Carols by Candlelight

Carol services and concerts bring back memories for me of cold churches, and the need therefore of wearing thermal underwear underneath whatever the choir or orchestra dress was, and of consuming vast quantities of Fisherman’s Friends in order to quell the inevitable tickly cough (which always seemed to be at its worst in the quieter moments for some reason?!).
Whilst Fisherman’s Friends do still make an appearance in concerts these days, our Carol Service last week was far from cold. For the last two years, Karen Vineyard Church has held its Carols by Candlelight service in the grounds of the Karen Blixen Museum (as in ‘Out of Africa’). So, whilst Karen Blixen “had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills”, so we had a beautiful carol service there. I arrived early for sound checks, and a last (and only 2nd) practice with my accompanist, as I was playing 3 flute solos as well as being part of the band for the carols. The gazebo that we were playing under was already set up, as was the sound system. We had a little panic with lights, realizing that the two light bulbs suspended from the canvas weren’t going to be sufficient for the band plus singers once the African night descended. Elsewhere, people set to making mulled wine, decorating trees with lights, and getting the candles ready for everyone coming to hold.
Gradually, people began to arrive with their picnics, sitting on blankets or shukas on the ground or on chairs that they’d brought. The sun by now was setting behind the hills. And then, just as it was getting dark, we started. A mix of traditional Christmas carols, readings, two solos sung by Doreen Ziegler, my contribution of pieces by Rutter and Telemann, and a short Christmas message from our pastor, Doug Brown. From my vantage point, I was aware of hundreds of flickering candles in the African night air, and the lights on the tree by the ‘stage’. The calls of nightbirds and cicadas added to the atmosphere (the blood-curdling call of the tree hyraxes didn’t start until afterwards!). There was one particularly beautiful moment when Doreen was singing, ‘O Holy Night’, and a single bright star was shining in the sky. The evening was rounded off with the mulled wine (nothing like it for warming you up on a ‘cold’ winter’s eve!!!!) and mince pies. What a wonderful and beautiful start to the Christmas season!

A Precious Commodity

A fairly common sight on Nairobi roads, competing with the cars, lorries and buses, are hand-pulled carts loaded with a variety of things – coconuts, vegetables,….. or yellow jerrycans for water. The latter are the only source of water for a good percentage of the population, where mains water is a luxury to dream of. Mind you, even when you’re on mains water, there’s no guarantee you’ll actually find anything coming out of the tap! Another common sight are water bowsers, lorries with a container of water on the back, for filling people’s water tanks (again, when there’s nothing coming through the mains). Nairobi has three dams, but the lack of rains over the last two years has meant that water levels have been exceedingly low, resulting in water rationing in large parts of the city. It is estimated that even with them full, they would supply just 81% of the city’s water demand (a supply of 525,000 cubic metres per day versus a demand of 650,000 cubic metres). Not a very good statistic, and with them far from full …….
We were promised El Nino rains, though what we’ve had so far, whilst heavy at times, has not been enough and couldn’t really be described as El Nino. However, one of the dams, Ndakaini, has seen an increase in its water level from 33% in October to 54% in November. There’s still quite a way to go to see it full, and we’re more than halfway through what would normally be the period of these short rains. So, whilst Manila, Ouagadougou and Cockermouth have experienced flooding in recent months, Nairobi seems, at this stage at least, to be set for more water rationing and a continuation of the drought in the months to come. Can’t we spread it out somehow?!

Vandals in the tree?

The rains have sort of started, though it’s hardly the El Nino that they’ve been talking about. We are desperately in need of plenty to fill the dams that serve the 4 million people living in Nairobi. With what we’ve had, the dust has finally settled on the mud road that I walk along to get from home to the office, and the grass is just starting to turn green again. There are reports however of the toll of the drought around the country on wildlife and domestic animals, and of course on people where crops have failed, and water has been so scarce for so long. Some plants, like grass, are amazingly resilient, springing back to life. It seems that the tree outside my flat, which has looked rather bare for a while now, isn’t faring so well. One sign of this has been woodpeckers in it, pecking away at the dead wood, presumably to get to whatever insects are living inside. I’ve heard their rhythmic tapping at various times over the last month, but on Saturday I was rewarded with a good sighting of them. A friend asked me what kind they are. Hmm, - hard to tell. Most of the 13 kinds of woodpeckers in my 'Birds of Kenya' book look pretty similar to these – small, speckled and with a red cap.
Several branches broke off the tree and fell down yesterday into the parking area, narrowly missing my car. Not sure if that would have happened anyway or if those woodpeckers were to blame!

