Christmas is Coming

Having only been in the UK for the build-up to Christmas once in the last 9 years, it’s hard to imagine all the commercial hype that there is there surrounding Christmas. Whilst shopping centres have been decorated with trees, festooned with lights, and each has its own Santa’s grotto, there is no (or very little) Christmas merchandise as such in the shops. Christmas decorations are generally in the supermarket all year round, so that’s just as normal! (Last year, I remember that Christmas confectionery seemed to arrive in January! Probably what was left over from Europe!)
The traffic has been awful in the last few weeks. Now, I guess that that might be people Christmas shopping, though it’s been during the week as much as anything. More likely, it’s been due to the school and university graduations that were taking place.
The shopping centre that I go to has been full, though that seems to have been more with young Kenyans who see it as a place to hang out, rather than to shop.

Commercialism around Christmas has increased here though, even in the time that I’ve been in Kenya. Various adverts that you see in the paper or on billboards associate Christmas with shopping.

Part of Ngong Road Racecourse Craft Fair

My baobab tree

What we’ve had a lot of this year have been Christmas craft fairs. There seems to have been at least one each weekend for the last 4 weeks. ‘Christmas’ craft fair perhaps suggests that everything there is Christmassy, which is not the case, though you can purchase handmade Christmas cards, nativity scenes, tree ornaments, trees fashioned out of wire, baobab trees made out of banana leaves for hanging ornaments on (I treated myself to one of these this year). Most of the stalls are taken up with people whose wares are year-round – jewelry, glassware, hand-painted crockery, figures from wire, basketwork, cheese, chutneys,…….. I went to two of these this year. The first, Bizarre Bazaar, was the smaller of the two. Unfortunately, the heavens opened 10 minutes after I got there. The stalls themselves are tents, all lined up and the only way to get between them all is out in the open. I figured that I might as well continue going around. Despite my umbrella, I got pretty wet, and it was only later that I discovered that the back of my trousers were absolutely covered in mud. Hence, having not really done so well at that one, I went the following week with a friend to the Ngong Road Racecourse Craft Fair, which is far bigger. It was already very muddy in places, though strategically placed rocks and straw were helping some. I came away relatively unscathed, probably because it didn’t rain while I was there. That Craft Fair has apparently been going for 35 years, and is quite a meeting place for white Kenyans who live upcountry. All of these craft fairs remain somewhat the preserve of white Kenyans and ex-pats it seems, though with an increasing middle class, perhaps there’ll be more Kenyans there in years to come? Or is the whole idea something very Western perhaps?

Last weekend, was the Nairobi Music Society Christmas concerts, which I was playing in. On Thursday, our monthly prayer meeting at work featured a number of carols. Friday evening, I was at a friend’s house with a number of other musos and we had a carol sing there (as well as some delicious desserts). At church yesterday, we had a great nativity play with all the children involved as shepherds, angels, animals, stars, ….. plus of course the central characters (though I’m told that Baby Jesus was missing from the manger in the first service!). And this Wednesday, we’re having our annual carol sing at Karen Blixen Museum, where we gather for picnics under the stars, and as the sun goes down, light candles and sing carols, all against the backdrop of the Ngong Hills.

So, Christmas is definitely coming. As are my parents – just 24 hours from now! Here to experience a very different kind of Christmas – it’ll be warm for starters!

To anyone reading this – a very Happy Christmas!



Karen Vineyard Church Carols by Candlelight





Unexpected Creatures

Even driving around Nairobi, seeing wildlife becomes relatively normal, though no less special. Rhino, buffalo, giraffe, warthog, baboon on the way out to Karen to go for church, flute lesson or home group; camels and cows in the neighbourhood where I live, and being herded along the side of the road; monkeys in the compound;.....
In the last few weeks, I seem to have come across some other kinds of creatures in unexpected places a number of times. Doing some ‘gardening’ on the balcony of my 2nd floor flat, I came across at least 20 small slugs covering a bag of compost and surreptitiously making their way towards my plants, with a bunch of white eggs which were clearly another 20 or so slugs waiting to hatch.
Coming back to the office from lunch break on Wednesday (having found a brilliant yellow and black bug of some sort on one of my plants), the askari (guard) was poking something with a stick in the drain. I expected it to be a snake or something of that nature, but found instead that it was a hedgehog (unsurprisingly all curled up in a ball)! The first time he or I had seen one here

And yesterday, in the office, there was a giant grasshopper flitting around, which sounded a bit like an electrical appliance sparking. It eventually landed on my backpack, and I was able to release him back to the outdoors.

