NRT area, all selected from various communities around and about.  Each and every scout/ranger has undergone 6 months to 1 year of KWS training (paid for by the trust), all are allocated hand held, solar powered radios and they report back to one of 19 area HQs in case of problems, sightings of poachers etc.  The HQs are all equipped with a radio room, manager's office, accomodation/housing for the scouts/rangers plus a cooking space, meeting space etc.  The conservancies are grouped into regions with regional managers who oversee issues.  Most of the regional co'ordinators have MA degrees - their higher eduction funded in many cases by the trust too.
  
  The system is working
  
  On seeing how local people were benefiting from the NWCT scheme, where the all important security was provided, health and education schemes, water initiatives - many other pastoralist communities wanted to join the Namunyak Trust too - that's why the area under the Trust auspices has grown phenomenally from a 180,000 acre to a 850,000 acres in a relatively short time.  But to provide support to such a huge area also requires yet more money.
  
  Sarara needs to raise enough funds for the rapidly growing Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust.  In 2010 they raised $150,000 for the local community.  I'm afraid that Il Ngwesi makes far less from tourism because the at the moment, the Sarara model is far more profitable - however all income streams are obviously a bonus for the Trust.
  
  In tune with NRT guidelines, this is exactly how Sarara profits are split:
  

  • Sarara Camp donates 60% of profits to a community run trust who invest the money in community development, education, healthcare, water development and a scheme whereby there is compensation available for the local population when wildlife comes into conflict with their property.
  • The remaining 40% of revenue earned is earmarked for the Northern Rangelands Trust operating costs, including conservancy staff, security and infrastructure maintenance.

  So - believe it or not - there's no-one pocketing armfuls of cash at anyone else's expense.
  
  This is hard to swallow but in addition, having originally built Sarara Camp using personal funds in 1997, in an unprecedented move the owner/manager donated the entire lodge to the local community so the buildings, fixtures and fittings, infrastructure/water system, everything he paid for at the outset, is now wholly owned by the Samburu communities of the Namunyak Trust. 
  
  First hand feedback
  I spoke to many of the Samburu who worked in and around the camp.  They said that when elephant used to come and destroy their wells they would kill the elephant - not for the ivory, just in frustration for many days work destroyed.  It's a different story now that the Samburu can now get compensation from the Namyunak trust or NRT - they said that there's no need for killing any more.  A ranger comes and photographs or reports on the damage and then a claim is made.  The wildlife/human conflict is fairly dealt with, everybody is happy.
  
  Whereas before wildlife was a nuisance, the Samburu can see now that tourist dollars, administered by their own elders, contribute to a car for taking a sick member of their community to hospital, or to bursaries for their childrens' education, something that they would never get from their own government. 
  
  In fact the trained Samburu guides we met are absolutely proud of their wildlife, are hugely knowledgable and can read the landscape, the spoor of wild animals, the flora and fauna - with incredible insight.  These guys are the ones who make the Sarara Camp experience so rich and worth paying a premium for.
  
  Apologies for calling this charity....

  
  

• Kate Middleton's Kenyan belt

  Posted: July 7, 2011, 4:14 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Kate's Kenyan belt

  OMG - Kate bought this belt that she's wearing on her Canada tour, in Kenya.  Must have picked it up in Nairobi or perhaps in the Barney's shop at Nanyuki airstrip.  A friend of mine has the exact same one.  I have one by the same maker, but different beaded design - afterall, how can one possibly live in Kenya without a beaded belt?!?!? Ha ha!
  
  Kate's is a 4cm handmade leather belt with white shell discs, from Linda Camm.  Sadly I can't see the exact same one on the website though - but perhaps you could order?   They don't come cheap at $72 online, much cheaper to buy here in Nairobi, at around 3,800/-. Sadly there are only tiny sizes in this style in the shop. Nothing long enough for my mighty hips, and the style is being phased out. Let's hope, for all Kate M groupies, that Linda Camm decides on a new run in this style.  Click the link below:
  
  [beadedleatherwork.com]
  
  
  
  
  

  Linda Camm's belt on display

  
  I was hoping to see Wills wearing Bata boots 'The boots that say you know Africa' too, but shame, I think that they were Timberlands.
  
  

  
  

• The trials of hardware shopping, Nairobi

  Posted: July 7, 2011, 3:25 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Hardware shop

  
  I think I went to the local hardware shop four or was it five times yesterday.  It felt like groundhog day but that's how organised I am, ie not very.  It's partly my fault and partly the nature of the hardware shop itself.  The place sucks you in then keeps you there, like a vortex.  You're thinking, 'I'd like this, oh, and while I'm here, I'll take that.'  Then as soon as you leave, 'oh damn, I forgot the other.  Why not pop back?'
  
  The reason for the hardware frenzy?  Our gardener has decided, due to rising rent (2,500/- a month for his small mbati room?!), to move into our staff quarters with his small family and save some cash.  Fortunately we have bags of room over there, it's a sort of row of 1930s cottagey rooms, but it's all looking a bit run down (especially since the nightwatchman decided to spend last cold season next to a fire he lit right under the eves of the staff quarters - envisage vast expanse of brown stained wall) so yesterday was the launch of the facelift operation.  Re-cementing floors, repainting walls, applying new locks to doors, calling in of electricians etc.
  
   ***
  
  There is secure parking just outside the hardware shop - which is a good thing because just outside their fence is a ' free zone' occupied by a concentrated mass of beggars and hawkers, whose roaming rights have been reduced down to this small area since shopping centres around are increasingly employing their own guard companies to keep beggars and hawkers out.  So, this small patch beyond the hardware shop parking area has become is a free for all of impromptu trading; for dvd sellers, a mini authentic masai craft market manned by masai ladies seated on the ground, busily beading; a mitumba (second hand) clothing emporium that keeps on growing, a second hand shoes and boots specialist, a sign maker, shoe polisher, a flower selling operation - all outdoor 'en plein air'.  Park in that little area at your peril, as you will invariably have to run the gauntlet of all these casual traders.   Sometimes you are in the mood to simply smile when the umpteenth person offers to 'watch' your car, or help you reverse out of a space, and sometimes you definitely are not. 
  
  ***
  
  But still, the hardware shop experience requires plenty of patience too.  Even though there seem to be enough workers milling around the shop floor to man a small factory, getting service takes time.  To make the process more difficult, all the things you want are never on the amply sized shop floor itself, but hidden within recesses or darkened rooms behind the desk - so basically assistance is required to buy anything.  Then there's the problem of actually getting across what it is you are actually looking for.  Not easy in my case since DIY was never a strength.  The process goes something like this.
  
  

  • Once you have put in your request, somebody will disappear for a while then bring back a selection of varyingly priced items from which to choose from based on your own superior knowledge.  (Obviously, for me this is a hard part).  If what you want is not there, then the man or woman will have to disappear off again.  Repeat search.

  
  

  • When you need paint, this involves picking a shade from a colour chart then getting it  mixed up in the machine behind.  Admittedly, this process can be quite fast, as long as there aren't too many others ordering paint at the same time.

  
  

  • While waiting as the shop assistant keeps disappearing, I browse around the shop itself.  The serving staff behind the desk where white coats, the ones on the shop floor wear brown coats.  If by any miracle you have asked for something that is displayed on the shop floor, then the white coat will shout to the brown coat to find it for me - again, more explaining required.

  
  

  • If you want bigger stuff, like cement, sand, metal rods, wood planks, fencing, then you'll find this is stored behind the shop.  A blue receipt in hand, you'll need to take your car around the back for loading.

  
  

  • Once the collection of oddments are ready on the glass topped desk, then a receipt must be written - always in more than one book.  Yesterday, on one of my visits, my bill was split between two receipt books and for some inexplicable reason I had to pay for the cement seperately with cash.  When I asked why the man who was helping me said wearily, 'it's a very long story.'

  
  

  • At this point, you realise you don't have enough cash.  It's amazing how all these hardware items add up!  You hand over your card to the man or woman has been serving you.  By now, you have sore legs from standing at the desk so long (in one case yesterday, over half an hour).  You've already sized up everyone else in the shop (normally aged over 65) and suddenly you are losing the will to live.

  
  

  • Your card, with the collection of receipts gets stuffed through a mysterious hole in the bottom of a blacked out glass window behind the desk.  An even more mysterious hand whips out and grabs the card. 

  
  

  • The man serving you drums his fingers on the table a while then gets distracted by another customer, meanwhile, you've already seen your card shoot out of the mysterious hole and, desperate to get out of the vortex, you start gesticulating wildly.  'Can I just sign?' You call over, but to no avail.  The mysterious hole in the black glass is too far away to reach across, the man serving you has gone off to have a long conversation about fittings for plumbing.

  
  

  • Finally, you have paid.  A man in a brown coat helps you carry your things to your car (thank you very much).  You then reverse around to the back to pick up the big things, then wait while these are loaded.  This is generally a struggle because said items are too big to put in the car.  So there's a bit of putting seats down etc.

  
  

  • Finally you have everything.  You drive out back through the gauntlet of beggars and hawkers, but the traffic is bad so it takes time to inch your way out and your car is baking because it's been sitting in the sun for so long.

  
  

  • You get home.  The fundi (workman) says that the fittings you have bought are slightly wrong, plus he's run out of something else - but you don't mind, because you also realise you've got another wrong fitting that needs to go back and you wouldn't mind picking something else.....and so back you go.

  
   So there it is.  The hardware shop.
  
  ****
  
  In them meantime, our househelp's daughter is loving her new job in the hair salon!  I gather she's doing really well and is helping on both the hair and beauty side getting loads of hands on experience.  Apparently she's the youngest there and she's working hideously long hours but it's working out for the time being.  She recently massaged a well known Kenyan politician's wife - I wonder if she got a tip or perhaps the lady was feeling a bit skint since the Kenyan MPs are all having to pay back tax arrears.  Anyway, politics aside, that's all great.
  
  Re my 11 year old daughter and her exams.  The results weren't desperate, but they weren't that great either.  My 'hands off ' approach to revision obviously needs a re-think.  I was called in to see her languages teachers this week to discuss how we can improve her results (holiday homework).  The Spanish teacher was sweet;  'who knows?' she said, 'your daughter will probably never really need Spanish in her future life.'
  
  I thought that it was big of her to say this, but the truth is, my daughter still needs to pass her exams.  I can see years of mother/child revision yawning ahead.
  
  It's end of term week this week too.  So far we've done a concert, a play, an end of term party, an end of term lunch, an end of term assembly, teachers' presents and cards, another assembly today followed by speeches tomorrow.  Phew.

  
  

• busman's holiday - travel writing

  Posted: July 1, 2011, 2:46 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Walking out of Sarara Camp

  
  Earlier this week, after a dozen changes of plans and a slightly fraught palming-off of children onto extremely kind friends, my husband and I went away for two nights, to Northern Kenya.  This was a busman's holiday for me since the deal is that I now write an in depth piece on the highly swanky and upmarket Sarara Camp for a travel mag.  This was only my second travel assignment but you will see why it was worth moving heaven and earth to get there.  The place was magical - I would go back again in a heartbeat if funds were ever permitting. 
  
  There are only six tents and though the camp is run by experienced white Kenyan safari guides who bring in the dollars and make sure everything is up to standard, it's actually owned by the local community of Samburu people.  The deal in this case is quite unique, a beneficial partnership whereby 60% of the camp's profits are given to and managed by the Samburu community,  then subsequently spent on community development, healthcare, education bursaries, water etc - while the remaining 40% covers running costs, salaries, vehicles, radios etc, ie the infrastructure of the camp itself.  So by visiting you are sort of making a charity donation to the Samburu people whose precarious existence has often in the past been threatened by poachers, invaders and serious drought.
  
  You also might like to know (I love this sort of thing); Sarara was the jumping off point for Wills and Kate on their 'proposal' safari in Kenya (apparently it's true Wills wasn't letting go of that rucksack!) - and Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were staying recently.  On a more down to earth level - We were greeted by a tame 2 week old Kudu, went walking with Samburu guides into the hills, did night game drives and spotted leopard, visited a Samburu village, swam in a fresh water pool and ate like kings - so you get the picture.  Exclusive, luxury, active and heavenly. 
  
  Being waited on at mealtimes by Samburu warriors in full regalia was a unique experience, as were bush sundowners by a camp fire in the floor of a dry riverbed, overlooked (to our surprise) by a malevolent hyena.  We saw and tracked leopard really quite close up on 3 occasions which was fantastic for me since after 12 years of living in the E Africa region, I've only ever glimpsed one, maybe two in the wild before and always in the very far distance. 
  
  
  

  Leopard, looking at me, looking at you

  
  Plus the scenery over the remote and unspoiled Mathews range was breathtaking.  Huge tents, hot showers, flushing loos, not another vehicle or tourist in sight.
  
  However, as a travel writer (ha ha ha!) I realise that the occupation has it's ups and downs.  I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be more fun to visit 'incognito', then have the freedom report back at will - however this is unrealistic.  I am not complaining - honestly I'm not - but visiting places gratis as a writer has its pitfalls. 
  
  1.  You can't plan the trip to suit your own timetable.  They crop up suddenly and it's necessary to be able to drop everything and go, or else miss out.
  2. You get the creeping suspicion that fellow guests might be slightly resentful of your presence (bless them) because after all - they are paying and you are not.  Feeling like a freeloader is not the best and however you sugar coat it, that is what you are.
  3. You might be in heaven but you're there to work.  When all you want to do is kick back and relax, you are frantically reading in-camp info and taking notes, hoping to memorize a lot of stuff too.
  4. The person who commissions the piece 'owns' you for the duration of your stay.  They want to 'chat' often, show you everything, then make sure you talk to absolutely everyone who has a stake in the place.
  On one occasion, the camp manager actually said 'oh good, you've got a notebook with you this time' in rather a meaningful way.  I must admit, I bristled.
  5. You have to have the confidence & bravado to sell yourself, be self assured, brag about what a marvellous, experienced writer you are and how you are going to write a fantastic piece. (Am really not good at that sort of thing, hate it).
  6. Your travelling partner (if you are lucky enough to have one) is required to take a back seat and share your time with the lodge/camp in question.  Put it this way, my husband sweetly packed a bottle of champagne on this trip since it was the first time we'd gone away without the kids for 2 years - we didn't open it.
  
  The up-side.
  
  1.  You don't have to pay and you may well be staying somewhere out of your normal price bracket.
  2.  You get to do and see amazing things that, let's face it, you probably wouldn't normally make time for.
  3.  You get well looked after when you are there, often recieve the personal attention of the camp owner/manager.
  4. The travel magazine does the hard work of finding a place for you to go.  Don't know about you guys but, even in this digital age, I find that unless a destination has been personally recommended then I am at a total loss. 
  A case in point, we considered going to Egypt briefly at Easter time, then gave up because we didn't really know where to start organising the sort of holiday we wanted.
  3.  You can tell everyone about new, fab places to visit (do look at the Sarara website if you dare).
  
  The previous assignment I had was a trip to Mike's Camp in Kiwayu.  With only six or so beach huts on a remote island north of Lamu and visitors such as Colin Firth, it was equally luxurious and fabulous again as Sarara, with a quirky style of its own, charasmatic host, certainly a place that you could write home about to make everyone (ie on Facebook) green with envy. 
  
  So, as things stand, if you fell into some cash or won the lottery, would like 5 star personal treatment and don't mind flying in small aircraft around the country, I would happily recommend these two lodges/camps as the perfect remote Beach and Bush combination in Kenya for adventurous souls.
  
  The best bit?  Neither place had a phone signal for my Airtel phone (although they did have Safaricom coverage), so no one from home was able to report back with dramas related to the kids, the pets or the house.  I was blissfully out of contact.  Think I'll stick with Airtel for that reason if nothing else!  It's rare these days to find anyone ever switching off.  Even though I was 'on duty' at the time, I have fab memories of both trips and feel very lucky to have visited.  Oh how the other half live!
  
  To read more on how to become a travel writer, click here for tips from Wanderlust

  
  

• Peer review websites and budding authors

  Posted: June 23, 2011, 7:36 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Paradise?