Airports

“There’s a problem with your baggage. The police are holding it.” These were the words that greeted me as I attempted to board the plane at Ouagadougou airport to take me back to East Africa - or at least that was the translation I got from an Ethiopian Airlines steward a few minutes later! For a moment after being drawn aside at the bottom of the steps to the aircraft, I’d wondered whether they were going to upgrade me to Business Class – but no! It was a security issue. So, just 15 minutes before the plane was due to take off, I was whisked off back through security (where my handbag and laptop bag had been dutifully and rigorously manually searched a few minutes earlier), and back through Immigration. We were met by another steward who it seemed had gone the extra mile in putting my suitcase through the X-ray machine. Of course, there wasn’t anything in there (though my music stand sometimes gets people wondering, as does my flute in my hand luggage – not too many wandering minstrels passing through these African airports, it seems!). The main problem seemed to be that I’d locked it – but then, who wouldn’t?!
Airports vary immensely – and I’ve been through quite a few over the last few months. Jomo Kenyatta, Nairobi – London Heathrow – Dallas Fort Worth – John Wayne, Santa Ana – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – Philadelphia – Charlotte, North Carolina - Bole, Addis Ababa – Bamako – Ouagadougou. Some have an array of shops, eating places, video screens, wi-fi and electrical sockets so you can recharge your laptop allowing you to continue working for the duration of the next flight! At others, you’re lucky to find a seat. Some have signs letting you know exactly what to do; at others, you’re pretty much left to figure it out for yourself (and it’s not necessarily intuitive). Public announcements about flights were pretty much non-existent in Bamako. There was certainly no departures board, and the occasional tanoy announcement was very difficult to decipher. Ouagadougou Airport seemed to be more of a construction site than anything (that’s where seats were a rare luxury).
However, security is vigilant the world over. X-ray machines in most; physical searches in others. I was none too pleased though when I had to drink all the water that I’d filled my bottle with on the BA flight itself from Nairobi to London, as soon as I touched terra firma at Heathrow. There was still another 6 hours until I’d be airborne again. And they took my contact lens solution – Boots’ sales must be boosted from all the transit passengers who’ve suffered in similar ways! In the States, I flew to California with just hand luggage, borrowing small bottles from a friend, which I filled with the liquids and creams necessary for 4 nights away, and then squeezed them into a quart-size Ziploc bag (stretching the plastic as I did!). And bought sunscreen there which I gave away 3 days later – well, that was cheaper than paying for my weekend bag to go in the hold! My other American trick was to fill up the water bottle at one of the drinking fountains. Why oh why don’t such things exist in UK airports?! I wouldn’t want water from any in African airports mind, though at least there you can keep your water with you until you go to the gate itself, which any discerning traveller knows, you don’t do until you have to (no loos there for one thing!)!
Travelling across Africa can be entertaining. Such a variety of people and outfits. Some experienced travellers; for others, flying is clearly something very new. With the liquid restrictions, the days are now gone of seeing bottles of cooking oil brought onto the plane (I saw one once that had a piece of paper stuffed into the top, the cap apparently having gone missing!). However, you do see a lot of hand luggage. There is generally a bit of a stampede to get onto the plane and seize the overhead locker space. And there is certainly much less observance of matching your boarding pass with the seat that you then occupy! I did quite well out of that one this last trip, For some reason, our travel agent had booked aisle seats for me, when I generally prefer window ones. However, because of people not being able to follow seating plans, I wound up with window seats for most of the 6 flights anyway!
Anyway, the baggage held by the police was released, thanks to the Ethiopian Airlines steward, and I did make the flight (the next one to Addis wasn’t for another 3 days), and was back home in Nairobi the following day.