From Dustbowl to Mudbath

Kenya is certainly a place of contrasts. A few months ago, we were in drought and parts of the country, particularly in the north were really suffering. Now, it seems that for the last month or so, we’ve had nothing but rain. That can bring its own problems, though at least crops will be starting to grow, there’ll be grass for the cattle and sheep, and people can get water again. Here in Nairobi, the rain has meant traffic that has been even worse than normal. We’re not talking about light rain here, but torrential downpours, obliterating the driver’s view (I drove onto a central reservation one time, as I just couldn’t see where the road was going – it was very disorientating), creating lakes in roads, and generally bringing traffic to a point of gridlock. It also brings with it mud – lots and lots of mud. It amazes me that in a country where so many people walk, more isn’t done to provide the multitude of pedestrians with something solid to walk on. Instead, they’re having to make their way through a morass of mud, occasionally getting absolutely covered in muddy water by cars inadvertently creating something resembling a tidal wave as they go through one of the previously mentioned lakes. And of course, the rain erodes away at the ground and the tarmac, so that the edges of the road disappear, and smaller potholes become craters, which when filled with water are of an unknown depth! The ‘short’ rains this year have been rather long. To still be wearing a cardigan (sometimes in the daytime!), keeping my windows shut at night, and having an Autumn-weight duvet on the bed, isn’t what I’d expect at all at this time of year. However, it looks as though that is changing now. The grey (often black) skies have been replaced with brilliant blue ones these last few days. Maybe it’ll be a warm Christmas after all?!

Sheltering from the rain for 40 minutes one day on the walk down to the office

Next week I’ll be driving to Lake Baringo, about 4 hours north of Nairobi, with my parents. I’ve been advised to phone them a few days ahead of time to find out the state of the road. It’s apparently been underwater several times due to a seasonal river, and has been impassable. Even if the waters have receded, the state of the road that’s been left behind could be quite interesting!
Living here, I’m very aware that rain is a blessing, but you can have too much of a good thing……!

Where Am I?

There are places in Kenya which could easily be mistaken for somewhere in the UK (and there are of course many that are so, so different!). A few weeks ago, I went up to Nyeri in the Central Highlands for the weekend, to stay with some orchestral friends there. The drive once away from the sprawl of Nairobi is beautiful, and it was during that time that I determined that my parents’ visit over Christmas should include a detour on our way back from Nakuru, to this beautifully green part of the country, inbetween the Aberdare Range and the slopes of Mount Kenya. The weekend itself was lovely, with music making on the Saturday with Pauline (viola), and Dzenisa (violin), and a tour of the area with Pauline and Peter. We wound up on the Sunday having lunch at the Aberdares Country Club. This is an old colonial house perched on the side of a hill, with views (I was told!) on a clear day to both sets of mountains. We sat out on the lawns just taking in the sweeping view, with splashes of colour from bourgainvillea and Cape Chestnut trees, and listening to the sounds of strutting peacocks, and other more melodious sounding birds. With the ‘old’ building perhaps and the colonial style, it was easy to mistake this for a house in Surrey or Sussex, the bourgainvillea being in place of rhododendrons or azalea. The giraffe wandering in the forest below us were however a bit of a giveaway regarding our true location! It really was very beautiful, and I'm looking forward to taking my parents there soon.

Menu Options

I’m currently staying at the GILLBT guesthouse in Tamale, northern Ghana. My room is pleasant enough with an ensuite bathroom, a fridge, a TV (though to watch this, you’d have to unplug the fridge!), and most importantly, a ceiling fan (temperatures indoors are around the 28C mark this week)! As mentioned previously on my blog (29/6/11), meals are served in the area outside the bedrooms. Breakfast comprise of a flask of hot water left for beverages (I’ve learnt to travel with Kenyan coffee and a travel cafetiere that a friend gave me), and bread and an egg (hardboiled or fried). Generally during breakfast, the matron comes over to ask about lunch orders. There is apparently a menu, but I’ve yet to see any sign of it. The conversation goes something like this:
“What do you want for lunch?”
Having been informed by the director that salads are possible (I’d never have thought of asking for that otherwise in this climate), I’ve requested a salad several times, always to be met with the answer, after a moment’s pause,
“We don’t have salad. What do you want?”
Having already said what I’d actually rather like, it seemed better to change tack at this point.
“What do you have?”
“Rice or spaghetti.”
“Spaghetti please.”
“We don’t have spaghetti.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll go for rice then!”
Pretty much every day, it’s been rice, either plain or cooked in a palm oil and tomato-based sauce, with maybe a few sprinklings of chopped up carrots and cabbage, and a small piece of chicken or guineafowl, which has been fine (and quite tasty). It is interesting though that the need is there to ask what I’d like, when it seems pretty clear, that there really is only one thing on offer. Maybe it’s to demonstrate a desire to please; maybe it’s just to make conversation?! Either way, rather than getting frustrated, it makes me smile - and look forward to the salad that I will have when I get home next week!