  
  Has anyone out there, or any budding novel writers in any case, ever tried the various peer review websites online?  I am finding the system absolutely exasperating!!  The two websites I know are;  'You Write On'  [www.youwriteon.com]  (click here), and , 'Authonomy' [www.authonomy.com] (click here).  Both sites are sponsored by major publishers (Authonomy - Harper Collins, You Write On - various publishers Orion and Random House)
  
  The idea is that you join the website, upload the opening chapters of your book, or the equivalent of around 6,000 words, then start exchanging reviews in order to gain credits for your book so that it can then get 'ranked' in relation to all of the others that have been uploaded by budding writers on the same site. 
  
  The Authonomy system I discounted on the basis that it seems to be more of a popularity/marketing contest.  From what I understand (after reading quite a few forums on the topic), you have to campaign like crazy among all the other members who are signed up on the Authonomy site, plus all the friends and family that you can muster to join too, even the vaguest Facebook acquaintances - then get them all to review your story.  If you get lots of reviews, then you get to the top of the list.  I thought this was biased.  What if I don't have any friends?
  
  I decided on signing up for [www.youwriteon.com] because it seemed like more of a fair system.  You review somebody else's work, rate their chapters for theme, dialogue, character, pace of story etc. from one to five, write a review of at least 100 words, then undertake to do a short comprehension test (just to make sure you haven't cheated).  This way you earn a 'reading credit'.  This credit is then allocated to a 'peer' who does the same for you.  Once you have 8 reviews, you wait in anticipation to see if you have made it into the coveted 'Top Ten' position.  If you have - then perhaps the holy grail beckons!  Your chapters will be reviewed by a professional publisher or agent.  No promises mind, but this could be a stepping stone to publication, wealth, fortune, adulation - okay - I admit that I'm getting carried away here!
  
  In fact it's the second time that I've put myself through this most tortuous of  'You Write On' processes.  The first time I wrote a fiction book.  Some people loved it (heart leaps with joy) others - not so much (heart sinks...despair).  I wound up with a rating of 3.7 stars out of a maximum 5.  Not enough to get myself into the top ten, methinks.  So I gave up.  About 2 years later I return, (just picture an enthusiastic puppy with newspaper in mouth) - to upload my next attempt. 
  
  A major reason for re-embarking on the You Write On site again, was because I sent out my sample chapters to a publisher (Harper Collins) and two agents (Conville & Walsh and Caroline Sheldon) recently and got rejections.
  
  So - it went something like this; the first two You Write On reviews are pretty upbeat.  I'm encouraged.  3 and 4 were more 'so, so'.  But review number 5 was the ultimate in writer's dressing down.  A detailed analysis of what failed, what didn't work.  "you have a great story hidden somewhere here but...." then comes a hugely long list of problems.  My star rating this time was 3.9 - still significantly better than last time, however, I couldn't stop thinking about what 'Malcolm' had said, and decided to review my chapters - re-upload them and all over start again with the rating system - hopefully attaining something in the '4 point somethings' which might even get me into the top 10?!  (However, as far as I know, there's no way of telling how many 'stars' the current top ten book submissions were awarded - so am not sure how many you need to qualify).
  
  Now don't forget, time is running out.  It was a gamble.  I'd have to start from scratch, reviewing other people's work like crazy in order to get enough credits to qualify for 'ranking' at the end of the month.  Undeterred I changed the chapters, keeping Malcolm's comments in mind - then started all over again - doing reviews of other people's work - banking credits, waiting for peer reviews (notifications are emailed through to you).  Plus I rated everyone else work pretty highly (the standard is pretty high), then I kick myself realising that perhaps by doing so, I'm scuppering my chances!  Is everyone else realising this too then marking others down?
  
  By the way, the YouWriteOn reviewing system is both draining and time consuming.  From bitter experience, I can tell you that there's nothing worse than rating a book, writing a review, then failing the reading test because the questions set by the author are too obscure.  Zero credits banked, two hours wasted.  I now painstakingly copy all the manuscripts into Word on my computer, so that I can refer back to the chapters in question and therefore pass the reading test that might have asked;
  "Was 'Sarah' Maggie's....great aunt, step aunt, aged aunt or granny?" 
  Meanwhile, you're thinking, Sarah was just old, I forget what kind of relation she was to Maggie - I still think it's a good story though!! 
  So you get the picture.
  
  Again, the reviewed chapters were initially doing okay, and I was encouraged.  First two reviews - great!  second, not so enthusiastic 'there's a great story hidden in here' (I've been here before!), fourth - pretty bloody nit-picking if you don't mind me saying so.  To add insult to injury - after 4 reviews I find that my star rating for the revised manuscript has dropped to 3.6!!!!  Worst ever rating so far!!  I am actually dropping instead of climbing the charts.  Oh dear.  Disaster.
  
  I've also hit on a problem.  I'm getting used to taking criticism on the nose and I hope I'm not being too egotistical here - but, through bitter experience, I've found that it's the men who are most critical of all and bring my ratings down - but my book is clearly targeted for women - so hang on a minute, what's happening here?!  What women readers might describe as 'atmospheric' or 'evocative' men will describe as 'a lot of unnecessary detail that detracts from the story.' 
  
  It's all heartbreaking I can tell you.  Am close to giving up.  Who wants to write a silly old book anyway?! 
  
  I love the quote: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  Then quit.  No use being a damn fool about it."  WC Fields, quoted in The Guardian.
  If you want to have a look and see what you think, then you'll find my chapters here under 'Another Day in Paradise' by Africa Expat.  (click on the link below to read sample chapters).
  
  [youwriteon.com]

  
  

• Social Media - a veritable mine field!

  Posted: June 21, 2011, 6:42 pm by Africa Expat Wife

     
  So – last week I went to a conference/training day on social media in attempt to drag myself into something resembling a 21st century engaged person.  But knowledge can be a dangerous thing; I emerged after 9 hours of intensive hotel conferencing, in the ballroom no less – wondering where the day had gone (it was dusk) and worse, having developed a strong craving for an expensive iphone 4.
  It’s ironic because only the day before I’d been happy with my Nokia. I could read my emails on it, make calls, surf the internet (slowly) and access all my contact information. But then I learned that with an iphone 4 I could be doing so much more! Downloading zillions of apps, experiencing the impossibly cool new iphone barcodes that appear on brochures, menus and things, creating my own photo tours on ‘Trover’, filming then easily uploading funky video clips from the phone onto my blog – or Facebook page if I had one - (using iloader and imovie), enjoying ‘location based services’ city tours with 3d maps, ‘this way’ arrows, tags, restaurant reviews and information popping up on my screen as I go. Sigh.
  
  The training was actually targeted really at those in the tourism business who need to make their online presence felt, who today are compelled to deal with sites like TripAdvisor –  the conference was organised by these guys: [www.e-tourismfrontiers.com] but I tooled along in my ‘private’ capacity because I thought it might be interesting. I hoped my cover wouldn't be blown, that the 150 other professional delegates wouldn’t identify me as a sad old interloper/gatecrasher with a highly spurious agenda, 'a blogger' in other words.
  
  Uploading all that information into my brain was mind boggling, however, now that I’ve had a few days to let it all sink in I think I can convey a little of what I learned. Apologies if I’ve got some of it wrong... I’m still learning!
  
  Shall I tell you all my secrets? Well, here we go, here's a little of what I learned:
  
  Social networking - If you are selling anything, then you'd be nuts not to engage.
  
  Facebook – join groups to do mass messaging and create ‘events’ to promote stuff.  Facebook currently has 500 million users.
  Twitter – an online chatroom. –‘#fail’ means that you are not happy with something. To compress long web links to keep within your 140 character limit, use the website ‘Bit.ly’
  
  Blogs – An extra tip I learned was to use Tumblr or Zapd to upload mini blogs from you mobile phone.
  
  Viral media advertising – youtube clips that ‘go viral’ ie. they are so popular that they spread worldwide very quickly.
  Funnies like this:
  
  
  (this could be an advert for shampoo - got us all fooled?)and this......Flashmobs – People doing unusual things in public settings, hoping that passersby will record it on their mobile phones then upload it onto the internet.  It’s less crazy that you think.  Check out this, an ad for Beirut Airport's duty free shop:
  
  
  UGC – User generated content is: online reviews, uploaded photos and video clips, blogs.  This is what anyone who is selling anything wants to inspire since it's free advertising, but it can also backfire.
  
   
  This country and western singer had his guitar broken by United Airlines luggage handlers in the States.  After persuing a claim for more than a year for compensation and getting nowhere, he created this song. It been viewed online over 10.5 million times.
  Creating a website
  

  • Make sure you make usability a priority (ie the navigation is correct), then think about search engine visibility and only finally – design (this is the least important aspect).
  • Put the most key information ‘above the fold’ on your webpage – ie, don’t make people scroll down.
  • The average number of user clicks on a website is 3 – then you’ve lost them. Use Google Analytics to work out not just how they got to you, but when you lose them and where they are going next.
  • Use hyper-links in your text to help navigate between pages. Make sure the longer title below your website name explains what it is all about in clearly defined search terms.
  • Label photographs with a names/captions etc. To help search-ability of your site. (ie don’t just leave IMG-2543.jpg). Keep your photos on online sites like Picasa, Flickr, Photobox – this also helps with your web presence. Make sure your photos are reduced in size.
  • I now know about the importance of inbound links since they drive 85% of search ranking.
  • Make sure there is a ‘Like’ button visible so that people can respond by pressing this or commenting. Also, put a Facebook icon up there too.
  • RSS feeds – people with RSS reader can be alerted when your page changes.
  • Mange your own website, don't rely on techies to do it for you since you are the one with the interest.

  
  Search engines – A virtual ‘spider’ searches for text match, relevance, recent updates, popularity and inbound links then ranks your site accordingly
  

  • Avoid Splash pages – the spider cannot see past these.
  • Avoid ‘Black hat’ strategies to optimise search results such as laying under your site a page of key search words in ‘invisible’ white, or paying for somebody in India to keep clicking on your site a zillion times a day in order for it to creep up search ranking results. (frowned upon and sometimes rumbled by Google who will then make your site obsolete).
  • Use landing pages for promotions etc.

  
  I'm ashamed to say that there was so much more but I have to admit, I'm running out of steam.So now it seems that Africa expat should sign up for Facebook and Twitter at the very least, launch a new 'search optimised' Africa Expat Wives Club.com site (on it).  I should certainly use more multi-media in my blogs and fewer words/less bulky text and also update more often.  But are there enough hours in the day I ask you!!??
  You might, like me, want to run and hide from the whole social media revolution but the bad news is that it's happening - and it's not going away!

  
  

• Downton Abbey - in Kenya. House staff.

  Posted: June 13, 2011, 5:40 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  
  I have been watching Downton Abbey with my husband - a very popular British period drama/tv series set just after the turn of the century, pre-first world war (1912 ish ), about a grand English country house.  My sister gave me the box set of Series 1.  Each episode is based on a story woven around the dynamic between 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' in a grand house, ie. the family and their army of staff, butlers, housemaids, cooks, footmen with sub plots involving strange house guests, inheritance issues, women's suffrage (okay, I've only watched a few episodes so far).  I love the buccaneer American wife who brought money to the family and the corridor creeping antics.
  
  Part of the charm of the series is the fact that you know that living like this in such grand style was tottering on the edge of a precipice at that time, the whole of British society was about to be knocked sideways by the first World War and would never be the same again - probably a good thing.  But nonetheless Downton Abbey is all great escapism, especially for Sunday night viewing.
  
  I love the costumes, the big house (filmed at Highclere Castle) - the fact that the camera allows you the viewer to roam all over it - up inside the the staff attics, across the gardens and into the lady of the house's bedroom.  The series recalls an age of when the very rich spent days with nothing much to do - meanwhile everybody else worked their fingers to the bone to ensure that they could retain their elevated lifestyle.
  
  Harold Nicolson, a biographer of King George, said about his king:
  'He is all right as a gay young midshipman. he may be all right as a wise old king.  But the intervening period when he was Duke of York is hard to swallow.... for 17 years he did nothing but kill animals and stick in stamps.'
  
  Downton Abbey portrays a very sympathetic understanding between the Lord of the manor (Robert, Earl of Grantham) and his staff and tenants - whereby there is loyalty on both sides and they all look out for each other.  While it makes for unchallenging, feel good viewing, I fear that this may be an idealist's view.  I find it slightly hard to suspend my disbelief that the lord of the manor would be so nice, or that the whole family would interact with (talk to) their staff, on some occasions, almost as friends and equals - although of course this is how it should be - I'm not convinced that this was actually how it was in reality back then.
  
  I'll probably be strung up for saying this but some themes resonate for expats living in Kenya.  For instance, overseas visitors arrive and see you have full-time staff working in your home, then they often draw some entirely independent conclusions - such as; you don't have to lift a finger in your own house - you are waited on hand and foot - you live in a bubble, removed from reality.  In fact the truth is far different. 
  
  Most expats, foreigners or white kenyans who live in Kenya have a close relationship with those people they employ, cleaners, cooks, security guards, gardeners, that is on a par with Robert, Earl of Grantham, Lord of Downton Abbey, especially when they have been living here for a long time.  Quite honestly, (and you might think me deluded to say this) but if you haven't got that two way relationship going, then you probably should have.  For instance, I wouldn't expect someone to take my plate to the kitchen for me.  I make tea for my staff as much as they make tea for me and I would always give a tip for a job done well.
  
  The Earl of Grantham is a great role model.  He too was painfully aware of the pitfalls of society, the disparity of wealth and the conditions many people live with day-to-day.  Today, you try to help employees and their families when they are in trouble due to the lack of a welfare system in Kenya, you appreciate one another for help provided (this runs both ways) and are sympathetic to one anothers' needs.  Occasionally, when things go wrong, you feel that it would be easier to have no employees, (in the West you could have a hassle free cleaner for a few hours a week, where you leave cash in an envelope and hardly even have to learn their name) but you reaslise that refusing to employ people in Kenya is currently no solution and not a help to anyone.  Though one day, there may come a time when this practise changes - God willing.
  
  Robert, Earl of Grantham, makes the point in the Downton Abbey series succinctly.
  
  When a young upstart arrives and wishes to dispense with the butler he has been allocated - because, as a modern, independent man, he feels he can do the job better himself - the Earl, Robert says something along the lines of (and I am para-phrasing here);
  
  'Would you do a good man out of a job just because you perceive him to be superfluous?  He's been doing that job all his life.  How do you think that makes him feel?  How do you imagine his family would manage if you dispense with his services?'
  
  
  

  Actor Hugh Bonneville - Robert, Earl of Grantham

  The second series is currently being filmed with a backdrop of World War 1 this time.
  
  P.s.  Last Wednesday our power lines got re-routed!!  Finally!  The KPLC truck came while I was out on a school run and apparently did the job in an hour.  Watch, as I fall down in a dead faint!  It's only taken 8 months since our original application.  Apparently we still have to make a complaint about the high price charged using their official complaints procedure.  I was worried that if they did the job then I wouldn't have a leg to stand on re cost, but they assured me that this was not the case.  I am sure it is all thanks to this blog that anything happened in the end!  Thanks Kevin!

  
  

• Feeling rattled - children's school exams - that time of year again

  Posted: June 7, 2011, 11:55 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  It's the dreaded EXAM time of year again for our eldest.  She is eleven (today).  I can see this situation only steadily worsening since I have three children, the younger ones will soon have to do exams too, and as each year passes, the 'exams' (didn't they call them tests in my day?) get ever more serious.
  
  The question is, how best for parents to tackle this thorny issue?  Camps are divided.
  
  1.  Make sure they do the revision, offer incentives (TV, pizza, cinema, trip to the shops) but don't get involved in the actual work.
  2.  Don't get remotely involved either in encouraging revision or your micro-managing child's workload.
  3.  Hire a tutor. (the school protest that they hate it when parents do this... but do they?)
  4.  Get heavily involved, revisit your own childhood and go step-by-step through all the books testing your child until you both emerge screaming wrecks.
  
  I prefer the first option - but many covertly adopt the third which makes the playing field a little uneven don't you think?  We all are guilty of dabbling in number 4 when time allows - help!  Last January, mid year exams, were a case in point.  2 weekends of endless testing and shooting questions at our daughter (plus parental in fighting over what really was the answer to question number 5) nearly translated into catastrophic family meltdown.  It is panic attack inducing.
  
  I wonder if our poor eldest will ever emerge a balanced human being?
  