Period of Absence

For those who’re regular followers of my blog, it’s perhaps been noticeable that there has been a definite lack of postings over the last couple of months. An indication perhaps that I’ve been seemingly constantly on the move in that time - literally. Since my last post at the end of July, I’ve been on 10 planes, and have 2 more to go this week. Not a good carbon footprint, I’m afraid, though rather typical it seems of working in an international setting.
Some of the highlights of that time have been:
• Having the opportunity to work for a month in the International Finance department at SIL International headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
• The number of people I knew in Dallas, either because they’re normally, or have been, based in Nairobi, or through workshops in Nairobi, Togo or Cameroon. It made my time there seem like home from home.
• Experiencing a rodeo for the first time (I thought the guys riding the bucking broncos and bulls were completely mad!).
• A day visiting the sights of Fort Worth, Texas. Botanical gardens, the water gardens (when we finally found them), and the Stockyard area (definitely cowboy country!).
• Having the opportunity to meet with friends in California and Pennsylvania, given that I was in the neighbourhood (relatively speaking!).
• A bonus weekend with family in the UK, en route back to Nairobi from the US.
• A picnic lunch with my Nairobi church home group by the dam that provides the home of a couple in the group with water. Great people and an amazing setting.
• Meeting with people in Bamako, Mali and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. • An evening of traditional Burkinabe dancing and music at the French Cultural Centre in Ouagadougou. So energetic – and in this heat!!!

Nairobi in Bloom

I always like this time of year in Nairobi as it’s when the jacaranda blooms. Whilst not indigenous, it is a very striking tree. Around the end of September / beginning of October, the city becomes dotted with splashes of the lilac flowers, and even the ground becomes more colourful as the flowers start to drop. Jacaranda seems to be one of the few flowering trees here where the flowers come before the leaves. And it’s meant to be a sign of rain. I’m not sure if that’s because the tree ‘knows’ that rain is coming, or just because their flowering time precedes that of the rains. The tree here is just along the road from where I live. The area under it used to be full of dukas (small stalls) selling a variety of goods. These were torn down last October by Nairobi City Council. Some enterprising duka owners however have continued to set up shop each day and continue their business, just laying the fruit and vegetables on the ground around the stools that they sit on. They seem to be there from first thing in the morning, drinking cups of chai (sweet milky tea), keeping their businesses open until into the evening.

Turtle Release

We had our conference at Turtle Bay Beach Club in Watamu this year. A wonderful place! We had 6 days’ of meetings, but also had time to just enjoy the surroundings and the warmth after the cool of Nairobi. Whilst there, I was fortunate enough to witness the release of 2 lots of turtles back into the Indian Ocean. These had been caught in fishermen’s nets, then handed over to Watamu Turtle Watch (www.watamuturtles.com), who rehabilitated, checked and tagged them, and then released them back to the sea. Over the last 4 years they have apparently released over 3,000 turtles back to the wild. Without this scheme almost all of these turtles would have been killed. The remuneration to the fishermen is small in comparison to the (illegal) commercial worth of the turtle; so it is a sustainable programme and does not encourage abuse. What a treat to be there to witness 4 of these beautiful creatures being returned to their natural habitat!

Ethiopian Fare

At the beginning of July, I was in Addis Ababa for 4 days of meetings. Whilst there, my Kenyan colleague John, and I, were taken out for a traditional Ethiopian meal by 3 of our Ethiopian colleagues. I’d had Ethiopian food in Nairobi but this seemed different somehow, maybe because of the setting, or the company, or because it really was the real thing.

The staple Ethiopian food is injera, a thin sour-tasting bread, upon which are served various meat and vegetable dishes (Wots, Tibs and Fitfit) with their distinctive spicy flavours. The Injera is also used to scoop up mouthfuls of the sauces and meat from the shared plate. The main ingredient of Injera is Teff. This is the tiniest cereal and used as a staple food only in Ethiopia, where it is believed to have originated between 4000 and 1000 BC. Injera preparation usually takes two to three days. The teff is ground, then mixed in water along with yeast, and then set aside at room temperature for 2 days so it ferments and rises. After the fermentation process is finished, the mix is cooked on a hot flat iron pan called 'Mitad'. A circular motion is used to achieve a thin consistency. On contact between the hot pan and the fermented teff mix/batter, thousands of tiny air bubbles escape, creating tiny craters/eyes on the side facing upwards, whilst the side touching the hot mitad pan is flat. It’s this porous structure which allows the injera to be a good bread for scooping up sauces. Restaurants will serve your dishes on injera and bring a side dish of rolled-up injera for scooping purposes.
Eating with Injera – Handling Instructions
1. Tear off a small piece (size of your palm)
2. The side with holes is the one that makes contact with the sauce / meat
3. Scoop or grab one or more lots of sauce / meat with the injera
4. Use your fingers (one hand only) to control so that pieces don’t fall out
5. When the excess injera has gone, you can eat the bottom / tablecloth injera. This will now be saturated with the juices and flavours of the sauces.