Commuter Pain

In a recent international traffic survey (Commuter Pain Index), Nairobi was listed as having the 4^th most grueling commute amongst the 20 cities the report covered, coming in after Mexico City, Shenzen and Beijing. The average time for commuting to work is apparently 2.1 hours, 40% higher than the survey’s average! (I am very, very glad that my commute to work consists of a 5 minute or so walk!) These aren’t people travelling tens of miles to get to work, but rather just within the confines of the city. With an increasing Kenyan middle class, the number of those owning cars has increased substantially, even in the 8½ years that I’ve lived here. I see this amongst the Kenyan staff in SIL-Africa Area, most of them having bought vehicles in the last few years. So, many more vehicles on the road, but still no ring road around the city (all the containers bringing goods to Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, etc pass through Nairobi), and little in the way of road widening, or other developments to improve traffic flow. To go anywhere in the evenings, and even on Saturdays now, you have to allow at least an hour. If everyone were to wait patiently in the traffic, it perhaps wouldn’t be so bad. Yet, when it comes to being behind a wheel, the people-(rather than time-) orientedness of Kenyans seems to go out of the window, each person pushing to get ahead, driving off road, on the wrong side of the road, …… My reintroduction to Kenyan driving after a month away in the US and UK, where people generally follow the rules of the road, was fairly fraught. It’s a battle of who will give in first, as a vehicle comes round the wrong side, then attempts to push in. Or buses coming up the wrong side, coming within centimeters of the side of you. It can be a bit of a rugby scrum at times. You can come away feeling as you’ve been beaten up by all the bullies of the road. The sad thing is that, as a friend pointed out, it’s no longer just the matatu drivers who have this “get ahead, no matter what” driving style, but it’s now affecting the way people drive across the board. And it’s very rare that you see the police stopping anyone for driving behavior that wouldn’t be accepted elsewhere. What will it take I wonder to bring about order on Kenyan roads? Possibly reaching a complete gridlock first?

Airports, Planes & Hotels

What do London, Addis Ababa, Birmingham, Dubai, Chicago and Atlanta have in common? Probably a number of things, though for me, what links them together is that in each, I’ve found myself on a bus, being shuttled from the airport to a hotel, having either missed a connection, or experienced a delayed / cancelled flight. Each experience has been with a different airline, and a range of impressions left by the varying levels of customer service. The number of incidents is perhaps a reflection of the amount of air travel I’m doing these days – 19 flights in the last 3 months alone!

In chronological order:-

1. London & Addis Ababa – July 2005. An Ethiopian Airline flight from London to Nairobi. The initial problem was the plane arriving at Heathrow late, resulting in our flight not being allowed to depart as it was beyond the curfew time. Except that we, the passengers, didn’t know that until we were served dinner on the plane at the gate! An hour or so later, buses took us to various hotels. The lasting impression of the following 40 or so hours was of a complete lack of communication and / or apology. I can’t quite remember how we knew when we were returning to Heathrow the next day, but I do remember it being very unclear when we got there when the flight would leave. It did though,….. eventually. However, all was not over. Fog in Addis meant that the plane was re-routed to Djibouti where we sat on the tarmac until the fog cleared, by which time I’d missed the morning flight to Nairobi! So, on to another hotel. And an opportunity to go to bed, though only for a couple of hours by the time all the paperwork at the hotel was done. (The fact that the bedding and towels hadn’t been changed since the previous occupant was not worth the time getting a room change!) It took me 48 hours to travel from Nottingham to Nairobi. I swore then never to travel Ethiopian again. However, given that Ethiopian and Kenya Airways are the two main airlines for travel across Africa, I haven’t been able to stick with that.

2. Birmingham and Dubai – January 2010. Emirates flight to Nairobi, cancelled out of Birmingham because of heavy snow. Seeing all other flights being cancelled, it was fairly inevitable that our turn would come. Emirates ground staff were excellent in handling this, though again, it was several hours to actually get to the hotel. The staff there were great too, laying on mounds of sandwiches and such like for all these extra people who’d pitched up around midnight. The next morning, Emirates personnel were available to answer questions and give information – such as they knew, the stopping of snowfall and resuming of flights not being possible to put an exact time on! We were told that for those with connections in Dubai, it’d be possible to get a hotel room there too. It wasn’t exactly obvious where to go when we got there, and it took some traipsing around the airport to find the appropriate desk. However, it was definitely worth it for the bed and shower. I’d evidently had some kind of marker put by my name, as I was one of the first to be served food on the flight to Nairobi the following morning.

3. Chicago – April 2010. The ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano was the reason this time. The flight was British Airways to London. One night in a hotel, but summoned back to O’Hare Airport the next day (no explanation given), and told we were on our own. Extraordinary circumstances for sure, but could they have been a bit more helpful? Thankfully for me, I had some place I could go thanks to some friends of SIL colleagues. My flight wound up being 12 days later than scheduled.

