Contingency Planning

‘Contingency Planning’ is a phrase that is much in vogue around Nairobi at the moment. With the elections just 4 days away (March 4th), and the memories of what happened after the December 2007 elections rather too fresh in people’s minds, organisations and embassies have been issuing contingency plan recommendations. To give an idea of the sort of thing being talked about, here’s a sample of items to think about as listed by an advanced driving school in Nairobi, which sends out various security updates.

• Do you have enough non-perishable food supplies in your pantry in case movement is restricted during that time?
• Extra bottled water is essential. Have at least a 5-day supply per person in your pantry. Eleven litres per person per day will give you enough to drink, for limited cooking and personal hygiene.
• Will you be able to cook if electricity is shut off for an extended period? Consider alternatives. Having a full gas cylinder plus a spare, as well as charcoal and firewood should also be on hand. Extra matches are a must!
• What about lighting for your home if there are extended power cuts? Do you have candles? Batteries for torches? Solar lamps or other methods of lighting? If you have a generator, do you have sufficient fuel?
• Can you charge your mobile phone if the power is off for extended periods?
• If you or your staff, have pre-paid SIM cards, do you have spares available? What happens if phone service is cut off? Do you have alternative methods of communicating with loved ones?
• Do you have a bag packed with essential items in case you have to evacuate your home in a hurry? Remember to include each member of your family and consider any special need requirements.
• Do you have a list of emergency point-of-contact phone numbers both in your car and on your person?
• Is your vehicle ready in case of an emergency evacuation? When is the last time it was serviced? Is it full of fuel?
• Do you have enough cash? Is it enough to last a month? Divide your cash and put it in separate areas of your home, don't keep it all in one place.
• What about all of your important documents? They should be stored in safety deposit boxes or other secure locations. Consider making scanned copies and emailing them to yourself in case you lose the originals. Important documents include passports, insurance policies, family records (marriage and birth certificates), land title deeds, bank cards, etc.

We’ve also spent quite a bit of time discussing this at work, both related to personal contingency plans, and for the organization itself. With an emergency phone chain in place, everyone can be contacted quickly (assuming phone lines are operating). We’ve been busy ensuring that absolutely everything is backed up, and that important documents are scanned. The office will be closed for 3 days (election day itself is a national holiday anyway) so that people can stay home and not be moving around the city, other than to vote. Come Thursday, we’ll see how the land lies as to whether business resumes as usual or not.
It really is a lot to think about, and in some ways, even thinking about this sort of thing can engender anxiety and fear, though we all hope that none of it will be needed. But it would be pretty bad not to have planned in this way, and then a crisis erupt. It reminds me of the contingency planning that took place before Y2K. It turned out then that the computers didn’t all crash as the clock struck midnight on the night of December 31^st 1999. I’m hoping that this will prove to be as uneventful as that was, and that I’ll be just using up the additional food, water, batteries, candles, phone credit, toilet paper etc etc gradually over time, whilst still being able to shop for fresh produce.

Between a Buffalo and an Elephant

I love going into Kenya’s national parks. I enjoy being able to escape the city for the wide open spaces. And the variety of scenery: From the grassy plains of Nairobi National Park; to the barren beauty of Samburu with its mountain ranges, and the Ewaso Nyiro river, lined with doum palms, meandering its way through; the flat, bareness of Amboseli with its backdrop of the majestic Mt Kilimanjaro; the vastness of bushy Tsavo; and Nakuru Park, with the lake as its central point (though currently minus its pink fringe of flamingos, for which it’s famed)…..

Giant lobelia dot the moorland landscape of the Aberdares National Park

A couple of weekends ago, I was in the Aberdares National Park with some friends. This again is so different. Densely forested in the lower sections, then rising to bamboo forest, and above that moorland reminiscent of Scotland, with cascading waterfalls, and the peaks of the mountains themselves still rising above. As well as the scenery of course, there’s the wildlife. And the emphasis here is on ‘wild’. One of the things that I was aware of from early on living here, was the lack of instruction as to what to do when you come face to face with something big. I’m not talking zebra, or even giraffe (though they’re clearly very tall), but rather the sort of beast that carries with it the kind of weight that when combined with a bit of force, could do serious damage to a vehicle – elephants, rhinos, buffalo, hippo…. Thus far, I’ve not had any close encounters, though I did once have a rhino seemingly give chase. Respect of course is the name of the game. And applying wisdom. If there’s a herd of elephants, I wouldn’t  go driving through the middle of them, especially if there are young.