(Info taken from www.ethiopianrestaurant.com/injera)

Road Hazards

There are many road hazards in Kenya, from potholes, ruts, police checkpoint spikes, vehicles in bad repair and without decent brakes, matatus, and bad driving,.......... to goats, cows, donkeys, camels (!) and generally ‘unaware-of-the-dangers-of-the-road’ pedestrians. Somewhere on the way out of Nairobi to see friends near Machakos on Saturday, I came across another hazard - nails. I discovered a 3 inch nail both going in, and out of my tyre, when I was opening my friends’ gate. Amazingly, even on removal, the tyre stayed inflated – I saved by the tread on my tyres being somewhat deeper than most vehicles around here!

Big ‘wasp’ to big hand!

A lesson I inadvertently learnt at church last Sunday is that it’s best not to swat the ‘fly’ that you think is buzzing round your head until you’ve actually verified its identity. The ‘fly’ in this case turned out to be either a wasp or hornet - I never did see it. Kenyan wasps and hornets look pretty nasty – and I can certainly confirm that it feels pretty nasty to be on the receiving end of a sting! Whilst I didn’t see it, other senses sprang into action: I was immediately very aware of a sharp and painful sensation in the fourth finger of my right hand. Thankfully, I was able to remove my ring before the swelling began. Amazingly this had receded in time for the concert that I was playing in with Nairobi Orchestra that afternoon, but came back with a vengeance as the concert ended. By the next morning, my entire hand was red, swollen, itchy, blistered..... and painful. Doing anything with it, let alone play the flute part of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite as I had the previous afternoon, was out of the question. Cellulitis had somehow set in – I guess that beastly bug hadn’t cleaned its stinger recently!! It’s perhaps a bit grisly to have a photo of my poor hand here (with the left one to show the contrast) but I figure that I’ve previously featured a very dirty foot, so why not this?! I’m very thankful to report that with the help of prayer, a cocktail of antihistamine, antibiotics and hydrocortisone cream, plus resting it as much as possible, the swelling is gradually starting to go down – and I can actually type this without too much discomfort!

How did we get here?!

Last Monday was Madaraka Day, a national holiday in Kenya to commemorate the attainment 46 years ago of internal self-rule. A friend, Annemieke, and I chose to get out of the city for the day. En route, I drove past Nyayo Stadium where various public ceremonies are held during the year,the celebration of Madaraka being one of them. I passed many buses parked alongside the road with various uniformed military and public service personnel going this way and that. I’m sure they were very orderly in the stadium, but outside was a different matter for some of them at least. A few looked decidedly dishevelled, jackets only partly done up; some were talking on mobile phones; guns were carried very casually. Not exactly a picture of military precision.

Anyway, back to the day out. We started out with the intention of driving from Ngong town to Suswa volcano. Almost as soon as we left Ngong, we hit dirt road and seemed to be in a different country altogether with a vast openness, and sweeping views across the Rift Valley. Looking back, the knuckle of Ngong Hills stood out very clearly. Our guidebook was written 18 years ago. It’s normally pretty accurate, but things do change – particularly the condition of dirt roads. Having navigated our way around some shallow gullies in the road, we came to one that was about 5 feet deep. Whilst we could possibly have got around it, it didn’t bode well for what lay ahead. So, instead we had lunch in the semishade of a whistling thorn tree, enjoying the absolute absence of any manmade sounds, and then turned back. By this time, the sky behind us was black with the threat of an oncoming storm. Having seen the gullies in the road, I didn’t fancy being caught out there in a downpour. We had a choice of 3 routes: Go back the way we’d come; Go another way that I’d done the previous year (and which I’d heard since was washed away in parts); or try something new which would bring us out on the Magadi Road. Being adventurous souls, we opted for the latter.