4. Atlanta – August 2011. Delta flight from Atlanta to London. A thunderstorm in Atlanta closed down the airport for a couple of hours, meaning that my flight from Orlando was 2 hours late taking off – which was the connection time that I had in Atlanta! I raced to the gate, but it had already closed and the plane had taxied off. (Ironic that that flight was bang on time when so many flights earlier in the afternoon had been significantly delayed!) Question – Knowing that there was someone so close to getting there, could they not have delayed the flight just a few minutes? As directed, I proceeded to the International Rebooking desk. And this is where Delta really fell down. The Delta staff on the desks there started leaving, it being the end of their working day! I’d been standing in line for about 20 minutes or so (as had about 6-8 others), and they just checked out! I and some other stranded passengers (a number of whom were not happy at all – the language was quite colourful!) then had to go to the other end of the airport, and stand in another line, waiting for an hour or more to be seen. Another hotel, though this time at a cost (albeit discounted). Service on the 6 Delta flights within the US that trip had been very good, so it was a shame that the experience at the airport on the last leg rather nullified all of that.

Add to this two other non-hotel experiences:-
• Antrak domestic flight from Tamale to Accra – July 2011. 8.5 hours late, some of which was due to a thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning. I’d arrived at 6am for a 7:45am flight. At 8am, we were all told to return at 11:30am. When I and others did, there were no staff in sight, no food or water offered, and no information given, even when the staff finally did pitch up. And never a word of apology.

• Kenya Airways domestic flight from Nairobi to Malindi – July 2011. Cancelled a month ahead of time, so they put me on an earlier flight to Mombasa (a flight time of my choice) instead, and transferred me by road to the hotel II was staying at at the coast, free of charge! What’s more, the flight to Mombasa was just 40 minutes late, and there must have been about 3 or 4 times that they apologized for that! (This stood out all the more, as it was just 2 days on from the experience with Antrak.)

So, going by my experiences alone, I’d apply the following ranking to these various airlines customer service when it comes to delayed, cancelled or missed flights:
1. Emirates – The clear winner
2. Kenya Airways
3. British Airways
4. Delta – Not at all impressed by the staff at that Rebooking desk!
5. Ethiopian
6. Antrak – Definitely way down at the bottom.
Of course, as I fly more, that's all subject to change!
I guess that a word of advice, as a colleague mentioned a few days ago, would be to never travel with me! (Or always have at least a spare change of underwear in your carry on if you do!)

Cross-Cultural Living

Somehow today seems to have been full of cross-cultural incidents.
The day began at 3:15am in order to get to the airport and be checked in by 4:30am for the flight from Accra to Tamale. (It had never occurred to the Finance manager arranging the flight that not everyone is a morning person!) Thankfully for me, the time difference with Kenya was in my favour, and with this in mind, I’d purposefully kept to Kenyan time since my arrival 2 days ago. The taxi came to pick me up at 3:50am, and we were at the airport by 4! (Surprisingly not nearly so much traffic at that unearthly hour!!) There was one passenger in front of me, but other than a few members of airport staff sleeping on chairs, the domestic departures terminal was deserted! Passengers started to trickle in, as did the people at the check-in desks. However, far from having checked people in by 4:30am, it wasn’t until 4:40am that they opened for business! Hmm, I could have had another 40 minutes of sleep!
My ticket had been changed a number of times, and was still dated July 1st. There was much looking through notes and schedules until it was announced that I needed to speak to someone else. “You changed it to Friday”, she said. It had been changed due to sickness of the person I was meant to travel with, him delaying his flight for a couple of days, but I’d asked for it to be changed back as I wanted to get on with the work I’d come here to do. Evidently, that wasn’t reflected in their system. Thankfully, there were spare seats, and it was all sorted out. While I was back at the check-in desk, the one lady came over to speak to the other. Though they were speaking in the local language, I caught enough words in English to figure out that the ticket date had in fact been changed, but to the 29th July rather than 29th June! It struck me as odd that this was explained to the exclusion of the affected passenger! Possibly something to do with saving face....
I arrived in Tamale, and there was no one to pick me up! Well, that’s not the first time that that’s happened, but it is a little unnerving when you have no clue where you’re meant to be going. The driver did arrive in due course. Somehow he hadn’t believed it when he’d been told that the flight was going to be earlier than usual today.
Next cross cultural moment was in the office and asking where the toilets were located. “Do you want to pee or poop?” the young Ghanaian man I’m working with here asked, completely unabashed. It turns out that there are different toilets depending on the nature of the call. When he talked of urinals, I was rather expecting a cubicle with a hole in the wall in a corner as I’d experienced when travelling in Ghana previously, so was quite relieved to find regular toilets there.
Lunchtime : I’m staying at the guesthouse on the same compound as the offices. I was told that my lunch was ready, and on my way up to the guesthouse, was ushered into the dining room by someone at the door where a number of people were eating. It seemed quite natural that this was where I’d eat too. However, once at the counter, the lady serving looked very panicked and started saying something that I couldn’t understand. Others told me to sit down, so I did and started chatting with a few. There followed more discussion in the local language, evidently about me. A while later, I was pulled out of there and taken up to the guesthouse, where there was a plate of food set at a table, which I proceeded to eat in complete isolation!
The work day ended with my colleague packing my laptop away for me, and then looking somewhat put out when I turned down his offer of carrying it for me, having already got my backpack on my back. They never do that in Nairobi!!
So, that’s just day 1 in Tamale, Ghana!