  For past weeks, all the parental playground talk is 'revision'.  Worse, when your child goes to school in Kenya, many parents tend to beef up their offspring's credentials, imagining they are all in line for top scholarships to UK Independent schools (after all, how could we ever afford it otherwise?).  It's nuts, but true.
  
  Our eldest is not what you might call 'scholarship material' but she does okay bouncing along the middle, plenty of friends, no learning difficulties that we know of etc.  On balance, we are very lucky.  I imagine that if she was scholarship material we would have been summonsed into a huddle by some key teaching staff by now, who might have been ready to propose a plan of action - secret extra lessons etc.  If we had selected a UK private secondary school for the next stage and done organised things like 'put names down', we might already be talking 'tactics' to get through individual entrance exams.  But no, we continue to make like an ostrich and keep our heads in the sand.
  
  Sigh.
  
  Then there are the 'extras' designed to portray your small darling as a genuine 'all rounder' to the eyes of the world.  With extra curricular interests comes more competition.  Music exams, speech and drama exams, riding contests, dance grades.  Don't get me wrong, we are horribly guilty.  Because our eldest is not particularly sporty or musical and hates horses, she spends an hour or two on saturdays doing dance (she does actually enjoys this... I think...) and she is also about to take her third London School of Speech and Drama exam (still level one curiously) - which requires so much parental input that quite honestly, it seems like a total scam to me... though the teacher said last week LAMDA points can count toward university you know?!? (or something along those lines).
  
  Parents this week have abandoned the school bus, preferring to drive their ten and eleven year olds into school in order to make doubly sure that they arrive at the school gates on time.  Our daughter was the only year 6 braving Nairobi traffic on the bus this morning... and it was her birthday - they joy was that she didn't mind very much - I am so proud of her!
  
  Note to self: must go to bed every night repeating the mantra:
  
  'I do not care what other people do, I have my child's best interests at heart.  Do not bow to peer pressure, do not buckle, do not fold...and by the way - you have your own life to live....or rather....just get a life!'
  
  
  On a cheerier note -
  
  KPLC turned up today, I think as a result of following up on the blog comment I received from Kevin at KPLC customer service!!  Wonders will never cease.  They are doing the work of re-routing our power lines tomorrow, but still the issue of us stupidly/ridiculously overpaying for the work is not resolved.  They said, 'file a complaint, there are channels you can follow - but let's just get the work done.'  We are all too weary to argue.  I felt a bit sorry for the 3 chaps that turned up because they looked a bit scruffy and down at heel.  It would seem that Samuel Gichuru took all the KPLC profits to Jersey leaving an impoverished work force - roll on his extradition to face money laundering charged in UK.
  
  
  Continuing along the theme of sticking my nose into other people's lives: I also took my house help's daughter down to the new beauty salon to be interviewed as an intern today (..the one who is interested in following a career in hair and beauty).  She got quite a grilling from the owners' I can tell you! She was shy too which was a little awkward, but not surprising in the circumstances.  I had to stop myself from answering all the questions for her! Anyway, there's a job there if she wants it, let's hope she's willing to put in the hard work/long hours required to get her foot in the door.  At least they offered to pay her bus fare and possibly give her a 'bonus' if she works hard.  Watch this space.

  
  

• Aid is not helping Africa

  Posted: June 7, 2011, 3:20 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Thanks for the comments on the Daily Mail article.  I do not mean to offend, of course Aid in some forms can be a great help, however (promise I won't go on doing this), the following letter to the Times in UK, sent by someone who describes himself as 'a one-time adviser to the Government on aid to Africa' - makes the point well.  There is a difference between government aid and what he calls successful micro-projects - but I think that accountability across the board is still lacking, whether it be money raised from Live Aid or elsewhere.
  
  Obviously the letter is very much written from a UK perspective where public spending cuts are really starting to bite.  Anyway, here it is.
  
  Aid is not helping Africa
  
  As a one-time adviser to the Government on aid to Africa, I much regret to say that the vast amounts of aid being given to corrupt and incompetent African governments in the form of unauditable annual grants is now doing more harm than good.
  
  We are all familiar with the damage that centrally determined targets have done to our health services and police, yet we insist on meeting an aid target of 0.7% of GNP set decades ago when there were many countries needing aid and very few donors.  Africa is now flooded with unspent aid.  I know concientious NGO filed staff who have resigned in disgust at the pressure put on them to spend aid regardless of its use.  I have Department for International Development staff telling me that no one questions how well their aid is being used.  I came across this in the World Bank years ago when targets were set that staff had to meet if they wanted a promotion.
  
  There is a confusion in many people's minds about aid as they see it helping successful micro projects, but they do not differentiate between these and the 330 million pound Government budget aid allocated this year to Ethiopia or the 70 million pounds allocated to Uganda.  Most of this direct Government aid never gets to the poor but just supposts military regimes and Swiss bank accounts.  For us to pour more aid into Africa when we are cutting back social services is unbelievable.
  
  Gordon Bridger, Guildford.
  
  Meanwhile, I read in 'The Week' that Bob Geldof, has now reincarnated himself as a private equity guru, swapping aid for investment in Africa.
  
  [www.telegraph.co.uk]
  
  From The Week/UK Financial Times:
  
  'Africa boasts 10% of global oil reserves and a treasure trove of base and precious metals.  But the story is no longer just about resources - with consumer spending rising at more than twice the rate of developed countries, a World Bank report suggests the continent is poised for economic take-off, much as China was 30 years ago.'
  
  Let's hope so..

  
  

• An interesting article - Live Aid failure...

  Posted: June 4, 2011, 12:16 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Isn't it annoying when people do this.... just post up a link...however,
  
  An interesting article....
  
  [www.dailymail.co.uk]
  
  It seems the thumb screws are well and truly on public spending in England at the moment.  The above article talks about Live Aid's questionable legacy in Africa

  
  

• Phone Banking in Kenya ... I'm converted!!

  Posted: May 31, 2011, 10:48 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So finally I have joined the ranks of Kenyan phone bankers – world leaders in this new technology. I’m feeling really quite thrilled about it - though frankly, the road to phone-to-phone banking has not been smooth (surprise, surprise) however, now I’ve done it, there’s no looking back.
  
  For ages I agonised about how best to transfer money. Bank account-to-bank account? Would Zap be the only option for my Airtel phone provider? I finally decided to resurrect an old Safaricom phone since M-Pesa seemed the more widely used option. It’s not hard to set up, just a little time consuming, though for me there were a few reasons to finally getting on with it:
  
  1. I felt like a total idiot and the last person in Kenya who was not only not using M-Pesa but also not fully comprehending how it worked.
  
  2. I discovered that my bank has an arrangement with M-Pesa which means that I can transfer money from my own bank account to M-Pesa by using my mobile phone, then allocate money to pay salaries and bills via my phone too – all from the comfort of my living room (in theory).
  
  Normally with M-Pesa you take cash to an agent who then loads your phone. In my case the plan was to take a two pronged approach: Registering for phone banking at my branch and registering for M-Pesa to avoid physically handling cash at all.
  
  3. The amount of money for combined salaries that I now need to withdraw from the bank each month has become large and too much to do in more than one ATM withdrawal from my own bank. Honestly I felt nervous about carrying that much cash and going into the each bank was a bind. Then there’s the issue of finding the right change, buying small envelopes....
  
  4. There have been accusations of stealing flying around our compound. Not nice. Usually our team at home work so well together but it seems that the fact that times have suddenly got very hard here since fuel and food prices skyrocketed over the past two months has had an impact.
  
  I responded to rising costs by bumping up salaries recently but this seems to do little to alleviate the general stress. One lady lost 9,000/- from her locked room on our compound (I replaced it), another said that somebody had been in her quarters rootling about but had had nothing stolen....yet. Even the askari wants the supplies of tea and sugar I give him under lock and key. I figured the solution was for nobody to carry cash around anymore – and certainly not on this compound. That way our combined risk is reduced – I am no longer involved when money goes missing.
  
  5. I discovered that there are loads of other bills you can pay via M-Pesa, it seemed nuts not to sign up.
  
  6. Our neighbour who is in her sixties has been using M-Pesa for ages. If she could do it what the H*** was my excuse?!
  
  
  
  So what happened?
  
  The staff at our house initially resisted the M-Pesa method of receiving their salaries because they complained about being charged a lot for withdrawals. I bumped up salaries again to compensate and asked them to register for M-Pesa. Funnily enough, they were all already registered – been using the system for ages!! Duh!
  
  First I dug out the old Safaricom phone that we had relied on when our land phone line was not working (for a year or so). Since the landline got fixed, this old Motorola has been sitting, gathering dust.
  
  Registering your Safaricom phone for M-Pesa
  
  First I had to check that the sim card in the old Motorola had not expired. I went to an M-Pesa/phone shop. Phew, it hadn’t. Then I bought a new, fairly basic replacement phone. Next I had to register this Safaricom number for M-Pesa. You need ID for this, either passport or an Alien card would do (thank goodness because I had the Alien card in my wallet – never carry my passport!!). The process of registering the phone was okay, the lady in the shop was very helpful. I did have to pop upstairs to do some photocopying for her and the whole process of purchasing a new phone and registering it took a good 40 minutes. Thank goodness it was on a day that there was no queue in the shop.
  
  Registering with your bank for M-Pesa banking
  
  I needed to fill out forms in order to be able to transfer funds to M-Pesa automatically and get my husband to sign them in duplicate (we have a joint account). Then I had to think up a password. Once I had got the forms back to the bank, it took a good week for them to get back to me to say the new system should be in place and to send me a pin.
  
  Problem?
  
  Well first I needed to figure out how the new phone worked, though this was not difficult. The problem was that as soon as I walked into the house with a new mobile phone, my ten year old daughter pounced.
  
  ‘Can I have it?’ she asked.
  
  ‘No.’
  
  Now, to give you a bit of background, my daughter has been nagging for a phone of her own for at least six months now. She’s doing half hearted chores around the house in the hopes of getting paid and tells me she’s saving for a ‘touch screen’. Callous mother that I am, I know that all the chores in China will not gather enough change for a touch screen – so I was biding my time. Having said this, the nagging had reached a crescendo.
  
  ‘Please can you take your plate out.’ (me).
  
  ‘Will you give me some money if I take it out and count it as a chore.’ (her)
  
  ‘NO!’ (me)
  
  So, when the new phone was hanging about the house and her face was as long as next week, I softened.
  
  ‘You can borrow this phone sometimes.’ I said.
  
  She immediately shrieked in delight, attached a Winnie the Pooh phone charm and keyed all her friends’ numbers into the phone.
  
  ‘Where is this all going?’ I hear you ask.
  
  Well, a couple of days later when the bank sent me an sms with my private pin number in order to operate my phone banking, and the sms read ‘delete after reading’ – my daughter picked up the message – and deleted it!!
  
  ‘There was a message for you’ she said casually. ‘From the bank or something.’
  
  ‘What!!’
  
  ‘It said delete after reading so I deleted it.’
  
  ‘What did it say the pin number was?!” I shrieked, red faced...
  
  ‘Something like 5333...but I’m not sure.’
  
  Any-hoo – Quite a huge family argument later, when I was trying to process end of month salaries at the weekend, 5333 turned out to be the wrong pin number. I’ve now applied for a new one now (it is taking time). So, instead of my new fully phone automated system, this month I had to go to the bank (traffic on Saturday was terrible) draw money then deposit it with an M-Pesa agent. The first agent said ‘we don’t have enough float to take this’. Fortunately the one in Nakumatt was happy to take my cash. Then I went home and press, press, tap, tap, all salaries dispatched. Phew.
  
  
  * there is an M-Pesa scam that my friend told me about.  You recieve a text message saying 'I mistakenly sent you 7,500/- (or whatever), please M-Pesa it back to me!'  Then you receive begging phone calls.  The friend in question was not even registered for M-Pesa so she questioned this, as you can imagine!  She went to an M-Pesa agent who told her that this was known a scam.  Only text messages with M-Pesa written at the top are bona fide - otherwise ignore sms messages like this.

  
  

• Wintery Nairobi

  Posted: May 25, 2011, 3:01 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  
  What is with this winter weather in Nairobi?- It feels like July or August at the moment rather than May, with overcast morrnings, drizzle, cold nights with only an hour or two of sunshine at around midday - if we are lucky.
  
  I met someone from the States who came to live in Nairobi for a couple of years to do some voluntary work. 'They lie in all the guide books' she said, '....they said Kenya was hot.'
  The lady in question had only packed t-shirts and shorts for her visit.  Time for an emergency trip to the second hand clothes markets to find some fleece jumpers and jeans.
  
  In fact, it's true, Nairobi can be cold.  While anyone who has experienced a dry season here is extremely happy to see that the rain is falling, for foreigners arriving from colder climes, this kind of Nairobi weather can be depressing. 
  
  It's a terrible thing to say but when Kenya is in the midst of the worst kind of drought, conditions are ideal for the tourist who revels in the dust and baking sun - it is Africa afterall.
  
  Because the seasons in Nairobi don't change all that dramatically, we wear the same clothes all year round.   Variations might be 'add a cardigan' or 'exchange shorts/skirt for jeans'. 
  
  The temptation is to wear clothes until they literally fall off our back - I've had numerous 'jeans splitting across the butt' moments.  In England we might put away winter things at this time of year (I have to say, it really is heaven not to have to own an overcoat or thick wool jumpers any more), then I would pull out Spring/summer clothes. 
  
  This seasonal 'clothes exchange' was heathy process because anything that looked too washed out, ripped or damaged would then get binned - resulting gaps in the wardrobe would then provide a great excuse for a 'new season' shopping spree. 
  
  Now I am more lazy.  Here in Kenya, all my clothes are jumbled together in a year round mess.  I find it agony to throw anything away.  I've even repaired the split jeans in the past rather than throw them out!  Do I ever actually ever wear them again with the giant patch? No.
  
  One year my Mum visited.
  'That linen skirt is so thin that I can literally see your whole bottom through it.' 
  I was gutted. I have to admit that the skirt was bought in the second hand mitumba market - but I loved it, it was a wardrobe staple (I often tied a cardigan or long sleeve t-shirt round my waist to hide the bum) and still I could hardly bare to part with it.  It eventually got re-used for fancy dress when I tacked a union jack over the 'skeleton' skirt fabric - still haven't thrown it away!!
  
  The problem translates to uniform for the lovely ladies who work in our house.  Their flowery skirts and white shirts had to be literally falling apart before they quietly and tactfully mentioned that the uniforms might need replacement (one lady's gathered skirt ripped, almost top to bottom, while she was playing hide and seek with our five year old).  After purchasing more fabric, when I visited the tailor's shop (this place will run up new shirts and skirts for a very reasonable 500/- each), she looked back in her book and confirmed that the last lot were made in 2005!  That's terrible!
  
  A week or so ago, I noticed that my middle daughter's duvet had worn very thin....not surprising after eight years of continuous use.
  
  'Are you cold at night?'  I asked her.
  'Not really,' she said.
  I added an extra stretchy fleece throw to her bed then forgot about it. 
  
  (I should really invest in proper blankets - oh, for the stylish White Company to open up a branch here rather than be left fending for ourselves, choosing from Nakumatt's finest.)
  
  I let the subject drop for a couple of weeks.  It was my daughter who brought it up again when she said,
  
  'You know that feeling when your feet are cold when you get in bed and then they don't really warm up again all night?'
  
  Gasp.  I was so mortified that we raced straight to Mr Price home, do not stop, do not pass go.   There were 3 types of duvet on offer, I was leaning toward choosing the middle priced product, when my daughter said, 'I really like this one.' pointing at the most expensive.
  
  Of course I bought it - pure guilt. 
  
  My daughter was so pathetically grateful and excited about her new duvet that it nearly brought tears to my eyes.  (Add to this that she was off school because of an ear infection - probably brought about by extreme cold!  She is not on anti-biotics.)
  
  Kenya might be located on the equator so you would expect plenty of sun and for the most part, it is pretty warm here, but don't forget that Nairobi is at an altitude of 1,759m above sea level.  There are cold nights and when the rain falls, unless you are well prepared, the damp (and inescapable mud) creeps everywhere, into your bones almost. 
  
  So when you visit Nairobi any time between May and August, then pack jeans/trousers, socks, closed shoes and a few cotton jumpers/cardigans & scarves (maybe one fleece) - along with your suncream.  There's no need for winter coats, jackets or woollens but wellington boots (available locally) can be a godsend!  By the same token, be prepared to throw off your layers when the sun comes out!