It was great, taking us a different way, and in parts along rocky roads down into the Valley. After driving for a while though, we realised that we’d completely missed wherever it was that we were meant to go, as we’d gone way further than the guidebook was indicating that we should have - and no tarmac road in sight! At one T-junction, children were clammering for biscuits (we had none) or a ride in the car (they evidently had never been taught not to accept a lift from strangers!). We asked for directions for the road to Magadi , and were pointed off leftwards. This road had some vicious bumps over drainage pipes (an indication of what the rains could do). The occasional habitation brought some comfort, whilst signs of electricity caused great excitement! At one point, we were trying to follow some electricity pylons, the logic being that they probably ran parallel to the road – if they did (other than the one we were on), we didn’t see it! We wound up eventually in something that resembled a mud river bed rather than a road, though were encouraged to see tyre tracks. When the river bed became scrub, the tracks ran out……. At this point, two Maasai very handily came on the scene. We asked for the road to Nairobi, figuring that as that was where we actually wanted to go, it would be more useful – after all, we didn’t want to wind up in Magadi as it’s about 100km from Nairobi! They indicated that they were going to Mai Mahiu so could direct us there. At this point, we were flummoxed. Mai Mahiu is a town in completely the opposition direction to the one we had thought that we were going in. How on earth had we wound up there? We had to laugh, especially as the mountain that we’d commented on as ‘looking like Mount Longonot’ was indeed that very volcano that stands out in the view of the Rift Valley from the escarpment on the Nairobi-Naivasha road. The Maasai guided us very adeptly along barely discernable tracks, knowing which would be the best for the vehicle. How we’d have got home without them , I don’t know. It was certainly quite a trip out. Not sure I could retrace our steps, but I do want to find out where on earth we went wrong!

Feeding Frenzy

I seem to be mentioning birds quite a bit, especially since I started feeding them. They are quite fascinating though – even my househelp has started commenting on them. Great entertainment value with their antics, colours and song (they seem to enjoy my fluting too!). It has to be said though that they are very messy eaters. Millet, bread, rice, sugar water etc seems to get scattered everywhere in the midst of the feeding frenzy, giving my plants and balcony a speckled look. I think even downstairs gets a share!

An Unexpected Visitor

A bird in a tree outside? No, this little fella (a female Red-billed firefinch, I think – the ornithologists out there can correct me on that) had somehow flown into my flat and was sitting in the ficus in my living room on Friday evening, seemingly feeling very comfortable there – not at all keen to fly outside into the dark night. After a bit of persuasion, and moving the pot so that the branch he was on was actually sticking out of the balcony door, he eventually left. Thankfully, not too many deposits were left behind!

Dust, dust and more dust!

A friend, Jill, suggested I post this photograph of my foot on my blog. Not quite the sort of photograph I’d normally post of myself (or even have taken!). Despite being a very fine foot (not sure Teva would use it for advertising though!), it really is very, very dirty! It is an indication of just how dry and dusty it is here at the moment. Jill, another friend, MaryAnne, and I were away last weekend at a small lake next to Lake Naivasha. We had a great time relaxing and enjoying the plentiful wildlife that was right on our doorstep – hippo, gazelle, dikdik, impala, zebra, hartebeest, giraffe, bright pink flamingo, and many, many other species of birds. One of the striking things over the weekend was the number of dust devils that we saw, one of which was particularly dense and wide. I wouldn’t have liked to have been in its path. The other striking memory is of the amount of smoke, and sometimes flames, that we could see from bush fires. Everywhere is so, so dry. On our final morning we went in search of the main lake, and after walking for an hour or so along paths thick with dust (some of which was following in the wake of a herd of cattle being led to drink), eventually found it. Hence, the dirty foot (the other one was equally so!). Thankfully, the rains seem to have started now, though it’s going to take a lot of rain to provide all the water that’s desperately needed in this dry, dusty and parched land.

Bony Bovines

Most of the year, but particularly during the hot dry season, it’s fairly normal in Nairobi to come across herds of cattle being led along or across the road by Masai herdsmen. We often have herds in the plot of land outside our office window, the jingling of cowbells indicating their arrival. The cattle are brought towards the city in search of pasture as the land becomes increasingly dry, and the grass brown (the rains are due the end of this month). This morning was no exception. I was driving to work from Karen, having overnighted with friends after home group, and took the ring road. (A word of explanation here – it will be the ring road one day. At the moment, it’s a very dusty (especially at this time of year), bumpy and narrow murram track, but it provides a good route for me to get to work, as it bypasses some of the worst traffic hold-ups. It can itself be a bottleneck however, particularly in the rains when it becomes a quagmire, or when something slightly too wide comes the other way! This time of year, clouds of dust (which can be seen from afar) signal the approach of another vehicle. A number of vehicles had their headlights on this morning in an attempt to be slightly more visible.) Immediately after turning onto the ring road, the route ahead of me was blocked by a mass of bony bovine backsides! However, it wasn’t long before the 2 Masai steered them off the road so that I could continue on my dusty way.