Weekend Getaways

Getting away from traffic is probably one of the big motivating factors for me in periodically getting out of Nairobi for a weekend. That, and the stunning and varied countryside that lies beyond the city borders. In the last few weeks, I had a couple of such weekend escapes.
The first of these was to a cottage that I’ve stayed at many times now (4 already this year!). I took Jim and Rebecca with me. They’re over from the US for a few months, helping us out in the Finance department while a couple of staff are away. After 2 months, it was high time that they got out of the city! Away from all the traffic noise, the sounds heard from Hadada are the various bird calls made by numerous different species in this birdwatchers’ paradise, the occasional crowing of a rooster, and the grunting of hippos in the nearby flamingo-fringed lake. Set against a spectacular backdrop of hills and volcano craters in this part of the Rift Valley, with zebra, giraffe, eland, gazelle, hartebeest and warthogs roaming around freely, it is a perfect place to relax, go for walks and generally enjoy God’s creation.

Jim & Rebecca enjoying the view at Crater Lake

[For those who know Hadada, the elderly couple whose guest cottage it is, have both died in the last year. Hadada still remains available, at least while it goes through probate. It will be a sad day when it’s no longer there.]

Oldien Bay

The second weekend getaway was a new find – a nicely furnished house, just the other side of the Ngong Hills, about an hour of traffic-free driving away (not that it was traffic free on Friday afternoon!). The Ngong Hills form a dividing line in the landscape between the green more arable land towards Nairobi, and the dry, scrub land dotted with Masai manyattas going down (literally – about 6,000 feet down from the top of the hills!) to Lake Magadi. Whilst already down a ways, the house was perched on the hillside with a stunning view. There was the very occasional sound of a vehicle coming up the road, but otherwise, the peace was just punctuated by birdsong, baboons barking, cow and goat bells as Masai herded their livestock down below us, and on Sunday, the sound of singing from an open air church service off in the distance. Another great place to chill out with friends, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Jill seeing what she can see

The view from the bathroom!

A Picture of Relaxation!

The Pluses and Minuses of Nairobi

I’m often asked whether I like living in Nairobi. Like anywhere, it has its pluses and its minuses. As African cities go (and I’ve seen quite a number now), it is a good place to be. Ready availability of imported good as well as local produce, a plentiful choice of nice eating-out places, a very pleasant climate (varying between a good English summer and a bad English summer!), and various forms of entertainment, help to make life here not so very dissimilar to that experienced at home. (Someone said to me recently, “Nairobi is very close to Africa!”)
Two things however stand out as the not so pleasant features of life here:-
1. Security. Everyone in Nairobi it seems, knows someone who’s been carjacked, mugged, burgled, …. The crime rate is way higher than I’ve known elsewhere. Then again, the disparity of wealth is higher too. And whilst one doesn’t justify the other, it does perhaps explain it. Such concerns of security can be factors in stopping some from venturing out of their walled, razor-wired, guarded compounds, in the evenings.
2. Traffic. An increasing problem, and one that has caused me to cancel plans for an evening out with friends a few times now. As Nairobi’s middle class increases, so does the number of vehicles on the roads. The road infrastructure however doesn’t seem to develop at the same rate, the plans for a ringroad around the city seemingly remaining just that – plans. In order to go out pretty much anywhere, at least an hour has to be factored in. (A recent grocery shopping trip after work, which should have been a 5 minute drive, took over 1½ hours! The worst of it was that I couldn’t abandon the plan, turn around and go home, as impatient (a.k.a. selfish / thoughtless) drivers, trying to get ahead, had succeeded in completely blocking the road.)
My new strategy of beating the traffic on a weekday when I go out to Karen for flute lessons and home group, is to leave the office early, and continue working once I’m there. Except for a couple of occasions, I’ve saved myself about 45 minutes of sitting in traffic, by doing so. Such strategies may well become a regular part of life before too long.

Two lanes of traffic?!