  
  

• Famous, Rich and in the Slums

  Posted: May 18, 2011, 9:42 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So, I finally watched the above Comic Relief - a two part series filmed in Kibera slum (illegal download - shush..).  It made thought provoking and moving viewing.  I needed a couple of days after watching to let it sink in - and any comment here will sound horribly belated - however:
  
  I thought the four UK celebrities were fantastic.
  
  The premise for the show was that the celebs' belongings were handed over, they were given a bin bag of mitumba clothes and 200 shillings each.  They were separated and spent the first three nights in random locations in Kibera, renting their own rooms.  They had to earn money in order to buy food ie to survive.  The remainder of the week was spent sharing accommodation with one of four Kibera families; orphans, a prostitute, an HIV positive mother of 6 and a recent arrival to Kibera.
  
  Interestingly the one who coped least well was Lenny Henry who is the personality most experienced in fund raising/raising awareness for Comic Relief - but he had the most extreme emotional reaction.  Samantha Womack (Easteenders actress, Ronnie) coped brilliantly with her cockroach incident etc and even managed to make her randomly allocated selection of mitumba clothes look glamorous (how did she wash her hair and is that collagen in her top lip?) - Angela Rippon was marvellously tough and 'can do' about all the challenges thrown at her.  She was determinedly cheerful throughout - even though her hair got so progressively dirty and greasy as the week went on that the camera man tactfully tried to film from her eyebrows down.  [www.telegraph.co.uk]  Reggie Yates was incredible.  He blew his first 200 shillings on watching a footie match in a communal bar then bought chips on the way home.  After two hours sleep he found himself doing a stint valiently emptying overflowing latrine pits throughout his first night - and he kept smiling.  He earned 700 bob and said 'this is tons of money!'  Talk about culture shock!
  
  The whole project was organised by a mzungu NGO worker and a 3rd generation Kiberan.  The latter acted as long suffering counsellor to the 4 celebs.  Suffice to say, there were a lot of tears (but well done - no tantrums) all connected with the dilemma of celebs being thrown into an extreme environment by the BBC.  I had to wonder, what were the celebs eating (we saw them with the odd bag of tomatoes and bananas - they also managed to blag a few free meals from the families they met) and what were they drinking?  Did the 200/- really run to mineral water every day?
  
  I think that anyone coming from England would find Kibera or any slum a huge shock to the system, let alone celebrities.  Friends in England said they cried watching the footage.  I've been to Kibera a handful of times and while I don't claim to be any sort of an expert (am sure that I couldn't survive in the slum for a week by any means as well as the celebrities did), the funny thing is (and a point made in the film) is that you od quite quickly get hardened to the dirt, squalor, the smell etc.
  
  On the first visit it is all surprising - you are shocked and swear you will do anything in your power to 'help' or make it go away, but by the second visit you accept a lot more - that this is a buzzing community.  Accompanying first time visitors (Kenyan, Asian or European), you watch their horrified reaction and find yourself thinking, 'oh just shut up and get on with it.' 
  
  What came through strongly in the film was the nobility of the people who live in Kibera.  They are dealing with an utterly hand-to-mouth existence on a daily basis, incredible odds stacked against them - (most notably the lack of any welfare system) -  and yet many still have hope that things will get better by some miracle - however remote.   A funny bit was when the samosa seller told the camera that he felt sorry for Lenny Henry when he spotted the outsider the day before buying bits of food.  Also there were lots of Kenyan style honest commentary about how Lenny was fat.  An orphan found it hard to imagine that Lenny would be able to ride a horse. 
  
  Today, times must be deteriorating even more rapidly in the slum since food and fuel prices have rocketed in past weeks.  On the news today there was announcement saying that it's not even possible to buy maize flour because of a current shortage - another badly handled government planning issue.
  
  
  On the upside:
  
  I was impressed to see that most people had bed/mosquito nets.
  
  I wasn't shocked by the mitumba clothes and didn't see that wearing second hand was any kind of hardship - after all, I and many others routinely shop there too.
  
  HIV positive people do have access to ARVs
  
  There are various health clinics and NGOs operating in the slum
  
  On the downside - things that angered me:
  
  Primary school aged children are required to pay school fees in spite of the much publicised free primary education.
  
  The pit latrines were beyond horrific and the general lack of infrastructure (a workable sewage system) and utilities (at the very least, clean water) unforgivable.
  
  I felt seriously angry that the 16 year old orphan who lost his father to 2007 post election violence (his mother had died earlier) - still has not had issues addressed by Kenyan politicians who continue to try and sweep the whole horrific period of political unrest under the carpet and are probably never going to be answerable for their crimes.
  
  The improved (as in; away from an overflowing pit latrine that they were formerly living next door to) 3 room accommodation that Lenny Henry generously bought for the orphan family still cost 800 UK pounds for not much more than an informal mud and sticks, a structure on illegal land, paid to goodness knows who.  I assumed that with any luck the eldest boy would immediately rent out two of the rooms and thus build some revenue for himself so that he (and his siblings) could pursue his goal and get to school regularly.
  
  In spite of the huge hype that surrounds Kibera (as opposed to any other of Nairobi's slums) and the huge fund raising that goes on - inexplicably, life for the Kiberan never, but never seems to change.
  
  Sadly, I guess this program will never be aired on Kenya TV
  
  There has been some local newspaper coverage on the program.  Nation columnist Rasna Warah makes a point about 'slum tourism' being on the rise, how she is angered by this new trend of foreigners rubber necking poverty - but I think that in the article she misses the point - I don't think she watched the show.
  
  [www.nation.co.ke]
  
  'Poverty as entertainment: Please put to an end Kibera slum tours'
  
  
  'For many Kenyans, the film is the worst form of slum tourism because it turns poverty into entertainment in the name of charity.
  
  
  Kennedy Odede, a former Kibera resident who is currently a student at Wesleyan University in the United States, says that while he understands the need among foreigners to witness poverty, he believes that slum tourism is largely a one-way street: “They get the photos; we lose a piece of our dignity”.'
  
  
  I actually think that everyone should watch this program - above all (wealthier) voting Kenyans who should be outraged by the poor performance of their government.  Contrary to what foreign press reports would have you believe - not everyone in Kenya is poor.  Victorian London had slums during the industrial revolution, remember this problem was tackled by the government implementing reform, using tax payers money - not handouts. 
  
  So the Kenyan government has failed but, let's remember that there is more than enough foreign aid money flowing into this country to more than adequately address slum issues in Kenya.  Fixing Kibera should certainly not be the concern of the UK tax payer who is being guilted into texting 5 pounds to the Comic Relief fund (enough UK taxpayers money is already going to Africa - sent by the Government in the form of overseas aid). 
  
  May I venture to suggest that all overseas aid consultants based in Kenya should also spend a week living in a slum (with no more than 200 shillings in their pocket) as a sort of 'rite of passage' or initiation into their aid giving jobs.   What do you think?  This might focus the mind better than the trend for ten day 'alleviating poverty - focussing on those who survive on less than a dollar-a-day' workshops held at all inclusive Mombasa beach hotels?  How many are employed at the UN/UNEP Nairobi these days, was it 6,000 or 9,000?

  
  

• Age appropriate dressing.....

  Posted: May 17, 2011, 2:03 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Nigella Lawson in her burkini, Bondai Beach, Australia

  
  Everything tells me that I should abhor the following list which gives the cut-off age for wearing various revealing items of clothing - but, especially since it targets my age group exactly, I actually find it hysterical. 
  
  Interestingly the list was compiled as a result of a UK Diet Chef survey who interviewed 2000 women (not men, as you might assume!)   It must be something to do with British reserve.  Evidently we women are very definitely supposed to grow old gracefully and not embarrass ourselves in the process. 
  
  According to this list, for me, mini-skirts are out, so are boob tubes, leather trousers and belly button piercings.  I must admit, the last 3 are no great loss but I am a bit sore about the mini-skirts - not that I wear them often - but I think that with tights we might be able to extend the deadline to at least 43 don't you?   I did worry about having to cut my long hair at 40, but it seems I now have a reprieve until 53 (as long as I don't tie it into a ponytail after 51). Phew!
  
  The list gets horribly restrictive once you've hit 40 though - and that age is creeping up only too fast for me...  Women - you are harsh!
  
  The age women believe you should stop wearing....
  
  • Bikini, 47
  
  • Miniskirt, 35
  
  • Boob Tube, 33
  
  • Stilettos, 51
  
  • Belly button piercing, 35
  
  • Knee high boots, 47
  
  • Trainers, 44
  
  • Leather trousers, 34
  
  • Leggings, 45
  
  • Ugg boots, 45
  
  • Swimsuit, 61
  
  • Tight vest, 44
  
  • See-through chiffon blouse, 40
  
  • Long hair, 53
  
  • Ponytail, 51
  
  In East Africa conservative dressing is still very much the norm.  Ladies still where petticoats here - very definitely no minis.  Most people would chose oversize clothes rather than tight.  (There are no public displays of affection either - very socially non-u). 
  
  I laughed last night while watching an episode of Silent Witness that was filmed in Zambia - in the story, villagers assumed Emilia Fox in her role as Nicky - was a prostitute because she was wearing jeans...  This might put a whole new complexion on the list!

  
  

• The Kenya Power and Lighting Company 'Kabila'

  Posted: May 11, 2011, 12:26 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  I used to quite like KPLC. Well ‘like’ might be a little strong but the fact that there is a telephone number you can call when problems arise with your electricity at all hours of the day or night is a good thing.  KPLC give you a reference number and then, by some slim chance, they sometimes tell you why your power is down (for days sometimes). I have always found this reassuring. Okay, so sometimes the lady at the other end puts the phone down on you and that’s when you’ve just managed to get through after the fifty-third attempt, then you get angry...but you know what I mean. The overriding benefit of an emergency number means that there’s a possibility you will get helpful information to ease personal frustration when there's no power or low voltage (ie all your electrical appliances/water heaters are getting burnt out); You might be told; ‘our technicians are working on the line,’ ‘the transformer has been vandalised’ ‘routine maintenance work being carried out’ ‘your power should be restored by this evening’.
  
  Occasionally gangs of electricians turn up in emergency situations and actually fix the problem in a timely fashion.  Heck, I made tea for them when our neighbours felled a tree onto our power lines.
  
  Anyway, this amicable relationship has been tarnished for me permanently since we attempted to take our relationship with KPLC to 'the next level'.  Rather ambitiously, we wanted our power lines re-routed and this time, underground. This was not decided simply on a whim; the fact is that our electricity cables currently run almost over our new swimming pool. Visions of the overhead cable snapping while innocent swimmers get zapped in a pool of death beneath, was my latest recurring nightmare (the nightmare that followed on from the previous 'rotten tree falls on house' nightmare that I used to have - see previous tree cutting post).
  
  The problem is, since starting our 'new' relationship with KPLC, I feel I have been taken for a fool, ‘played’, given the run around. let's be honest - ripped off.
  
  First we needed a quotation to move the power lines. A lone man visited three or four times (usually at odd times at the weekend) and with a wink kept asking, ‘would you like your quotation hand written or typed?’ Guessing that he was hinting at some sort of unofficial/under the table job following the unwritten quotation route and endless repercussions thereafter when things inevitably go wrong, we obviously said ‘typed’ please.  (Obviously we would never entertain the idea of following the corruption route - shudder the thought.  Though it turns out, what mugs we were trying to play it straight!)
  
  Getting the ‘typed’ quotation took around six to eight weeks. When it came the estimated bill for re-routing and submerging our cables almost touched 100,000/- (85,000 plus labour and VAT). Naively we assumed that for this vast price, KPLC would be providing superior armoured cable, possibly upgrading us to 3 phase electricity (from single phase) – so we paid, like fools.
  
  More months ensued. Nothing. I stopped worrying about electricity cables falling into the pool, I almost got used to them as an unsightly backdrop to our new pool area. Life is short.  Then, over Easter weekend, a gang arrived at our house to finally do the re-routing job. They called my husband's mobile, we said we were away (in Meru) so please could they come back when we were home. Next a gang of ten men arrive at the house on the following May bank holiday. They wanted to erect a new pole apparently. There were more discussions over the best route for the new cable. The first plan was for it to traverse the garden but again, I had visions of a gardener some time in the future digging down too deep and hitting a live wire (I know, I know, the cable should be armoured and we would put 'hatari' tiles, but still - it worried me).
  
  Am I boring you yet? Sorry.
  
  So the ten men put in a new pole – this job took about ten minutes. Having wondered why we needed so many to do this simple job, I later found out that ten men turning up on a bank holiday means that they can all put in for overtime. The head KPLC man told us to be ready on Tuesday morning ‘early’ to do the re-routing – or else!  He's a slippery one.
  
  I asked our friendly electrician Jeff (I call Jeff 'Run DMC', when he came over he was wearing a fab Just Cavalli white jacket and matching baseball cap) to come and fix up the conduit for the new cable. As it turned out, this was an enlightening visit. When I complained about how much KPLC had charged us for this relatively simple exercise, Jeff told me a few home truths;
  
  ‘In the first place, you should have ‘spoken’ to the KPLC man who does the quoting when he did his initial site visit – if you had given him ‘something’ (not much, even just 500 shillings) he would have provided a far more reasonable quote. This is the way the system works.’
  
  Oh great.
  
  ‘But, to make you feel better, that price you paid could be justified, as long as they bring you the proper armoured, underground cable which is expensive. But be warned, their latest trick is to put cheap overhead cables underground.’
  
  Double great.
  SO – a week later, last Sunday, at around 1pm the KPLC ‘gang’ arrive unannounced again – this time with cable – cheap, overhead cable. After some frantic phone calls to Jeff and a fairly hostile stand-off, we turn them away without doing the job. The slippery KPLC chap swears blind that this is the right (single core) cable – and it’s the only one they have anyway so it's put up or shut up as far as we are concerned.  Monday morning, we visit KPLC’s Dagoretti branch – they say the same thing – it’s that cable or nothing.
  
  Jeff says, ‘they are crooks – this is what KPLC do to people, they are thieves and cheats’ – he was sweetly getting hot under the collar on our behalf. Our gardener says that KPLC is a very big ‘kabila’ or tribe.
  
  So, after setting out on this exercise 6 months ago, we are 100,000/- worse off and have achieved precisely nothing – except we now have a redundant telegraph pole in our garden. Jeff the electrician suggests we try to get a‘re-quote’ from someone else in KPLC rather than accept a rubbish cable will probably go wrong and be more difficult to fix when it is installed underground. At least – if we have to accept the rubbish cable, we might end up with a re-fund that can be offset against our bills. We need to investigate if this is a possibility.
  
  I’m exhausted.... (as I am sure you are too after reading this...)

  
  

• Cinderella

  Posted: May 4, 2011, 10:17 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  So poor Kate, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge - after her UK mini-moon, she must go back to mopping her own floors in Anglesey after all the excitement of the Royal wedding.  A slight anti-climax perhaps?
  
  One question, what on earth were the ugly sisters doing at the wedding?
  
  
  Watching the royal wedding at the high commission was great fun, loved every minute - except for when the forbidding British security man strolled over then asked me BY NAME to look after my handbag (I guess he found my bag in a corner where I thought I'd deposited it safely, then went through the ink stained mess to identify the owner - the shame!), he then later tapped me on the shoulder once AGAIN when the party was winding down expressly to say, 'excuse me, you have to go now, the high commissioner has another engagement to attend'.  
  
  Woe is me.  Will my epitaph actually read; 'always last to leave a party (especially when there's free booze) - sad cow!'
  
  
  Don't you just love it!!

  
  

• Kenya's economic roller coaster ride

  Posted: May 4, 2011, 9:57 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So, picture the scene, on Tuesday morning (yesterday) in Nairobi; it's been raining heavily, state schools have just reopened, it's the beginning of the month (ie take the car to work as there's a little money in your pocket) and there's a city-wide fuel shortage.  My husband describes this as 'the perfect storm' traffic-wise - ie. more chaos than normal, gridlock on the streets of Nairobi.
  
  We are relieved about the rain since they are late, so we were almost convinced they would not come.  But the fuel shortage is not good.  For the past two days, cars have been queuing up outside any petrol station that has fuel (others are turning customers away) - motorists are queuing for up to an hour to buy petrol, snaking back onto main roads, causing disruption all over town.  Cars have even been left abandoned on the roadside as they grind to a fuel starved halt, adding to the traffic problem. 
  