Sunbirds on the balcony

A friend recently gave me a sunbird feeder. It’s a relatively simple design, with an upturned bottle in a metal wire ‘nest’, the open end of the bottle resting in a small pyrex dish. The physics of why all the water doesn’t run out is quite something. All to do with equal and opposite forces, or at least that’s what I’ve concluded in my attempts to dredge up my A-level physics! Initially I included some red food colouring in the sugar solution in order to attract the birds. It took them a week or so to figure out that this hanging object that had appeared on my balcony was something good. The downside was sticky patches over my balcony and plants, where the sweet syrup had either been splashed, or alternatively where a mob of sunbirds had upset the balance on the suspended bottle. (I initially thought I had an infestation of some sort, until I realised what it actually was!) By the time I came back from Togo, the bottle was empty. Since then, I’ve refilled a couple of times, though now I use a glucose solution which is clear. It is delightful to watch the birds, such as the variable sunbird in the photo, come and feed.

Other Images from Togo and Ghana

I didn’t have too much opportunity to explore Kara, my days there being mostly taken up with workshop sessions, meeting with people outside of that such as for one-on-one training, and keeping up with office emails. We did however go on a trip one afternoon to a local women’s cooperative where they use the income they generate from quilting for literacy classes, and to the market. This was a hive of activity. Vegetables (including yams which resembled small muddy logs), meat, colourful fabrics, ……..

Our journey back from Kara to Accra was uneventful though long: 14 hours door to door. This was perhaps an hour longer than it might have been had it not been for our van driver. We’d negotiated with him at the Togo-Ghana border to take us to Accra. Once we reached the city, it became apparent that he didn’t really know the location of the GILLBT guesthouse where we were to spend the night, and wasn’t exactly open to the directions given by 2 of our number who’d been there 2 weeks earlier! Our border crossing was easier this time, and we discovered why the ground had been so sandy – we were practically on the beach! As well as the coffin showroom, we got to visit a craft centre and the beach the following day (though had to pay to go on it!), and had a wonderful paddle in the cooling waters of the Atlantic. It had been worth doing the drive in one day to have that last relaxing one in Accra, before boarding the plane that night for Nairobi.

Coffins with a difference!

I’ve never considered a coffin showroom as being something that you’d find on the tourist trail, but we were advised to visit one whilst we were in Accra for a day on the way back to Nairobi from Togo. This particular one was a fairly crude showroom, with the finished products on the second floor of a rickety wooden structure overlooking the main road. Choices of coffins available were: a sports car, a Ghana Airline plane, a chicken, a cow, okra, a pineapple, a petrol tanker, …… All very bizarre! Equally bizarre was a funeral procession that we witnessed. A more conventional coffin this time, draped in a Ghana flag, and being borne aloft by a crowd of singing and dancing young people dressed in red (some, it seemed, fairly intoxicated) along the main road. It seemed more like a carnival than a funeral.

Travel through Togo

The following morning, we had breakfast at 6am. We were meant to be on the road by 7am, but the minibus didn't arrive until nearer to 8! Our numbers had increased further to 14 as we were joined by people from Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon and Togo. The minibus wasn't exactly the most comfortable of vehicles, so the next 9 hours was a bit of an endurance in the heat. We stopped every 3 hours for a very welcome legstretch, and had a packed lunch in a nice spot under some trees. Most of the journey was fairly flat, passing by villages of thatched mud houses, teak forests, and cassava. The last leg brought us uphill quite a bit, along a windy road. We passed about 3 or 4 overturned lorries on a relatively short stretch of road, their goods covered by tarpaulin. One was a petrol tanker, which seemed to have been involved in an incident involving a number of vehicles, as we discovered when we were able to pass by and see the rest of the carnage. It was frightening to see a man collecting the spilt petrol that was running down the side of the road, so soon after the horrific event near Nakuru in Kenya, in which over 130 people were killed in a fire at a similar scene