The Relentless Loss of Friends

This afternoon, I was at the farewell party of a couple of friends, Stew and Jo, who are amongst the dwindling number of SILers (and close friends) who were in Kenya when I first arrived 8+ years ago. Whilst Kenya doesn’t have much climatically-speaking by way of seasons (hot dry season, short rains, cold dry season and long rains), May and June are definitely the months of goodbyes. For some, the leaving is just for a year’s home assignment, so whilst missed for that time, at least they’ll be back. For others, like the Johnsons, it can be the end of their time (in their case, 17 years) in Kenya.
Working in an international organization with missionaries from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Australia, ….., as well as the UK, the added challenge of such goodbyes is that there is no guarantee of meeting up with some of these people again, as there would be if someone left your town for another in the UK.
This was an aspect of expat / missionary life that I wasn’t really prepared for, having said all my goodbyes (or so I thought) when I left the UK. Earlier on this year, when life was feeling very transient, I wrote down the names of SIL expat colleagues who’d left Nairobi in the 8 years that I’d been here – I got to 90 in no time at all! Some of those I didn’t know that well, but even so, that’s a lot of goodbyes, especially when you add others who’ve left, who I’ve known through church and orchestra.
My recent trip to Tanzania brought this home to me afresh. I really enjoyed the social interaction (and the playing) with the other members of the quintet, and it struck me how ironic and sad it was that I got to know Daris and Tom within a couple of months of them leaving Arusha, just 160 miles away, to go back to Austin, 8,860 miles away!!
However, whilst at times unsettling, having your life touched by the lives of so many (and touching theirs too) adds to the overall tapestry, each relationship depositing something separate and unique. And there are lots of people and places around the world to visit!

Some of those who've left, or are about to
(Apologies for the watermark!)

Medium-Sized Fish in Small Bowl!

There’s no doubt about it – Nairobi is a small bowl musically speaking. Opportunities come up here that never would for an amateur musician (a.k.a small / medium-sized fish!) like myself in the UK. Four years ago, I, and other members of Nairobi Orchestra, got to play with Cape Town Opera when they put on a condensed version of Porgy and Bess in Kenya. And that same year, I played a flute concerto – something I’d never dreamt of doing! In April, I was asked by a couple of professional musicians from Austin, Texas, who are working at Makumira University in Arusha, Tanzania for a year, to join them and 2 other professionals from the U.S. in some wind quintet concerts. Their usual flautist had been unable to join them – and there I was, just 6 hours up the road in Nairobi! A terrific opportunity, yet decidedly daunting at the same time! Even more so when I started to receive the music, which comprised predominantly of East African compositions containing a number of fairly complex rhythms taking me somewhat out of my comfort zone!

Mt Meru from the university campus

It was my first time in Tanzania. It was interesting to see the similarities and contrasts to Kenya. Or maybe I’m really just comparing it with Nairobi. On the Makumira University campus, it’s beautifully green, pollution-free, and away from the hustle and bustle of traffic and hordes of people that we know in Nairobi. Monkeys leap fearlessly from tree to tree, and casqued hornbills roost in the treetops. Dominating the background (when it’s clear) is Mt Meru – and from the 4th floor of the music building, you can see Mt Kilimanjaro. There’s not nearly so much available here as there is in Nairobi, and power cuts were certainly pretty frequent over the week. Tanzanians, at least those I met, are very friendly, and reminded me of Ugandans (or up-country Kenyans) in that respect. Very courteous, and speak ‘safi’ (literally clean) Swahili, rather than the ‘less correct’ Swahili spoken in Kenya. (They say that Swahili was born in Tanzania, got sick in Kenya, died in Uganda, and was buried in Congo!!) Around the campus are the sounds of music of various forms – both Western and African. The music programme there seems excellent, and the teaching staff very supportive of the students, having evidently invested significantly and personally into the programme and the students themselves.

Tree-lined path at Makumira University campus

The music that we were playing in the 2 main concerts was the culmination of a project that Daris has been doing over the last year, encouraging the writing of music in an East African style for Western instruments, so that they could be introduced in a Western context. Some of our pieces were written by students here, whilst others were from students from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Interspersed were a couple of more traditional wind quintet pieces – partly reward to the listeners’ ears, and partly as a bit of respite for our brains!!

Wild Basin Winds and Friends



The Medium-Sized Fish!

Wild Basin Winds and Friends consisted of myself on flute, Liz on oboe, Gary on clarinet, Daris on bassoon, and Tom on French horn. For quite a number of pieces, we were joined by Randy on piano, plus various djembe players. We also had a small choir (and a cowbell!) on one particular piece telling of a man of respect coming to talk to a group of young people about life. 

We had rehearsals together each evening, and it was fun! It was such a privilege to play with such talented musicians, and be a part of this beautiful sound that each instrument was contributing to. For the people of Arusha, it was a rare opportunity to go to a concert performed by professionals. And for this amateur, the whole experience was just a real treat.



Musicians and one of the composers, Kaghondi

As well as the main concerts, we presented a slightly different programme in 2 schools, including brief introductions to the various instruments. Both were received very well by the children, the first being the most notable in that the children there had probably never seen these instruments before.
 

With the singers and Dr. Tamusuza from Makerere University, Kampala

 I’m not sure that I’ll ever get an opportunity to play with a group of this calibre again, but living in a small bowl like Nairobi, you just never know! 

The Icing on the Cake - Mt Kilimanjaro as viewed from the shuttle bus on the journey home



Advert for Pentapure?