On our trip to the Aberdares, we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place, or more accurately in this instance, between 3 very mean-looking buffalo, and a herd of 10 elephants, including young. And it was getting dark. And my petrol gauge was rather closer to empty than I’m generally comfortable with. We’d just come through a very muddy section of the ‘road’, the car slipping and sliding, and at times going sideways! The buffalo were standing separately at the side of the road, clearly aware of our passing by. Something in their eyes said that they weren’t feeling particularly amiable towards us. A little bit further on, a group of ellies were having a fine old time in some mud, just at the side of the road. We waited a respectable distance back, and in time, they moved on, again clearly aware of our presence, and also clearly in no hurry. However, their moving on was in a forwards direction, rather than sideways. They kept to the road! About 30-40 minutes later, we’d advanced maybe 100 metres, if that. One of the buffalo eventually wandered by, keeping a distance from us, and a rather larger distance from the elephants, going through the bush. We unfortunately couldn’t follow his example!

That's not a happy looking buffalo!

What to do?

• Sit and wait? I was aware that once it was dark, we wouldn’t be able to see the elephants very well, and could find ourselves rather closer to them than we’d choose to be.
• Race by? Given that some were actually on the rather narrow track, this really wasn’t an option. Elephants have a fairly wide girth!
• Hoot at them? Probably not a good idea…..
• Skirt around them? There really was nowhere to skirt, without risking getting stuck in mud and / or undergrowth.

The herd of elephants enjoying the mud

In the end, we chose to turn around (which took something like an 11-point turn on this narrow track, with ditches on either side), make our way back through the mud patch (involving a manouevre where we were caught in a rut at the edge of the road, the side of the car in contact with the grass verge (thankfully, there were no rocks there)), and take a track to another gate which we’d seen. We had no clue where it would take us, nor the state of the road en route, but it seemed the better option. And we did eventually make it, after 3 crossings of an incredibly rickety wooden bridge, an encounter with a closed electric fence, a closed barrier, and another 11-point turn, (not necessarily in that order!)……

Postering the town red (and blue, and green, and…..)

With just 3 weeks to go to the Presidential elections here in Kenya, it would be hard for anyone to miss the fact that there’s major campaigning going on. This evening, the first Presidential debate took place at one of the private schools, just outside the city. This was no doubt followed by many on television and radio, and for those who weren’t yet home, the effects were felt with traffic gridlock across the city.
However, what has impacted me has been the visual effect of the campaign, namely the plastering on pretty much every and any surface, of a plethora of posters. (A friend remarked yesterday, ‘Stand still for long enough, and you’ll get a poster on you’!) I first noticed these about 4 weeks ago, in the run up to the preliminaries, on my walk to the office. A nearby wall was festooned with multiple posters, all for the same individual. Particularly noticeable were all the backings to these posters which were strewn on the ground. Not exactly a good advertisement for this particular individual (or perhaps more precisely, for the political machinery behind him).
It has struck me that campaigning here would seem to be more about how many posters can be put up than anything else. Trees, walls, road signs, bridges, even drains – they’re all plastered with various individuals’ faces. And most of the time, it’s not sufficient to put up just one poster. Maximum coverage evidently applies here as well as to the media! Why just limit yourself to one poster on a wall for your candidate, when you could put up thirty?! It would appear that opposition tactics are sometimes to tear down the opponents’ posters, the life or durability of some seeming to be rather short….
Big billboards on the roads broadcast the major contenders with promises of jobs, more sports stadia, and a transformed country, amongst other things.
Yesterday, I was slightly delayed in my journey home by a campaign lorry in an outlying town. Music blared out, people on the lorry jigged around, and a crowd was gathered. Something evidently happened within the crowd that caused the lorry to suddenly move on, and then got into a fix as it attempted to turn around, backing into another road, consequently completely blocking the one that we were on. Cars, spray-painted with the name of this candidate, lined the route. It’s a while since I was in the UK during the run-up to a general election, but from what I remember, it seems to be rather a different ball game here.

Behind this family group is a flank of posters

A wall covered in posters (I counted 5 different ones)

Pillars supporting a bridge provide a useful surface

As does this tree and notice (I guess they won't be getting any phone calls at the moment!)

A new wall as part of the flyover being constructed on Langata Road - all of 2 different posters providing decoration here!

One of the main contending partnerships

A less messy way to advertise, and in Nairobi traffic, likely to catch the attention of plenty of people

Putting someone in the drain would have negative connotations elsewhere!

(Some of these photographs are courtesy of Jill Brace who was in the passenger seat, while I was driving.)