Travel through Ghana

I’m currently at a Finance and Project Funding workshop in Kara, Togo. Travel across Africa can be a challenge, in more ways than one. The best way to get here from Nairobi in the end was to fly, not directly into Lome (which would have required a 3-day longer trip, plus nights in Addis Ababa going to and fro), but into Accra, Ghana, and then by road from there!
The flight was easy - then the ‘fun’ started! We were picked up at the airport by a vehicle from a sister organization in Ghana, and met up with 2 people from the US who'd flown in the day before. After a stop for lunch (where ox tail, pigs’ feet and cow’s foot were all on offer!), we set off on the journey to Lome. We'd probably gone only about 20 minutes when we had to stop as the engine was overheating (the driver thought the head gasket was blown). What then followed was 2 hours at the side of the road, waiting for the driver to get back to town and come back with another vehicle. Unfortunately, where we’d broken down was not exactly the most scenic of locations. We seemed to be in a fairly industrial area, and the area just off the road was used as a toilet by a number of passers-by. I bear souvenirs of that time on my feet, as I got bitten by seemingly invisible, but vicious ants! Finally, the driver returned, we loaded the suitcases onto the roof, and squeezed ourselves into this smaller vehicle, but we were off again. The road most of the way was amazing - not a pothole in sight. The last stretch to the border was a different matter! It was only here, when clouds of red dust filled the air, that the driver switched on the air con! The border crossing itself was 'interesting'. The vehicle dropped us there, and we walked with our luggage from the Ghanaian side to the Togolese, passing through the 2 Immigration offices, and filling in a number of forms en route. Despite having wheels, pulling my case proved a challenge through the sand. The whole process took about 1hour 30minutes, and was a textbook case of dealing with African officialdom. One of the Kenyans in our group hadn't been given a stamp on entering Ghana at the airport. This proved to be a real problem, as the Ghanaians then didn't see that they could stamp him out if he'd never been stamped in, and then the Togolese immigration officials didn't want him crossing a border from a country he was never documented as having been in!!!! Somehow, it sorted itself out in the end, and we were through to Togo.

Big Fellow in Park

Yesterday afternoon, I took the opportunity to go for a drive around Nairobi National Park. It was a while since I’d been in, and I was rewarded with seeing quite a number of plains game – zebra, hartebeest, wildebeest, eland, gazelles, as well as ostrich and giraffe. Also saw a Kori Bustard. I hadn’t seen a rhino in there for a couple of years, despite the park having a reasonable number of the endangerered Black Rhinos. Who would think that something so large could hide so effectively?! So, it was a real treat when in the last hour or so of my time there I came across this big fellow (or fellow-ess!). In the background, you can see the Nairobi city skyline (the towers over his / her head are within a mile of where I live!), which is what makes this park so special and amazing – African wildlife, in the wild, yet so close to this metropolis!

Obama Mania?

I was at a new coffee house in Nairobi on Saturday morning for breakfast, celebrating the birthdays of 2 colleagues. Our attention was caught by the Specials menu on the table – ‘Obama Specials’! He pops up everywhere! Not exactly sure what ‘Credit Crunch’ would be?! A BLT minus the B & T perhaps?! The previous day, a road salesman had been trying to persuade me to buy a pendant featuring Obama to hang from my rear view mirror. There’s certainly a glut of Obama paraphernalia at the moment. American flags, which you can put side by side with your Kenyan one; Obama badges and car stickers; a musical; a new ‘President’ lager – in place of the former ‘Senator’ one!. Obama Kangas also seem to be very popular. I’d heard about these from a former colleague, who’d been sent one by friends here, and then got to see them for sale myself in stalls on Saturday afternoon. As Paul states in his blog http://mypartofcolorado.blogspot.com, "A kanga is a piece of cloth that is often worn as a wrap-skirt or a dress. Or used as a baby backpack. Translated, it reads: "Congratulations Barack Obama. Love and peace have been given to us by God." "

Chaos in Town

Traffic in and around the city centre was in chaos this afternoon and evening, following a fire at a major supermarket downtown. We first got news of it just after it had happened at 3pm, as warnings came to avoid going into town. Looking out of the office window towards downtown Nairobi, the city skyline was enveloped in a thick dark cloud of smoke. As I drove home, I could hear sirens. A couple of small emergency vehicles passed by, driving off-road to get passed the line of traffic. A helicopter hovered overhead. Four hours later as I left orchestra rehearsal to return home, traffic jams still stretched for miles (thankfully for me, mostly in the opposite direction). The news gave reports of the supermarket having been completely gutted resulting in the loss of millions of shillings. Whilst there are reports of injured workers, it’s not yet known if there were any fatalities. What came across clearly was that whilst the fire fighters fought the fire valiantly, they were woefully unprepared and untrained, and chaos reigned. It apparently took half an hour to respond, despite the city council fire brigade being located just a street away from where the fire was! Only one fire hydrant produced any water, water hoses burst, and water simply ran out. Curious onlookers endangered themselves, gathering in large numbers dangerously close to the inferno. All in all, a reminder that whilst Nairobi may have some of the appearances of a modern city, many of its services fall way short of standards found elsewhere in the world.