Water is a topic of conversation in Nairobi. Most often, it’s how much rain there’s been, or hasn’t been; whether it’s in the taps or not…. I’m thankfully very rarely without water in my apartment, but I’m very aware that that’s not the case for many here. Some maybe don’t have water at all; some only periodically. I have one colleague who has to get up in the middle of the night to fill every container available, as that’s when the water is in the taps. Other friends have huge water storage tanks, and have systems rigged up to collect rain water. We’re all therefore very aware of the rains, and just how much there’s been. Whilst no one likes the mud nor the ensuing traffic chaos, we’re all thankful that the long rains seem to have finally come.

I was a little perturbed two evenings ago to see that whilst I had water, its colour was far from what it should be! Not really what you want to be washing your face in! Having had a situation not so many months ago when sewage was getting into the mains water, it does make you wonder about the quality. The usual exercise of soaking fruit and vegetables for 20 minutes in a bleach solution (to remove typhoid and other such nasties) may be an exercise in futility at the moment, and simply a way to increase the likelihood of contracting something unpleasant….

The picture of the two glasses of water shows the before and after going through my Pentapure water filter, a system that is meant to take out bugs and bacteria, as well as dirt. Let’s hope it really is as effective as they claim! This weekend I’ll be faced with the quandary of whether to do laundry, as it looks as though clothes will possibly come out dirtier than they went in!

Road Repairs?

The road down to the office is worse than ever. There’s one section now with quite a crevasse that I avoid as my wheels just spin there - and I’m in a 4-wheel drive! It means having to go on a rather bumpier, rockier stretch, but at least I make it. However, today, someone had obviously thought that it was time to do some road repairs as there were heaps of rather roughly hewn rock haphazardly dumped into the gaping crevasses! Maybe it’ll be do the trick? Not sure I'd fancy driving over them just yet.

Tree-climbing, machete-toting, and outside my window!

 A few weeks ago, I was rather surprised to find several men perched in the trees just outside my 2^nd floor dining-room window! They had shinned up barefoot, sent down ropes for their machetes to be attached to and drawn up, and were hacking away at the branches. It was an exercise that went on for at least 2 or 3 days over Easter weekend. I was a little concerned that all the trees would be chopped down, having enjoyed all the birdlife there, plus the leafiness of the outlook. Thankfully, whilst quite a number of branches were lopped (which actually means that my dining room and kitchen are lighter than they used to be), there are plenty left, and the rather splendid African Paradise Flycatcher pair were in evidence again last week.

The Perfect Office?

Most of my working life has entailed being in an office, and being bound to it because of the data that’s been held on the server, the accounting software, and simply because that’s where I needed to be to do the work I was employed to do. My current role however has elements to it that don’t restrict me geographically in this way. Technological advances have helped too:
• Having a laptop rather than a desktop;
• Being able to download everything I might need on the server onto a small postcard-size external hard drive;
• Being able to access the Dallas server remotely (can't do this with the Nairobi one yet unfortunately);
• Being able to access my emails wherever I am (not always a good thing!);
• Being able to skype chat with colleagues around the world.

Working on the front porch of Hadada Cottage

A week on Sunday, we have a week-long biennial Project Funding and Finance workshop starting, in a conference centre just outside Nairobi. Most of the SIL finance people across Africa will be coming for training, along with some of those from the African Wycliffe organizations. Unfortunately, 3 of the 5 people I’d had down to facilitate are unable to come, so rather more is falling to me than I’d reckoned on. And somehow, preparation for this in the office setting just doesn’t happen. I’m too accessible there, and am way too likely to get caught up with other work-related matters. Last week, I chose to work from home for a couple of days, and made good progress, and this week, I’ve come right away, to one of my favourite weekend haunts, a cottage on Oldien Bay near Lake Naivasha. I did wonder this morning if this was a good move, when I was 2 hours later than planned leaving Nairobi, and hence (with the 2.5 hour drive) lost a whole morning of working on the workshop prep. However, once here, all that dissolved. What a setting to work in! Being someone who did all her summer exam revision (from O levels through A levels, Chemistry degree and then accounting qualification) outdoors, I very quickly decided to sit at the table on the front porch with my laptop rather than stay inside. What a view – aloes, acacia trees, the flamingo-pink fringed lake, and hills beyond,- and all accompanied by the melodious sound of a multitude of assorted birds, and the occasional grunting of hippo! Definitely a very therapeutic environment to be working in. My only concern – that I will get too distracted by the beautiful surroundings and fail to get on with why I’m actually here!

All I want for Christmas is........