  One of the reasons that a short lived fuel shortage has such a profound effect is the fact that so many drivers will customarily be putting very small amounts of fuel in their tanks at a time (a couple of hundred shillings or the equivalent of a few English pounds at a time), which I guess might explain why there's a petrol station every hundred metres in Nairobi - drivers must be lurching from one to the next.  This was also true in Tanzania.  I remember getting taxis to and from work; our first stop would always be the petrol station where I would pay an 'advance' or part of the taxi fare direct to the pump attendant, in order for the driver to buy enough fuel to get me a couple of kilometres down the road.  This is how it is in Africa.
  
  Government explanations have been slow or unforthcoming on the current crisis - today they say there's tons of fuel at the main depot but they claim marketeers failed to get organised around the holiday weekend to ensure an uninterrupted supply to the marketplace.  Local news reports that there's no fuel in Eldoret town - chaos there too.  Housewives like me on school runs have been speculating wildly; shortage due to middle east crisis, down to local marketeers holding out for higher prices (fuel prices have rocketed from 70/ per litre to 112/- over a matter of weeks), fuel crisis due to Bin Laden's assassination?!
  
  In fact, the fuel shortage will probably be a storm in a teacup.  No doubt fuel supplies will be back to normal by the end of the week (I hope so, I'm down within my last quarter of a tank) - but what won't change is that the higher price of fuel and as a direct consequence - the cost of basic foods rising, is causing a real hike in the cost of living for Kenyans generally.  This was highlighted in Labour/Workers Day discussions at the weekend.  Teachers are demanding a 200% pay rise in order to make ends meet.  Non tax paying MPs in a bloated cabinet double the size that it should be and corruption filtering down to all levels of society is both galling to ordinary citizens and not a help.  Will society be disgruntled enough to act?  Civil society groups have already staged some demonstrations and more are planned.
  
  Since the government acts with impunity on corruption, it seems that all sorts of other characters are jumping on the bandwagon.  I've heard a rash of stories from friends concerning petty crime recently.  Cheques being tampered with, one audaciously changed words and numbers from 50,000 to 500,000 and the bank actually allowed it through! (I guess they were acting quickly before bank rules officially change on altered cheques being disallowed from 13th June).  There have been building contractors going AWOL with money. 
  There was also the story of a bank issuing fake foreign currency/dollar notes stashed within a bundle of real ones, house staff stealing cash from handbags and also even stealing food and cleaning products from store cupboards then reselling them on the street.  Saloon cars with blacked out windows cruising about, following residents through their gates then once inside the plot accessing houses to stealing phones, computers, TVs, cash at gun point. 
  
  While the government promises to enact measures to shield the poor from rising prices (presumably by taxing middle class workers and businesses more), it seems inevitable that, following the lead of the developed world, times are set to get trickier in Kenya for a while.  At least, unlike the West, the growth in the Kenya economy keeps on rising - just hold onto your wallets and watch you back as you enjoy the ride!

  
  

• Royal Wedding 2011 in Kenya

  Posted: April 28, 2011, 1:50 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  Although it pains me to admit it (for I love to pretend I am really not at all interested in the Royal Wedding) what a relief it is to be assured of one’s own invitation at this late stage.
  
  Okay so I’m talking about watching the televised event at the British High Commission in Nairobi but frankly, beggars can’t be choosers. I think we should be thanking our lucky stars that the current British High Commissioner to Kenya has not been announced ‘persona non grata’ in Kenya like so many others in Africa since Wikileaks has been soiling diplomatic relations worldwide. Only yesterday I heard on the radio that the BHC to Malawi has been ‘expelled’ from Blantyre for putting foot in mouth (in a leaked private cable to William Hague) about the incumbent president. Plus the American Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, has left Nairobi rather quickly and quietly after a remarkably outspoken tenure (I particularly enjoyed the leaked cable where he referred to the Kenyan government as ‘a swamp of corruption’).
  
  On the few occasions that I’ve been to the British High Commission for a function, I’ve always had a niggling fear that I am not actually supposed to be there since the invitations are often slightly vague and I hate to appear pushy.
  
  In order to be invited to the Royal Wedding, we had to follow a complex procedure of being vaguely informed that we were on the list to request an invitation. For ages I wondered if the message to request an invitation had really been intended for us since it was passed on via a friend – I thought she was just being nice and generously inclusive in order to save my feelings. In fact she eventually clarified that we were properly invited.
  
  Then, as time passed, I screwed up my pushyness and put away my general scorn of royal weddings and emailed the BHC. We were duly sent an invitation via email and informed that an official invitation would subsequently arrive in the post. I never received the hard copy though I hear it did enclose a darling engagement photograph of Wills and Kate which I strongly suspect might now be lost somewhere in the void that is my husband’s desk.
  
  Just before Easter (when I realised that it would just be too painful to miss out on the party) I emailed the BHC back saying ‘yes please, we would love to come.’ Does one expect confirmation to follow? If so, I never received one. Admittedly my reply was late, dispatched in a rush just before Easter weekend.
  
  The emailed invitation reads ‘Dress: uniform, morning coat or wedding attire’ – which I assume is somehow ironic. After all this is Kenya so lets face it, there may well be some wearing kikois rather that wedding attire.
  
  We met up with a sweet friend of my husband (who is my Dad’s age) at Barney’s cafe, on the way back from Meru.
  
  ‘So, you’ll be wearing your morning coat I assume?’ we enquired when he told us he would be there.
  
  ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘I’m just turning up ‘as is’ man.’ (when you’ve lived here a while, you start saying ‘man’ at the end of each sentence).
  
  So that seals it. I will now mothball my husband’s top hat for another year and prepare to brazen it out when we find our names are not down on the entry list .... all dressed up with nowhere to go would be too unbearable.
  
  If I learned anything from living in Kenya, it is that all and sundry will gladly turn up to a free party (as long as it’s not raining – in this case, one can’t possibly leave the house) so tomorrow is bound to be a colourful affair.
  
  
  (p.s. some friends went to Rutundu log cabins on Mount Kenya over Easter weekend where Wills and Kate got engaged.  They said it was lovely.  For us residents its a sort of self-catering fishing/walking/picnicing holiday with a treacherous access road up the mountain (K&W went by helicopter).  Apparently they've doubled the price to stay there since the royal engagement, but it's still just about doable for locals if you can face the 4x4 drive and packing all your own food.)
  
  

  
  

• Meru National Park at Easter, KWS bandas ...

  Posted: April 27, 2011, 6:03 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  So. Meru....
  We were excited about our trip to the KWS Murera guest house in Meru. Put it this way, my husband packed bird seed and salt to put down for the animals in the hopes of drawing them to our little house. It sounds like he’s 100 years old; he is in fact 41.
  I organised the food. Packed far, far too much. Enough for a week at least. Managed not to forget the Easter eggs. We then picked up our fabulous take-away stew, chapatis and curry from Barney’s in Nanyuki en route, which alone would have fed us for the four days, and continued on our way.
  

  KWS Murera guest house

   When we arrived at the banda, I stepped out of the car to find a sweaty sheen immediately forming on my top lip. It was much hotter than I’d expected. I think I had the chills of Mount Kenya in mind (we drove round it), so had backed sweaters, wellies, jeans. In fact I should have been thinking coast (mosquito nets, shorts, flipflops).
  ‘I thought you said it was going to be cold!’ My daughters’ said accusingly while peeling off layers.
  The KWS guest house located near the main entrance gate was unprepossessing. Sort of brown, functional, not all that welcoming but I was not deterred. The (office?!) furniture was arranged in rows along the walls underneath a huge white notice board and the bedrooms were small with very uncomfortable beds. The biggest disappointment for my husband was that the house looked out over a rubbish pit, a manhole cover and some preliminary trenches dug out of the ground, presumably foundations for some future structure. My husband gamely put out his bird seed and salt nonetheless and we put the furniture in a more cosy arrangement (dropping a rather heavy sofa on my eldest's foot in the process). 

  View

    I made tea. We sweated some more.   Slightly unsure that we'd survive the full 3 nights, I Googled a few other places to stay and made some calls about availability in other lodges for our last night but gave up when I found everything within a reasonable radius was full and anyway, I was being too negative – my husband said that we should just get on with it. The children seemed happy in any case. We took a lovely evening game drive and returned to bare, white low energy lightbulbs and the sound of a very crackly radio blaring from a bar in the village behind broadcasting more ranting dialogue than songs. It was loud enough to keep the children awake and my husband, assuming it was somebody’s personal radio nearby, took Stanley, our KWS house caretaker to task about it.  Then, when he drew a blank via Stanley (whose small house adjoins the banda), my husband tore off to the main gate to complain. Thankfully the radio was switched off at about 11.30pm, though I’m sure this was nothing to do with my husband’s efforts.  The bar was probably closing anyway.  The night was sultry as if rain was threatening.  Eventually it came in the early hours of the morning and with it a welcome fresh breeze but I must admit, I didn't sleep well.
  
  

  reorganised furniture

   We looked at the visitors’ book that was full of flattering comments on how fabulous the house was, how Stanley was such a great help and also a great cook and how everyone loved it all. Over our 4 day stay and after a fraught first evening, Stanley was then conspicuous for his absence almost throughout (we gave his baby some easter eggs). We wondered if we had missed a trick and feared we might have tainted the whole experience by getting off on the wrong foot. To make matters worse, the birds and animals were still being shy and not at all interested in the salt and bird seed.
  ‘Give me this house for one month and I would transform it.’ My husband said as we sat on our office chairs overlooking Stanley’s line of washing. ‘The first thing I’d do would be clear all this and give it a view.’
  
  On Sunday we went to meet friends at Elsa’s Kopie for lunch. It was so luxurious and heavenly that my husband had his belated KWS breaking point.
  
  ‘What the hell are we doing in that banda when we could be here?!’
  
  However, by this time, I was resigned.
  
  ‘What were we really expecting?’ I asked. 'And in any case, everything was booked.'
  
  We did go and check out the other KWS Kinna bandas (to make sure we hadn’t made the wrong choice) – but, even though they were fully booked, they too looked a little down at heel, perhaps not helped by the long dry spell Meru had been experiencing.  There were pond skaters on the swimming pool that we'd had high hopes for and after picking our way across a thorny wasteland to have a look at it, past the single forlorn looking broken sunbed; all our 3 girls unanimously announced that they would not be going in. Other friends who have visited raved about the Kinna bandas, so perhaps we caught them at a bad moment.  (A highlight for them was in fact ‘showering’ in the overflow from an outdoor elevated rusty water tank one morning outside our guesthouse – oh and the Elsa’s Kopie swimming pool too of course).
  
  So, in summary. Although the Murera guest house was clean and private (with a good size fridge/freezer and stove - two gas rings working), it was soulless, noisy because of the nearby bars/village and totally lacking in a view. We have visited the KWS bandas in Mount Kenya (satisfactory) but we hear that one of the ones in Tsavo has an excellent view over a waterhole/salt lick visited by tons of game. Other friends went to the KWS fishing bandas in the Aberdare’s and said they are good too.  Both of the former, well inside the park so no risk of blaring radios from nearby bars.
  
  Having been a little intimidated at first, Meru National Park definitely grew on us and the drive there was easy. I’m not sure if we’ll be back soon though, as I fear that we’ll have to splash out on Elsa’s Kopie next time.  It might take us a little time to save up.
  
  The Murera guest house was still 8,000/- per night, which is still a fairly significant amount.  However, as a budget option
  
  
  Some more General info on Meru National Park
  
  Meru National Park used to be the ‘go to’ park for visitors back in the day, most probably as a result of Joy Adamson’s bestseller book published in 19602 and subsequent film ‘Born Free’ which told the story about her (and George’s) tame lion named Elsa, who was reared by them inside the park and died there too. At one time, Meru was even more popular than the Masai Mara (which seems inconceivable today). Meru Park then experienced a nasty period of poaching and Somali Shifta invasion/banditry that sadly went on for enough years to put most people off going altogether. The road around Mount Kenya and the one that accesses the park then fell apart, to the point where the journey was agonising and so only the most intrepid, or those that could afford to fly in, visited the park.
  
  Over the past ten years, international organisations have invested heavily in the park, KWS has the security issue well in hand and visitor numbers are steadily rising but not so that you would particularly notice (still much less visited that Masai Mara or Amboseli). Another bonus is that the road is now smooth tarmac all the way to the Meru Park gate, so it’s possible to get from Nanyuki to Meru is a little over two hours (from Nairobi, allow 6 hours).
  
  Over Easter weekend we saw a few other cars but while on game drives it felt like we almost had the vast park to ourselves, in fact scarily so...I was afraid of getting lost or having car failure and being stranded indefinitely. Although the park is well signposted with map reference numbers etc, we soon decided to hire a KWS guide to accompany us in our car until we got our bearings. The park borders the Tana River, but one of its best features are the many streams that run cross it (16?), which means that while it can be hot and dry, there is always water for the animals. However, it’s bushy, so animals can be hard to spot. A highlight for us was finding ourselves in amongst a herd of 14 mature elephants crossing from one side of the road to the other, grazing as they went.

  
  

• Packing lists and forward planning for Kenya holidays

  Posted: April 21, 2011, 3:08 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  
  SO... we are taking our lives in our hands going to a Kenya Wildlife Service self catering banda this weekend.  I actually should be packing, shopping and cooking right this minute.  Florence, who does quite a lot of cooking in our house (especially things that can be made in advance) has been highly inconveniently ill this week, so the sense of panic in my bones has been rising.  Luckily a friend of mine saved the day yesterday by suggesting I order some ready-made cooked stews from a lovely cafe in Nanyuki called Barney's.  Pure genius!  I put my order in last night - no idea what it's going to cost and actually, at this point, don't care?!  Today I need to remember to make an easter cake and pack easter eggs - to avoid crushing disappointment on Sunday.  Even though I have now written this down, there is a real chance that I'll still forget.
  
  It occured to me that there should really be a packing list, at least for planning food - for these Kenya weekends/weeks away as so often you are miles from any shop, might not even have a phone reception and invariably arrive to realise you have left half a dozen absolutely necessary items at home (Calpol for the kids, shampoo, ear drops, chargers, an umbrella).  
  
  A friend of mine who arrived in Kenya a year ago told me that she fell into a state of panic at the prospect of a week away where she would have to organise her own food without the help of a handy Woolworths (SA) or Marks and Spencer (UK) type of place where you could buy ready-made convenience food.  She appealed to a mutual friend of ours who is the proverbial Domestic Goddess (the DG even makes her own jam and harvests her own honey from a hive in her garden).  The DG very kindly drew up a menu plan for the friend for the entire week, including kids meals.  Our friend dutifully followed it word for word.
  'The DG should publish that menu plan and charge for it.' My friend said, 'It absolutely saved my life!'
  
  I tend to shun too much forward planning and do things in a blind panic once darkness has fallen.  It's not an approach that I'd recommend.  I realised this when we gatecrashed another friend's Masai Mara safari.  Her organisational skills highlighted the fact that mine were woefulling inadequate - thought had evidently been put in on her part, and time.  To give you an idea, her kids had torches (batteries working), she had a portable dvd player to entertain them during evenings while we had grown-up supper, plus a cool box full of sundowner drinks and snacks (crisps, biltong etc) and thermos coffee mugs and biscuits for early morning drives - so civilised!  We had a blast - riding on their generosity! (see previous post entitled 'Masai Mara' 27/10/10)
  
  Briefly - we did have a 'beach list' for picnics in Dar es Salaam when we lived down there.  On the list were things like; beach chairs, mat/picnic blanket, drinking water, sandwiches, boiled eggs, hot water for tea, coffee, milk, suncream, towels, armbands, ball, dog bowl, dog water, first aid kit/sting cream for jelly fish .....   It took us about three years to get around to compiling the list.  The idea was to stick it onto the fridge but problem was that whenever we went for a picnic (this was actually just about every single weekend) we never knew where the wretched list was.  Hot and flustered rows invariably ensued between my husband and I in the tropical heat and driving to the beach was then in furious silence.
  