Relaxing at the Beach

After what was an exceedingly busy second half of 2008 at work, I was delighted to be invited to the Kenyan Coast by friends from church for New Year. The Coast is one of the places in Kenya that you can really, really relax. And that’s just what I did! Five days of really not doing very much at all – reading, swimming, snorkelling, eating, a few walks along the beach or out on the reef, enjoying my friends’ company, and sleeping. It was just perfect! What a blessing to have the Coast here as my local beach (okay, not that ‘local’ – we were a full day on the road getting there and back). It was never too hot, with a very pleasant breeze blowing off the Indian Ocean most of the time (also serving to keep mosquitoes away), but plenty warm enough to still be sitting outside at 11pm in shorts and a strappy top. The food was great (freshly caught lobster, crab, prawns and fish), the pool was inviting, the sea was warm (in some patches resembling a warm bath!), the fish were plentiful and so colourful, the company was great. It was a wonderful way to end 2008 and see 2009 in. For New Year itself, we were on the beach under a star-studded sky with glasses of sparkling wine, enjoying fireworks, though the best one was the shooting star that we saw. What a blessing!

Christmas in the Tropics!

“It doesn’t seem like Christmas” was a refrain that one of my grandmas came out with every year, the upshot of which was that it did in fact seem just like Christmas to the rest of us! I have to say though that there are times here in Nairobi that I find myself echoing Grandma White’s sentiments. As we enter fully into the hot dry season, the clouds disappear leaving a strikingly blue sky, temperatures rise, windows are wide open, and it’s time to spend afternoons whenever possible at, by and in(!) swimming pools.

Christmas creeps up on me here every year, partly because my head is down in year-end accounts in the months approaching, but also because the mass commercialism that you get in the UK, doesn’t exist in the same way. There are signs of it creeping in though, with the Coca-Cola ads mentioned previously, purple-clad Santas in supermarkets promoting Cadbury’s chocolate, green-clad Santas on billboards advertising a bank, the logo for which is green,…. There’s nothing in the way of Christmas packs of toiletries, chocolates and novelty items such as you’d get an amazing array of in shops in the UK, though this year one of the supermarkets has started selling plastic baskets filled with staple groceries such as cooking fat, flour, sugar and tea, presumably designed as Christmas gifts. Shops stock tinsel and baubles all year round, although I did notice an influx of fresh stock about 2 weeks before Christmas. Shopping Centres are decorated, the lights generally going up very early to coincide with Divali. Some do have a Santa’s grotto, or at least a chair in the midst of Christmas trees (artificial of course), where children can sit on Santa’s lap and have their photos taken (and presumably tell him what they’d like for Christmas). You can buy small poinsettias, though I rather prefer the ones over 10 feet high in people’s gardens!

Our (Karen Vineyard Church’s) evening Carol Service was held in the gardens of the Karen Blixen Museum this year, rather than at Hillcrest School where we usually meet on Sundays. It was a beautiful setting. Everyone had candles, which were lit during ‘Silent Night’. From where I was standing on the ‘stage’, it looked amazing, as everywhere else was enveloped in the darkness of an African night. Afterwards, in very traditional British Christmas fashion, we had mince pies and mulled wine – not that the mulled wine was needed for warming purposes!

Christmas Morning, we had a small service in the garden of one of the leaders of the church. It was the nicest Christmas Day service I’ve ever been to. There were about 80 of us in warm dappled sunshine in a glade amongst eucalyptus trees and bamboo, and by a moat (yes, really!) with the occasional sounds of fish lazily plopping in the water. Carols were accompanied by flute and guitar; passages from the Gospel of Luke were read by various people in the congregation; we took communion together; and a short message was given. Very simple but very focussed on the One whose birth we were celebrating. Despite the very different setting, that really did seem like Christmas.The rest of the day followed suit with a lovely time spent with friends and colleagues, enjoying a roast turkey with the trimmings, a Christmas pud, and even a Dr Who Christmas Special (admittedly from 2 years ago!)! And to end a thoroughly enjoyable day, I got to spend some time seeing (and talking with) my family courtesy of the wonders of Skype!