Well, not my two front teeth, though that was the case many years ago when I was decidedly gappy for a year or so (partly thanks to my brother who had knocked one out with a rather accurately thrown lego brick!)! This year, my Christmas wishes were rather different. Wanting to do something completely different, I arranged for a group of us, none of whom have family in Kenya, to go away on safari. We had one night at Treetops in the Aberdares National Park, and then 3 nights at Shaba National Reserve, close to Samburu and Buffalo Springs. The contrast in scenery was quite dramatic, from the green, hilly, lush countryside around Nyeri, to the stark, desert, arid, mountainous landscape of Samburuland. So, my Christmas wishes:-

1. To see Mt Kenya clearly. I’d circumnavigated this 17,000 feet mountain a couple of times, and both times, it was completely obscured by cloud. Imagine my delight the first morning, when I opened the curtains at Treetops and was looking directly at this majestic mountain. We continued to have stunning views of it that morning as we drove past on our way to Shaba, seeing the glaciers very clearly. And even from Samburu itself, it was clearly visible. What a treat! It was rather nice too to feel that I was getting something of a white Christmas without any of the freezing temperatures! One of my friends was convinced that the fascination with the mountain was an indication that I should climb it (she’s been up 7 times), but hearing her stories of cold, wet and the effects of altitude sickness did nothing whatsoever to entice me. I’m much happier to appreciate the beauty and majesty of the peaks from afar!

Mount Kenya from near Nanyuki

2. To see a leopard, preferably on Christmas Day. Now, this one seemed a bit of a tall order. I’ve lived in Kenya for 8 years now, and have been on quite a number of game drives in that time. Leopard sightings can be counted on one hand, and really on just a couple of fingers! My best ever remains my very first safari in 1987 when I was over visiting two close university friends. We were in Samburu, and had a leopard walking right between us and a couple of other vehicles. Little did I realize at the time how special and amazing this was. I’ve seen trees that may or may not have had a leopard in them (on one occasion, the bit of tree that we thought was a leopard still appeared to be there the following morning, …..), and one time had an incredibly fleeting (not long enough to take a photo) of a leopard, whose markings were vibrant and striking, as he/she walked along a rock near us and then disappeared from view.

On Christmas Eve, we got to see elephant, lots of grazers, an abundance of birds, and just enjoyed the beauty of the place, choosing to just relax at the lodge in the afternoon. On Christmas Day, we were treated to lion and cheetah sightings in the morning, in addition to lots of ellies, greater kudu, reticulated giraffe, gravy zebra, oryx, …... But, still no leopard. We all agreed that it’d be good to do an additional afternoon game drive. And what do you know? We were rewarded with a beautiful sighting of a leopard sprawled on a branch of a tree, its four legs and tail hanging down.

A beautiful spotted big cat - as requested!

No Christmas wrapping or ribbon in sight, but what wonderful gifts these both were!


The Christmas Safari-ers: Julie, Rosie, Jill and Me



Mud and Misdemeanours

It rained yesterday evening, and most of the night. Unseasonably so, as the rains aren’t due until the end of March. However, I’d heard over the weekend a report of one person saying that it always rains on 14th February, and true enough, it was still raining this morning. A good thing as we do need it. The downside though is the traffic that results (even worse than normal), and the dust that has been prevalent turns to mud. Consequently, the mud road down to the office was just that – thick with mud. Knowing how it would be and not fancying having shoes and feet caked in sticky red mud at the start of the day, I drove the 800m or so to work. Even in my 4-wheel drive, I skewed around a little bit, but my tyres managed to maintain a reasonable grip. Saloon cars perhaps wouldn’t have fared so well, and anyone going uphill would have had a harder job.

 

Precisely because of that, when I had to drive home later in the morning, I chose to go the rather longer, though tarmacked (albeit with potholes in abundance), route. This drive could only have been about 5 minutes in length but there seemed to be an abundance of driving misdemeanours in that time:
• Somewhat sporadic driving on the part of one driver, due to their talking on their mobile phone.
• The car in front of me indicating right at one T-junction, but then turning left. Amazing to have any indicators on at all, but not exactly helpful in this case! Perhaps he thought a T-junction is like a filter lane?
• The next T-junction is at the top of the hill. There’s a very clear road sign in the approach for those going uphill, that there’s no right turn allowed there. At least 3 of the cars in front of me turned right!!
• As I was coming to the left-hand turn into my road, a car coming out of it clearly wanted to go right, as he was completely over on the right-hand side of the road, very effectively blocking my way!

 

And that’s without venturing beyond the immediate neighbourhood onto any of the main roads! People do get fined for driving offences here (those who don’t then pay bribes that is), but every day, there are an abundance of others who between them, break most of the rules in the book. To be fair, today's tally did seem to be particularly concentrated.

 

Safe Driving

A number of times whilst out driving in Nairobi on a Friday evening, I’ve been behind vehicles that have been swerving rather alarmingly on the road. Whilst this can be on account of potholes sometimes, I rather suspect that something else was behind these meandering manoeuvres. There was a time a few years ago when police were issued with breathalisers to be used on drivers suspected to be under the influence, but that only seemed to last for a month or so. This year, the ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ took a rather unexpected turn with the promotion on billboards around the city of drinking yoghurt rather than any other kind of beverage. Not one I’d have thought of!