  For a while I carried around my own mini first aid kit.  When a Mum sent out an appeal that a small child needed calpol, arnica or sting cream in an emergency, I'd excitedly shout out that I had some.  I'd then shuffle around in my handbag for ages, only to discover that whatever was required in that instance, was the one thing that I didn't have.  This happened to me yesterday when my daughter got stung by a bee.  Hopeless.
  
  My problem is attitude.  Rather than taking pride in being organised or aspiring to be a Domestic Goddess, I'm surly and resentful about how much work is involved and the fact that as the matriach, I must take on the mantle of preparedness, all on my own.  I'm my own worst enemy.  On that note, I'd better sign off.  A million things to do!
  
  In the meantime, Happy Easter!!

  
  

• Holidays in Kenya - Top tips

  Posted: April 17, 2011, 7:43 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Back home, I know that people spend a lot of time planning holidays far in advance, sometimes years in fact.  I'm sure it's due to the long cold and dark winters that have to be endured over there but I remember holiday punctuation points on the yearly calendar tend to take on great importance.  I remember working in an office and almost mentally lurching from holiday to the next - wishing my life away in the meantime.  In England, skiing and/or one or even two hot holidays per year might not be uncommon whereas for expats here in Kenya, an annual trip home to visit friends and family is the only certainty in the whole year. (some go 'home' every other year).
  
  Since here in Kenya we get great weather all year round, the urgent need for a dose of Vitamin D is less desperate.  Perhaps the fact that there are so many incredible places within driving distance means that I'm horribly bad at planning. I tend to assume that we can pop here or there any time we like - then try booking at the last minute only to find myself disappointed when hotels/self catering houses etc are all full.  This Easter weekend is a case in point, but I haven't given up yet...
  
  I also fail to budget for holidays.  This is a mistake.  Even though there are world famous parks and beaches on our doorstep in spite of being a resident the cost of visiting these places can be eye wateringly steep.  Even when you drive your own car, park and conservancy fees plus the price of lodges, quickly add up.  I always worry that money spent on a holiday is a waste but I think I need to change this mindset and embrace adventure a little more just like I did when I was back in England.
  
  You would think that after 12 years living East Africa, I'd be an expert on holidays around here but since I'm an inveterate commitment-phobe, I'm floundering.   In spite of this (and also in an attempt to convince myself of course) I'll share a couple of top holiday tips for Kenya that I must actively try to take on board myself.
  
  1. Accept camping as an option - even if the thought of it makes your blood run cold.  Break yourself in gently by doing camping in groups either as part of organised events or with friends.  There's safety in numbers - events often lay on extra facilities (loos, showers, food).  Say yes rather than an ever cautious 'no', then worry about the reality of what you've let yourself in for later...it's generally turns out to be more fun that you fear.
  
  2. If you are travelling on a budget, KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) bandas in national game parks are really not all that bad.  They are generally clean and well kept, above all they offer great value for money in some of the most famous parks.  You will have to bring your own food, but this needn't be as horrific as it sounds, a frozen stew that can just be warmed up, UHT milk on your cereal or bucket loads of instant noodles won't kill you.
  
  3. Since our holiday times are now regulated by school, as a rule of thumb, book early to avoid disappointment.  If you want a house on the Kenya coast in high season (ie Christmas/new year), then book at least 6 months, even better, a year in advance.  Don't worry, you can always cancel later if your situation changes.
  
  4. If a holiday costs more during peak season, then consider the premium you pay might actually be worth it.  Don't always be a cheapskate like me, only to find yourself stuck at home for all public holidays with a husband saying 'why aren't we going away like everyone else?'.
  
  4. Read as much as you can about places to go and talk to friends to find out where they have visited.  There are always new places to stay, special rates offered at certain times of year etc.  Make sure you are in the know.
  
  5. As an expat, since you are undoubtedly often playing host to visitors.  Use your own friend and family network to get the favour paid back by staying in friend's houses where possible. (cheeky!!)
  
  
  We recently stayed at El Karama lodge in Laikipia since it offered more reasonable rates than other privately owned/rather exclusive ranches in that area.  The set up was small (7 bandas) and very pretty, though it was hard to see game because the ranch was still waiting for rain and I guess that a lot of the animals had migrated out of the area in search of water.  If I had one complaint it would be that the hosts were conspicuous for their absence.  I think that a small, intimate set up like that requires a jolly front-of-house face to guide you through activities on offer and how to make the most of your holiday.  We had to ferret out the owner when we found we had a flat tyre that we needed to fix.  It was very peaceful without any mains power but with three children and as batteries for DS games and laptops (for showing dvds) gradually ran out we found ourselves twitching slightly to get back to civilisation...
  
  
  Next stop was the fabulous Mike's Camp on Kiwayu Island for a very jammy trip to write about the place for Destination magazine (see link on right for Destination's own website).  I was called in because someone else had dropped out and it was all pretty exciting, if a little last minute and manic.  I had to leave my husband and kids at home (husband, gutted not to be able to make it because of work commitments), then at the last minute was able to take my Mum who was visiting from UK.  I spotted Colin Firth with his wife and kids at Wilson Airport as they boarded the Kiwayu bound Safarilink plane with us.  The actor was wearing sunglasses along with a look that very obviously said, 'I know I'm a celebrity but please, please, please don't talk to me right now.'  Meanwhile his bubbly Colombian wife was shouting 'Colin darling, this way!' and we all got on the same (12 seater) plane!
  
  Knowing that Kenya is famous for honouring the anonymity of celebs (Kate and Wills obviously - they got engaged here on Mount Kenya- but also Angelina and Brad et al) I pretended to be cool and not bother the chap (in spite of the fact that it was very exciting to see him just after he'd won his Oscar).   My mum and I sat in the front of the plane admiring the view and by exercising a huge amount of control, I managed not to crane around my neck and look behind me every five minutes.
  
  So pleased with my celebrity spot was I, that I when I got to the Kiwayu Island to a lodge called Mike's Camp, I couldn't help bouncing in excitedl,  announcing to all who would listen that I'd seen The King's Speech actor on the plane.  The lodge proprietor said cooly, 'Oh yeah, I think he's popping over here tomorrow - his wife is interested in Eco camps.  She wants to take a look around.  You'll probably see them again.'
  
  When I saw 'Colin' once again at the Mike's Camp beach hut the next day, Mike embarrassingly introduced me to Colin by saying 'I think you guys met on the plane.'!?!?!  'Colin' understandably looked mystified.  I blushed, cover blown and mortified, so mumbled something about heading straight out to do some snorkeling.
  
  You can read more about the Kiwayu visit in the May issue of Destination.  The Destination editor was understandably gutted that I hadn't managed to 'bag' an exclusive celeb interview with Col.  Perhaps journalistic skills don't run naturally in my veins but I still hold out hope for future writing assignments, however last minute...let's face it, at this rate, it's the only way I'll ever get around to going away anywhere!..
  
  
  p.s.  Has anyone noticed how the new fuel prices have kicked in?  I bought 5,000 shillings worth of petrol the other day and only got just over half a tank!! Oh dear!

  
  

• Life just keeps on happening - hurrah!

  Posted: April 16, 2011, 4:49 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  You would be forgiven for assuming that I have been suffering from writer’s block but in fact, over the last two weeks, a number of exciting things have happened. Quite a lot merits blog worthy explanation, some doesn't but I'll bore you with it anyway. Well...for now, just to fill you in...
  
  I’ve had my parents staying
  
  Been horribly lost (followed by slightly restless) in Laikipia
  
  Headed off to a deserted beach in Kiwayu without kids (but with my mum)
  
  Been introduced to a world class celebrity (blushed, ran away)
  
  Decided I’m the most terrible person to go on holiday with as I'm always fidgeting about what to do next.
  
  Been taking my daughter to tennis camp, getting emotionally involved when she fails to get her over-arm serves into the box to the point where I find myself telling the coach how to do her job.  (worth noting here that I am and always have been an abysmal tennis player and not sporty at all.  Smack wrists for falling into competitive mum trap!)
  
  Have been weighing up whether to upgrade this website (thanks to a v kind/techie reader who has been helping me). Watch out for a fab new format - more than just a blog....
  
  Writing stuff for other websites and magazines
  
  Talking to an architect about finally modernizing our house.  The tiny, dark 1930s kitchen just has to go.
  
  Entertaining other people’s children and being grateful when they (occasionally) do the same for me
  
  Haircuts and dentist trips (considering having a mid-life crisis over whether to get ridiculously expensive 'incognito' braces myself - sad)
  
  Wondering what the hell to do over the long Easter weekend other than gorge on chocs. 
  
  Receiving inevitable knock backs on my book/memoir proposal.  Oh dear, join the masses expat wife!
  
  Considering taking low paid, full time job and finding myself in a right old twit for 24 hours until I decided against doing it.
  
  Counting down days of school holidays left.  Mediating (in a shouty way) in childrens arguments as they bicker endlessly
  
  Watching media madness take hold in UK over the upcoming Royal wedding (from afar) and wondering if I really should accept a fabulously kitsch invitation from the B High Commission to dress up and watch it all on their big screen.  Will it be a festive riot, or totally cringe worthy? (at the very least, good blog material I guess) - bah humbug!  Hasn't Kate got straight teeth?!  Am watching too much TV!
  
  
  Where to start?
  
  Well, my guess is that you’d like to know about the celebrity first....
  
  Two words.... Colin....Firth...  Yes, I spotted him in Kenya!
  
  

  
  

• Cost of living for Expats in Nairobi/Kenya

  Posted: April 5, 2011, 1:11 am by Africa Expat Wife

  Have been travelling!! Travelling within Kenya but it's remarkable because it's the first time I've been out of Nairobi since New Year - shock horror! Off again tomorrow!  Will be back to updating the blog regularly next week and telling you all about it.
  In the meantime, here's a 'Cost of Living' piece I wrote for the Kenya section of a website Expat Arrivals - (see sidebar for link).  Sorry it's a bit formal, just thought it might be interesting for anyone scouting about for information prior to moving here to Kenya.   -I got a bit carried away, as usual!  Apologies in advance to any other blog readers for whom this post is not relevant - Normally I'm picking your brains for information! 
  
  
  Cost of Living for Expats in Kenya
  
  
  There is a common misconception that living in poverty stricken Africa must be dirt cheap. Though there are many living in substandard conditions on very low incomes, this image has largely been fuelled by the international media. On arrival you will be surprised to find that there is a burgeoning middle class here. Many capital cities in Africa have glittering shopping malls with cinemas and restaurants dotted in amongst the street hustle and honestly, this is where many expats mingling with wealthier Africans, will find themselves.
  
  Xpatulator ranks the cost of living in Kenya as comparatively low amongst other international countries with Nairobi sitting at 260 out of the 300 locations calculated; However, I think that, since most expats live in the capital, this figure is misleading. If you were to eek out a simple existence in the countryside where there is little to buy then life in Kenya would be cheap but this is rarely the case.
  
  Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. It is also considered regional capital of East Africa which means that several international companies and organisations are based here. Due to the comparatively good healthcare, schools and shopping in Nairobi, you even find expats consultants basing their families here while they travel to work on projects in comparatively riskier countries in the region, such as Somalia and Sudan.
  
  If you are employed in the tourism industry or farming (tea/coffee/vegetables/flowers) then you might be based outside the capital however these expats are more the exceptions rather than the rule.
  
  Local Economy
  
  There is some local manufacturing (clothing, building materials, processed food, beverages and cigarettes) but the economy is fairly heavily reliant on tourism and rain-fed agriculture. A combination of frequent periods of drought, followed invariably by equally devastating flood and foreign office travel advisories due to a fairly precarious political situation, mean that the economy is vulnerable to cycles of boom and bust.
  
  The Telecommunications industry is also very strong in Kenya, having undergone a rapid period of expansion. Kenya is a world leader in new telecom technologies such as telephone banking. The majority of Kenyans own a mobile phone.
  
  Another undeniably large sector of the local economy is occupied by the Aid industry and this is growing. Many Donor headquarters have been moved from Northern Africa or South Africa to Kenya because it is more strategically placed for the distribution of aid to the continent. To give you an example, there are 9,000 employees at the UN headquarters in Gigiri, Nairobi.
  
  As well as the UN, many of foreign embassies have large aid missions whose sole purpose is the distribution of foreign aid funding, ie. DFID (UK), USAID, DANIDA. Historically many of these consultants were based out in the field but now consultants tend to be based in the capital making trips out into the field from time to time.
  
  Cost of Living
  
  Accommodation would typically cost a third of an expat salary. Food is relatively cheaper to buy than more developed countries, as long as you are ready to buy local where possible and don’t get too carried away buying imported goods. The cost of eating-out also compares favourably against other capital cities. Clothes and shoes are expensive to buy unless you are willing to shop at the city’s numerous second hand markets.
  
  It’s worth noting that when analysing your salary, you should bear in mind that there are some expenses that would not be incurred in the Western world.
  
  Security
  
  Most households/apartments (including many Kenyan ones) employ night security/guards. If you are living in a town house complex/apartments/gated community, security costs are often rolled into your rent. If you are living in a house within a separate compound, then you must pay for your own security. With back-up support, panic buttons plus the cost of one or two guards, security can cost up to 500 UK pounds per month, this might equate to say a maximum of 10% of your salary.
  
  (I find that employing night watchmen is hard.  If you are interested in this topic then put in a search on this blog and you'll find endless posts on 'our ex-night watchman/askari')
  
  Public Transport (or lack of)
  
  Most expats would not commonly use the public transport system which comprises exclusively of buses and mini-buses (matatus) in varying states of un-roadworthy-ness. There is no city tube and the country’s rail system is in tatters.
  
  The answer? Everyone owns a car (many are four wheel drive) and as a result the city is almost in gridlock. Cars are horribly expensive to buy since they are all imported. Unless you are tax exempt (ie an embassy or aid worker) then an import duty of 25% is levied on the value of every car brought in, on top of that there is another 16% VAT charged. Cars of more than seven years old are not allowed to be imported into the country.
  
  (see previous post on Matatu Culture by using Blogger Search function at top of this page)
  
  Healthcare
  
  A handful of Nairobi hospitals (Aga Khan, Nairobi Hospital, Gertrude’s Garden) offer almost world class private healthcare which is comparatively cheap. The Government subsidised Kenyatta Hospital has a less impressive record. Without the long waiting lists of the UK NHS service or the crippling cost of USA medical care, then Nairobi offers something of the best of both worlds. You actually get medical tourists arriving here. However, as a precaution, many expats take out fairly costly comprehensive medical insurance that allows them to be repatriated to their home country in the event of accident or terminal disease.
  
  (see previous post entitled 'Plastic Surgery in Kenya' - if it's at all reassuring, I have also had my appendix out and a baby here in Nairobi!)
  
  School Fees
  
  International and upper end private schools in Kenya where pupils are mixed, (ie. Expat/White, Kenyan and Asian) charge fees that are only slightly less than those of UK private schools and can add up to over 25% of your salary if you have two or more children.  It’s worth calculating how much you will need to spend on school fees before being posted to Kenya. Occasionally expat packages will cover school fees but this kind of deal is getting increasingly rare.
  
  (Check out the Africaexpatwivesclub.forumotion.com forum (direct link on sidebard of blog) for more info on Nairobi schools.)

  
  

• Staff Salaries...

  Posted: March 29, 2011, 11:47 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I never thought it would be easy.
  
  My plan was to suggest to the employees in our house that they open a bank account, then I could pay their salaries directly to each individual.  It's also time for a pay rise, so I would welcome not having to make covert trips to the bank to withdraw fistfuls of 1,000 shilling notes. 
  
  In spite of my initial fears, on making preliminary enquiries, I was pleasantly surprised.
  
  'Oh, Equity, I have one of those accounts, no problem.' One said.
  Another, 'I opened an account some time ago, I just need to go to Westlands to collect the card.'
  'I have a Postbank account, will that do?'
  
  This is what normally happens.  I throw out what I think might be a complex task for others to complete, then find it immediately flips back onto me to make the next move.  Hang on a minute, I thought, just how do I get these salaries paid into these various accounts when from month-to-month, depending on personal loans taken for trips home/funerals etc, the amount I pay out is always different.
  
  One lady (the one who used to keep cash in her room on our plot - that is, until recently when it got stolen by the night watchman) had to go off work early to visit Postbank (banking hours 9am to 4pm) where she found she does indeed have an account, though they do charge an annual fee of around 450 shillings.  This was fine. 
  
  The second lady wanted a lift to Westlands so that she could pick up her Equity card.  I thought I'd swing by on a round trip via school this afternoon but I tell you, today the traffic was terrible!  On arrival at the Westlands Branch, she was unsurprisingly informed that her card (which apparently had been waiting for her since last August) had been sent back to the hidden depths that is HQ.  As far as I understand it, she now has to apply for a new card.
  
  It seems that launching ourselves into the 21st (even 20th!) century here in Nairobi is, like everything, going to take time and patience.  I think I might just risk it and do cash again this month.....

  
  

• Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink....

  Posted: March 23, 2011, 7:18 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  At the weekend, whilst looking at our swimming pool that was positively brimming over as a result of heavy rainfall, we had a bright idea. Since the City Council had not sent water to us for two weeks and all the house tanks were empty, we thought; why not siphon some excess water from the pool?
  
  There are various methods of getting your hands on water in Nairobi but none of them are particularly cheap or easy. For Nairobi householders, the fact that water is a precious resource is brought into sharp focus on an almost daily basis.
  
  Boreholes
  
  1. Some apartment blocks or town house complexes draw water from boreholes that the owner/developer has had dug themselves. Digging a borehole costs a lot (a few million shillings) and nowadays you have to go very deep to ensure that the water table does not fall below the depth of your borehole in the long dry season. Our neighbour sunk a borehole just before building six houses in his garden. The noise of the machinery digging through layers of earth and rock was deafening. As a result of so many boreholes being dug, the water table in our area is slowly dropping.
  
  There are also rumours that borehole water is very high in fluoride which can play havoc with young teeth.
  
  Bowsers
  
  2. Other householders with no direct access to running water might buy a 10 thousand litre truck load of water on a more or less on a bi-weekly basis, depending on consumption. The water is pumped noisily from the truck into your ground tank. The cost of this water (that invariably has been taken from someone else’s borehole) is around three thousand shillings per tanker or ‘bowser’. You can’t miss these blue trucks on the road, belching out smoke from their exhausts, labouring up hills and splashing water onto the tarmac at the same time.
  
  When we need to buy a bowser of water, I usually give the delivery men a cup of tea. It’s worth keeping them on side – a day or two with no water can seem like a lifetime.
  
  City Council Supply
  
  3. If you are connected to a fruitful supply of City Council water (as we are) then you are onto a winner, however, the supply is patchy at best. City Council water is treated and pretty clean but they generally pump to your house only once or twice a week, sometimes only a trickle comes through, sometimes nothing, and very occasionally, more than we can possibly store.
  
  
  So back to the weekend dilemma.
  
  ‘Swimming pool water would be fine for bathing in, flushing loos, washing clothes.’ I said to my husband on a rainy Sunday afternoon. He agreed.
  
  Quickly enough (and after three attempts) he devised a method of siphoning water from the pool into our ground tank through the swimming pool vacuum pipe.  Pool water gushed into the ground tank satisfyingly. In fact it was steaming, since (thanks to solar heating) the pool water is warm.
  
  It was only on Monday that I realised the error of my ingenious plan. We use a salt water system to chlorinate our pool. In spite of boiling and filtering, my tea was rather salty, so was the gardener’s.
  
  ‘If we have to use bottled water to drink, cook and wash food in,' I said to my husband, feeling slightly ruffled,  'then saving the three thousand bob on a water bowser delivery is going to be a bit of a false economy!’
  
  ‘Well how much is a 20 litre bottle of drinking water anyway?’ My husband asked.
  
  ‘Five hundred shillings....a bit less.’ I groaned.
  
  ‘Hmm.’ The maths spoke for itself.
  
  The next day saw us siphoning the now cold water back from the ground tank and into the pool. Thanks to forces of gravity, this was a more complex system, with a necessity to make use of hose pipes and the antiquated electric pump that normally delivers water to our roof.
  
  Today the bowser men came. Fresh water, hooray! I made them a cup of tea....from mineral water. Am not sure how long it’s going to take to get the salt water out of our system.

  
  

• Nairobi Trivia

  Posted: March 18, 2011, 8:10 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Rain
  
  Just spent the week having hot flashes in shopping centres, wondering if menopause could really hit in ones (late) thirties, when the weather broke. After months of hot, muggy, sweaty weather, it’s finally raining here in Nairobi. Over the last couple of days we’ve had dark threatening clouds hanging over us accompanied by rolls of thunder followed by sheet rain (it's still quite warm though).
  
  My roadside friends tell me it’s time to hurry off to the shamba and start planting. The bad news is that forecasters predict that in some areas of the country (Eastern provice among others), the rains will fall short. Let’s hope that they have got that wrong.
  
  The other night, at midnight our middle daughter disturbed us because it was raining in her room... again.
  
  ‘There’s water coming into my room. It’s so noisy, I can’t sleep.’
  
  Groan. My husband turned over.
  
  I reluctantly woke up then went to inspect. I was expecting a trickle but sure enough found water pouring down her wall, onto her CD player and her DSlite and around her electrical wall socket.
  
  It seemed that the fundis who somewhat hopefully threw a heap of wet cement on top of our 1930s roof tiles a month ago expecting it to fix the flashing problem, got it wrong. Cue more strategic placing of buckets and towels.
  
  Minutiae
  
  I spent more than half an hour in the hardware shop this morning with the ever so nice carpenter James (pronounced Jims), figuring out how to get the termites, or white ants, out of our garden furniture. The people watching in there is great, which is just as well since you are generally left to stand around for so long waiting for service. I even met the charming plumber, Mr Weti in there. He’s such a sweetie.
  
  I went to the gym the other day because I’m still trying to work of those extra Christmas kilos that stubbornly won’t budge - and to my horror, perhaps in an enthusiastic dance moment, I dislodged one of the large inflatable exercise balls from the corner of the room and set it spinning across the assembled crowd of not gym bunnies, but what would more realistically be described as ‘gym mamas’, of which I am one. Face in hands, I watched as it rolled between ‘grapevine-ing’ feet. Fortunately no serious injuries occurred.
  
  Yesterday I was glad that the power was off since it meant that the kids couldn’t see the aphids and wriggly things that I’d tried to rinse out of their cooked broccoli in the washing up bowl. Bless them, they never suspected a thing.
  
  Self indulgent purchases
  
  My friend is wondering why, since I’ve taken up anti-aging facials each month, my spots have got so much worse. Well, I suppose that’s one way of turning back the clock.
  
  To cheer myself up about said facial ‘break out’, I bought a tight, navy tie-die dress from Mr Price. ‘For the coast?’ the same friend said. ‘Er, no.’ I said, then stalked off to buy myself some eye wateringly expensive jeans. The jeans were justified as my second hand market ‘Seven for all Mankind’ jeans have finally ‘given’ across the bottom (see above - extra kilos adding undue stress to the area).
  
  If I go for these dark blue ones, I reasoned, then it’s worth it because I’d never find dark blue in mitumba (second hand market) – everything there is faded. In fact I was lying to myself. You can get any number of shades of blue jean in mitumba, every style, every cut.
  
  When I got home I hid the new jeans in a cupboard for four days and destroyed any physical evidence of their price. Now that it’s raining, I can wear them (it was too hot before) and I’m so pleased that you’ll have to surgically remove them from my bottom for me to ever take them off.
  
  Current Affairs
  
  In between all this, I’ve been watching the news. This time last week the images of the Japan earthquake and tsunami were morbidly fascinating in an absolutely horrific way. A week later and with the nuclear reactor situation, it only gets worse.
  
  Libya is another rapidly degenerating scenario. I read today that British armed forces are most likely going in. I sent a spurt of coffee out of my friends’ nose yesterday at lunchtime when I said that I thought pictures of Muammar Gaddafi in the 1970s showed him as something of a dish?
  
  Hey ho. Another week in Nairobi.

  
  

• Comic Relief 2011 - Let's get some perspective on Kenya

  Posted: March 10, 2011, 2:57 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  I'm dying to watch the BBC Comic Relief documentary about 4 celebrities eking out a living for a week in Kibera slum.  Unfortunately you can't download BBC iplayer unless you are in the UK.  I remember feeling similar frustration last year when we missed a lot of the Comic Relief Kenya footage.
  (sorry for fuzzy pictures)
  Apparently 2011 Famous Rich and in the slums Part 1, goes something like this:
  
  Lenny Henry, Samantha Womack, Reggie Yates and Angela Rippon experience unimaginable poverty as they spend a week living it for real in this ground-breaking, two-part documentary for Comic Relief.
  
  All four agree to swap their lives of privilege and luxury for life in Kibera, reportedly Africa's largest slum. In this first programme, they are stripped of all their possessions and given under two pounds to buy the basics, before moving into cockroach-ridden individual shacks where they will live on their own for the first three days and nights.
  
  While Lenny, Samantha and Angela haggle to buy basics such as toothpaste, Reggie decides to spend his limited budget on trying to escape his new reality for a while by watching a football match, crammed into a tiny shack in with other fans. But the victory of the game is short-lived as Reggie needs to get to work. He bags himself one of the highest paid jobs in the slums: emptying raw sewage from the public pit latrines through the night.
  
  Lenny pays his way by making and selling samosas on the streets of the slum but agonises over whether to take his daily wage, which his boss could spend on vital medicine for his sick child. Samantha gets a cleaning job in a clinic where she witnesses shocking and emotional scenes, while Angela joins a queue of women from the slum offering to wash clothes in the affluent areas of Nairobi. She works so hard her hands are red raw, all for a pittance. Soon, she discovers the shocking reality of the choice her colleagues must make if they don't get picked for a job.
  
  
  
  It sounds fascinating/shocking viewing and I am sure that it will inspire many a television watching Brit at home to reach into their pocket for Comic Relief.   I gather there's another film with celebs trekking across Kenya's Northern Frontier district to raise awareness for an eye charity. Great.
  
  However, I do have a problem with this so wanted to put massive fund raising drives like this into the perspective of somebody who is 'on the ground' living in Kenya.
  
  Kibera slum, poverty, the shocking state of the health system - these are fundamentally Kenya Government problems that are systematically failed to be addressed.  Fact: The endless in flow of aid money is providing politicians and leaders with a means to continue lining their own pockets and an excuse to dodge ecomonic key issues.  In 50 years since Independance, in spite of generous amounts of aid money, the average Kenyan has grown poorer.
  
  Why, after decades of funding, are there still no toilets in Kibera?  Hundreds were promised in the 2007 election to be sponsored by Community Development Funds (CDF) - I think about six or ten public toilets were built.  I've seen them.  Kibera residents are sick of empty promises.  (see previous posts on Kibera).
  
  In fact, now we come to mention it, why - after all the money that has been donated, the vaster part by foreign governments, does Kibera still exist at all?  And lets not forget the other major slums in Nairobi, Mathare, Karangware, Dandora, Korogocho, Soweto - the list goes on.
  
  If you think me mean spirited - then look at the injustice of the fact that Kenyan politicians are among the richest people in the world!!  The more aid money that flows in, the more scams and siphoning that goes on.  The local papers filled with stories of corruption every day. 
  
  Wikileaks quoted the US ambassador to Kenya Ranneburger as having said;
  'Kenya is a flourishing swamp of corruption.'
  He was bang on, but after the embarrassment of this and other unfavourable comments that he fed back to the USA being leaked, he was sent home.
  
  [www.independent.co.uk]
  
  Forgive me for spouting off using mass generalisations but:.....
  
  The corruption is so endemic in Kenya that it filters down to all corners of daily life, you almost become anaesthetised to the problem as you live with it.  Politicians literally think they are immune to prosecution when public funding goes into their pockets - mainly because they have acted poorly with utter impunity for the past half century.  Since leaders in Kenya have forever led by an example using principals of  'survival of the fittest' and 'help yourself before helping others' even when you are already fat and rich - then what hope is there for everyone else?  It's not that ordinary people aren't nice - they couldn't be nicer, friendlier, sunnier in the face of adversity but when it comes down to it petty theft/corruption - it's almost understandable in the quest just to survive.
  
  What really sucks is that even the aid givers/foreign consultants are nowadays complicit (you can see it in all the big organisations DFID, UN, USAID etc). - Suddenly big cars are needed for projects, generous house allowances required, school fees paid, flights home for consultants - then budgets, for want of knowing how best to disburse them, are given out by these consultants to highly convincing local government ministers.  The money never actually reaches the poorest who need it most.  Projects stall or fail, targets are not reached.  Years later, nobody is interested in following up on where the money has gone, was it spent effectively?  The poor end up having to continue as usual, fending for themselves, hustling, finding opportunities - and since this is what they are forced by circumstance to do, so then, the circle continues.
  
  My advice would be to donate to Comic Relief charities in the UK.  At least Comic Relief representatives will be bothered to be on hand to oversee projects and make sure your money really makes a difference.  You, as the giver, can even track their progress. 
  
  Maybe there are exceptions but I'm sorry to say this - (it's so damn depressing) - but more often than not, when money comes to Kenya, it tends to disappear into a black hole, never to be seen again.
  
  Whatever Bono says; Trade, not Aid to Africa - is advisable as a way of taking things forward.
  
  I would still love to see the Comic Relief film.  It sounds like the chosen celebs really had their work cut out, I would never have been able to meet the challenges they were set.  However, throwing money at Kibera via Comic Relief or wherever, with the best will in the world, is not going to make the place go away.

  
  

• Theft, green cards and politics

  Posted: March 9, 2011, 8:44 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  Petty Theft
  
  We had a slightly fraught evening yesterday when it was brought to our attention that somebody has been stealing.  The lady who works in our house lost her salary from her locked room in the staff quarters.  (She doesn't sleep there but has a private room for her rest times etc).
  
  My first reaction was to ask, 'why was the money there?'
  'I take what I need home, then keep the balance in my room here for safekeeping.' 
  
  The perpetrator had apparently been able to enter the padlocked room and then leave, locking the door behind him without anyone noticing.  To be honest, though the door was locked, it would not have taken a rocket scientist to undo the screws around the bolt, then screw them back in again.
  
  Blame was placed squarely at our night watchman's door.  The gardener complained that many of his belongings that he'd left safe in his room when he left work in the evening, had also gone missing, bits of food, a new hat, 100 shillings bus fare.   And I learned yesterday that this has been going on for about a year.
  
  It was sad on a few counts.  Sad that the lady that works in our house does not have a bank account - I feel slightly responsible about that - and that she feels that the safest place in the world  for her to leave her cash is here, except it's not safe.  More importantly, we like the night watchman.  I don't like to think of him skulking about in other people's rooms at night like a fox.  Having said that, it might be relevant that he hasn't asked us for a loan for school fees for quite some time.
  
  'He'll have to be redeployed' I said to my husband. 
  Fortunately the night watchman is employed by an outside firm.
  'What about the police?' he asked. 'What about trying to get the money back off him?'
  'We don't have evidence.  Don't say anything to the security firm, we don't want to get him in trouble.'
  My prediction is that police involvement would result in overly harsh treatment of a hungry man who is pushing his luck. 
  
  'Please, please, please can we stop having night watchmen now?' I asked.  'It's too heartbreaking.'
  'No.' was the response.
  
  The replacement guy turned up.
  'What tribe are you?' Our older housekeeper lady asked immediately.
  I gently told her off but she shrugged.
  'We always ask each other's tribe.' she said. 'It's fine.'
  It seems things will never change.
  
  Green Cards
  
  Our very much ex-ex-ex nightwatchman who lives in Kibera, sent me a surprise sms  a week or two ago.
  
  'Good evening.i applied for US green card 2008.I've been lucky to win a permanent resident card in US!'
  
  I must admit, I felt excited for him too - though unsure.  I know about the green card lottery but am not sure how it works.  A green card is one thing but presumably cash is needed to get over to the USA - and setting up a new life would be costly, plus, what about dependants?
  
  Business managers we know complain that they often lose good, trained and qualified people to the green card lottery.  It wasn't the first time I'd heard about a case like this.
  
  The next text said;
  
  'we r excited!yes I wish 2 go family, but then i want to find out requirements. i don't know where to start! send me your email address, I send, u read and advice us.'
  
  But the next evening came the final message,
  
  'i was at US embassy, gigiri. i went to verify docs i was sent. its FRAUD! US embassy has discovered & have list of Nigerians and r being tracked. it was a FAKE letter.'
  
  Poor thing, I think he was gutted.
  
  
  Politics
  
  When a Nation Media news SMS came in via text message last night, stating that the ICC would definitely summon the 6 public figures perceived to be most guilty of masterminding post election violence to their courts - I was delighted.  The announcement came earlier than expected and reading between the lines of the newspaper, caught everyone off guard.  Kalonzo Musyoka has been busy with his shuttle diplomacy mission for months now, trying to wriggle out of Kenya being under the Hague's jurisdiction.  Has he been pipped to the post?  Last night I immediately had mental images of frantic phone calls exchanged between various politicians wringing their hands. Drama.
  
  The 6 (see previous post) are due to appear at the ICC courts on the 7th April.  Things are moving fast.  If they fail to pitch, a warrant will be out for their arrest (not that that has made much impact on other wanted political personalities, I'm thinking Bashir?).  Kenyan Civil society today called for the resignation of named MPs, there's rumour circulating that petitions by Kenyans supporting the ICC process now, collectively have over 800,000 signatures.  But the corruption problem is so endemic that politicians still seem convinced that they are immune from justice forever.  Or are they?
  
  Combined with Wikileaks revelations hitting the paper most days, it makes for exciting times.  In my opinion the ICC summonses are great news.

  
  

• Nairobi National Museum - falling down?

  Posted: March 8, 2011, 1:47 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I've been a huge fan of the National Museum in Nairobi since it reopened after extensive renovation (see previous post).  However, we visited on Sunday in an attempt to breathe some life into an 'early man' history project that our ten year old is supposed to write - and I was more than a little disappointed.  The EU obviously spent a fortune getting the Museum remodelled and reorganised with fabulous results but, two years since its glittering opening, it seems that money for running costs is not there. 
  
  
  It doesn't help that there are huge roadworks going on outside, making the entire area of the city resemble a vast red lunar landscape.  Sadly, as a result of road renovations, the eyecatching mosaic archway entrance to the museum was unceremoniously pulled down by the city council only after a year or two of standing.  Apparently there are plans to build a new one in the future.
  
  Once inside, the once impressive exhibits looked noticeably dusty and slightly unloved.  Lights in display cases were not switched on (or not working).  There was no water in the bathrooms/loos (broken seats/filthy), and, more worryingly, no water in the Savanna restaurant which, surprisingly has also not been properly maintained.  There was a broken loo handle in the single loo, that someone had attempted to mend with a piece wood and wire - but, with no water, the improvised fix did not work.  We decided not to eat there since my husband has just cured himself from a bout of helicobactor pylori and we felt the chef might be compromised if he's not even able to wash his hands. 
  (maybe the lack of water was due to the road renovations outside, but still, presumably water could have been trucked in?  Surely provision could be made?)
  
  For my daughter's project, there was not a single information leaflet to pick up (reception told me very nicely, 'they got finished'), not even a picture postcard to buy.  When I asked in the museum shop if I could purchase any book or pamphlet about the museum I was told that there was none available, just a row of dusty novels written about Africa in various incarnations. 
  
  It's a tragedy since, thanks to the EU funding and renovation done, this could be a National museum to hold its head up alongside those found in London, New York, Paris - but once within the walls it's all too obvious that the infrastructure just isn't there.
  
  The model is a familiar one.  Throw cash at a charitable project without a proper plan for maintenance, upkeep, running costs - or view to running the place as a successful/profitable business.
  
  It reminds me of visiting a school for deaf children in Dar es Salaam on behalf of a friend who wanted us to take photographs for his fund raise.  When we arrived there was a shiny red pick up truck in the drive.
  
  'Wow, that's refreshing!  At least they don't seem to be in too much need of cash.'  I said to my husband. 
  
  How wrong I was.  After a two hour tour of the premises where we were shown broken audio equipment, electrics that needed fixing, smashed windows and water tanks that leaked, we got to the subject of transport. 
  
  We were told that a major problem was that many of the children and staff found the public bus service (dhalla-dhallas) to get to school too expensive.  At this point I plucked up courage to ask about the car parked outside.
  
  'Yes, it was a donation from Britain,' said the headmaster, 'it could help us....but we have no money for fuel.'
  
  'So you never use it?' my husband asked.
  
  'We keep it for emergencies.  The fuel is too expensive.'
  
  
  The National Museum is still well worth a visit but, unless a proper plan is made for maintenance and upkeep, then it will fall (predictably?) into wrack and ruin all too quickly - which, goes without saying, would be a crying shame.  I had such high hopes.

  
  

• Moving to Kenya or just visiting? 2011 update

  Posted: March 2, 2011, 11:55 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I wrote a post ages ago (April 2008) on what life is like in Nairobi for anyone who might be thinking of moving here from overseas. Since this remains one of my most popular posts, I decided it might be time to update it for 2011. Most of the info in the original post is still relevant so worth casting your eye over too.
  
  Being an Expat
  Before I begin and at risk of stating the obvious, as an expat, you really have to embrace the ‘cup half full’ mentality and try not to be a negative soul. What I love about living here in East Africa is that every day is an adventure and, away from the more formal nature of life back home, it’s a liberating experience and can inspire you to try anything – set up an art gallery, become an expert on conservation, write a blog!
  
  Friendly
  It’s true. Kenya is really such a bubbly, friendly place effervescing with an entrepreneurial spirit which, first and foremost, can be seen in the huge informal employment sector of hawkers and craftspeople all plying their trade at street level; hustling like crazy. If you approach an exchange with a smile, you will invariably get one back and don’t be flustered by curious stares that mean no ill. Accept that you are a stranger and don’t feel threatened. Kids are always an instant ice breaker.
  
  Frustrating
  Learning some Swahili and making an effort to understand the culture can go a long way to easing daily frustrations but is by no means a cure-all. The pump attendant might mistakenly put diesel in your petrol car, the supermarket will double charge you for something, the meat the butcher sold you is off. You’ll inevitably have days where you are asked for money by employees to help solve personal problems when you yourself are feeling a tad impoverished (having paid high rent and school fees). The ATM is down and then you’ll get stuck in interminable traffic, held up by senseless road works, a herd of cows or a hand cart.
  
  You might have to wait hours for food at a restaurant, only to fail to get what you asked for. The power might be off for a couple of days, your water tank empty.  Quality workmanship sometimes seems an impossible dream. 
  
  A word of warning, the crosser you get, the more bloody minded the person that you are 'crossing' becomes – it’s really worth trying to keep that smile pasted on and keep your temper in check. I often find this hard as small irritations added together can occasionally cause you to lose perspective.
  
  Disparity of wealth.
  I’ve written at length about this in the past. I find that it’s one of the hard, hard, hardest things about living here in East Africa. After 12 years I am still constantly juggling feelings of guilt and pangs of frustration. Empathy and, if you can, creating employment on any level, helps. (search previous posts on our ex-askari/nightwatchman - resident of Kibera slum)
  
  Security
  Security is an issue. Most compounds/houses employ private firms to provide askaris (night watchmen) as a matter of course. However, it’s worth remembering that security reports (that are circulated regularly online or via email) are almost always compiled by private security companies who stand to profit from your fear. There are 3 million people in Nairobi, all equally exposed to scams and petty crime. The expats are almost most heavily protected bunch of the lot and hardest targets for thieves. You are far more likely to be a victim of crime if you live in one of Nairobi’s infamous slums.
  
  Cost of living
  The cost of living is high in this region.
  
  The private night security (mentioned above) comes with a heavy price, which in turn pushes up rent. Electricity is fearfully expensive but on the upside, you won’t have to heat your house/apartment! Food costs quite a lot, especially when you are buying imported goods, cleaning products etc. – however fruit and veg are legendary in Nairobi (a major international exporter) and the meat you can buy is delicious and a lot cheaper too. Booze is cheaper, but don’t forget that you’ll probably be buying drinking water, though many people boil and/or filter the tap water as a substitute. City Council water is treated and is not bad but you can never guarantee the cleanliness of storage tanks and many residential complexes draw water from boreholes these days (can be high on fluoride). It’s worth checking where the water in your tap is coming from.
  
  Eating out is cheaper than back home for us Brits but not that much cheaper. I find that our guests often expect living to cost much less here, I guess because it’s Africa – they are always shocked by the prices of lots of things, even local crafts. Clothes are expensive due to heavy import taxes. Even the famous second hand markets (mitumba) are asking higher than Primark prices for almost everything.
  
  Medical
  Medical bills can add up, but once you tap into the rather informal system here visiting highly qualified consultants based in various hospitals around the city and savvy doctor’s surgeries you will realise that the healthcare in Nairobi is almost second to none. Referrals are quick; Waiting lists nonexistent. Pharmacies offer good advice over the counter (obviously they are experts in tropical illnesses) and will often allow you to buy drugs, even antibiotics, without prescription. You can even join the inexpensive Flying Doctor’s service if you are worried about emergency back up when outside the city.
  
  Once-in-a-lifetime holiday destinations on your doorstep
  Kate Middleton and Prince William got engaged here - say no more!
  
  An incredible coastline, Rift Valley, game parks all boasting the big 5 and all within an easy drive of Nairobi. Most of the National Parks and lodges come with a high price tag, though rates are reduced for residents. If you are an intrepid type and want to see lots, buy a tent (take a medical box of emergency supplies), check out places like the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) self catering houses/bandas and go for it!
  
  Housing
  As Kenya is in a period of rapid urbanisation, Nairobi has been experiencing a property development boom for years now. The majority of residential areas are now dotted with either apartment complexes or gated town house developments but if you have the budget it is still possible to find lovely self contained properties with pretty gardens the further out of the city centre you go. As said before, rents and property purchase prices are high. (More on this on the africaexpat forum: [africaexpatwivesclub.forumotion.com]  )
  
  Weather
  The weather really is good! No snow! The temperature in Nairobi rarely drops below 12 degrees. Having said that, the year that we moved here, due to El Nino, it seemed to rain almost every day for 12 months. Everyone embraces rainy conditions here, since, while it’s not perfect holiday weather, it is so much preferable to the sadly commonly occurring alternative - drought.
  
  Shopping
  Shopping is either done in modern shopping centres with off street parking, coffee shops, cinemas and big supermarkets; Nakumatt, Uchumi and Tusky’s, or in the more informal side of the road dukas (shops). Most people seem happy to mix the two from day-to-day.
  
  Schools
  There are tons of private primary/preparatory schools in Nairobi follow the UK system (Hillcrest, Peponi, Brookhouse, Banda, Kenton, Braeburn – upcountry boarding; St Andrews Turi, Pembroke). International School Kenya has a great reputation too. Secondary level, you have Peponi, Braeburn, Hillcrest and ISK. The intake is mixed Kenyan, Asian, European and the schools are pricey. Cost ranging from 120,000 to 300,000 Kenya Shillings per child, per term.
  
  Working
  As a foreigner, don't forget you will need a work permit for residency here.  Getting one of these can be costly and time consuming, bureaucracy a nightmare.  The applications must show you are completing various criteria such as; being the bearer of a professional qualification, investing not less than a certain amount, creating jobs, providing training.  Each work permit needs to be renewed every two years.  Spouses and kids are then 'dependants' (applied for separately) on their partner's work permits.  It's a bit of a nightmare but not impossible.
  
  Internet Access and communications
  Kenya is quite far ahead in terms of mobile phones and a world leader in mobile phone banking.  Kenya's fibre optic cable is still in the process of being laid (I believe it is, if not it's complete already) - so broadband access is already possible for some.  Alternatively, it's Wireless internet access at home is available via various internet providers.  There are also various internet 'hotspots' such as Java coffee house, where you can get free online access and plentiful internet centres.  The land line telephone service has been taken over by Orange, who are investing heavily, trying to improve this service (they still have problems with physical copper lines being stolen).  Many private homes have given up on landlines, since the mobile network is very good and highly affordable, but most businesses have both working landlines and mobile contact numbers.
  
  Other relevant Websites
  
  Still hungry for information?  Check out the following websites:
  
  [www.kenyabuzz.com] ; [www.xpatlink.info] ; [www.wordofmouth.co.ke] ; [www.home.co.ke] ; [www.propertykenya.com]
  
  Also, don’t forget my forum to follow and join online chats! [africaexpatwivesclub.forumotion.com]
  
  Local newspapers online: [www.nairobistar.com]  ; [www.standardmedia.co.ke]  ; [www.nation.co.ke]

  
  

• Are you a Kenya Cowboy?

  Posted: February 23, 2011, 12:44 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  
  1. Do you own more than one passport? Is your name just one syllable long?
  
  2. Is your Swahili a hell of a lot better than that of your parents? Do you know a few words in Kikuyu and Maa too?
  
  3. Does your daily uniform consist of; short khaki shorts, socks and suede Bata boots (The boots that say you know Africa), checked shirt, sleeveless fleece, beaded belt, (Leatherman attached), leather hat or baseball cap? And while we are on the subject, when did you buy your jeans? The 80s?
  
  4. Do you live in a house on your parents’ property? Do you have Sunday lunch or sundowners with them every week?
  
  5. Do you have a pilot’s licence or own a long wheel base Landcruiser with high lift jack and game viewing hatches?  Are there Kenny Rogers cds in there?
  
  6. Have you worked in the Safari business? Are you also something of an expert in local flora, fauna and birdlife?
  
  7. Can you open a beer bottle without an opener, make a loud cattle whistle by sticking your fingers in your mouth and flick your hand to make a clicking sound to emphasise a point?
  
  8. Do people have trouble placing your accent and do your sentences often begin or end with the word, ‘man’.
  
  9. Are your friends exclusively all people you have known since childhood?
  
  10. Have you named your children after geographic landmarks in Kenya? I’m thinking mountain peaks, national park gates, rivers etc?
  
  Help – I think I married one!!! Yikes!

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

• UK MPs in Jail for petty fraud

  Posted: February 17, 2011, 11:52 pm by Africa Expat Wife

  I am hopelessly out of date on current affairs, always.  I do try and read the Telegraph online every day (The Times is for subscribers only), I get a subscription to The Week thanks to my mum and my mother-in-law regularly, very kindly posts various supplements from the weekend papers.  I also occasionally watch the BBC news.  However, on reading a back dated copy of The Times Review this morning, I was surprised to see news that a UK MP was actually jailed for fiddling his expenses (remanded rather than just severely reprimanded).
  
  I'm not sure how this whole scandal slipped past my radar.. apart from the fact that the news broke in early January and we were still in the throws of Christmas, school starting and visitors.  Anyhow, I thought it worth a mention especially since the 'oh so vocal' Kenyan politicians seem to get away with murder in this country, literally -(since they are busy trying to divorce themselves from the remit of the ICC).  Big sigh! 
  
  (BTW Chris Foot, new presenter on Capital FM, please do stop trying to brain wash us all that Ocampo is some sort of bumbling crook and that no one believes in the ICC - it's grating - your mates are going down.)
  
  Back to the point - In actual fact, two UK MPs have now been jailed for the same infraction (the second in Feb) - defrauding public funds.  Former Labour MP David Chaytor was found guilty of fraudulently claiming 18,350 pounds (around 2 million shillings) in expenses over a matter of years.  He apparently claimed for rent for two homes, one using a fake tenancy agreement, the other claiming for a home that was actually owned by his senile mother and forged invoices for computer services.  He is now in jail for 18 months - He's recently been moved to an open prison but still, his barrister described him as 'a broken man.'
  
  Fomer Labour MP Eric Illsley was sentanced to 12 months in prison having been charged with false accounting amounting to 14,500 in parliamentary expenses.  Tory Peer Lord Taylor of Warwick has been found guilty in January and is awaiting sentancing.  Two other former MPs Elliot Morley and Jim Devine are still awaiting trail.
  
  It's worth noting that these MPs are paid far less for their public service than their Kenyan counterparts.  When the MPs expenses scandal first broke in the Uk in 2009, some felt that the fraud was almost 'justifiable' since they were paid so poorly.  In the context of Kenyan politics, the amounts defrauded are tiny compared to the 'billion shilling' scandals we are used to hearing/reading about, so you'd almost be forgiven for thinking the charges insignificant.  Yet they are not.  These UK MPS have been taken to task ostensibly because they have 'born a small but signficant part of the responsibility in the public's loss of trust in MPs'.  Fair enough.
  
  I'm not suggesting a Middle East style/Facebook revolution here, but really - when does the impunity end?

  
  

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes