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!

It's the Brrr season!

Sitting in traffic jams sometimes has an unexpected benefit. I’ve wanted to take these photos so I could write this blog for a couple of months now, but haven’t been able to stop to do so. Sitting on Mombasa Road in a huge line of traffic yesterday afforded me the opportunity! These billboards have made me smile ever since they popped up around Nairobi in October! The weather here is far from being “Brrr” (the thermometer in my car was reading 32C when I got home from work this evening!), so it seems that the way to attain temperatures found in other parts of the world during the festive season is to drink ice cold Coke! I can’t say that Coca-cola is a drink I associate with Christmas at all! However, it seems that Santa’s connection with Coca-Cola goes back to the 1920s, and stayed strong for decades! At that time, a campaign was started to connect Coca-Cola and winter, using Santa Claus as an icon of winter, in order to persuade people that Coca-Cola isn’t just a warm-weather drink. It may be something that’s been revived all over the world, I don’t know, but the connection is certainly alive and well here! One of the billboards in Nairobi shows Santa on a motorbike. My parents were telling me that Santa turned up on a Harley Davidson at the switching-on of the Christmas lights in my home town. It’s obviously the ‘in’ mode of transport for him this year! http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html

Never a dull moment!

Life is certainly full of surprises here. You never know quite what’s around the next corner. I left the office today, much as I do every other day. First encounter on the way home was a herd of cattle, wandering along the road. Not so unusual perhaps if I was somewhere rural, but our office is within 4 miles of the City centre (Capital City at that!). Round the next corner, I discovered that half the road had disappeared! Instead, there was a trench, at least 4 feet deep, and 10 feet across. Bizarrely, there was no sign of the earth / tarmac that had been removed! What was left was a narrow strip of pot-holed tarmac, just wide enough for 2 vehicles, though if one was a truck (as happened), it took a while to negotiate – with lots of onlookers giving ‘helpful’ advice! The purpose for the work is unclear. One friend suggested, tongue in cheek, that maybe, they’re building a flyover there or a super-highway. Who knows?!

Problems with Primates

Well, in my (nearly) 6 years in Kenya, I’ve had 2 monkeys in my car on 2 separate occasions, stealing sweets and crisps; I’ve had a picnic lunch swiped by 2 baboons; I’ve had to keep my windows closed over the hottest time of the year because of a Sykes monkey in the neighbourhood; and I’ve had a male baboon in my car (via the sunroof), and then take off with my cool bag. At one self-catering place on the coast, we were hounded by monkeys, one of which came in down the stairs, via the balcony, and was discovered on the dining table ready to tuck into my toast and marmite (of all the cheek!). This last weekend, however, was the first time that I’ve been robbed inside my dwelling place by a primate. I was enjoying a long relaxing weekend at the coast, following the completion of our accounting year end. Whilst in my hotel room checking out what was on TV, having just come back up from the pool / beach area, I heard a noise behind me and discovered a monkey there! What’s more, he’d already swiped a recently-opened packet of peanut brittle from the counter just beside me. On my shrieks of discovery, he ran out through the French windows, and then proceeded to tear into the packet before my very eyes. There was a ‘friend’ with him, perched on a nearby chair, but ‘friend’ was to get none of it. And all I could do was stand and watch (with the French windows now closed) while he made his way through this unexpected treat. We’re told not to feed the monkeys at such places, but 9 times out of 10, they seem to be well able to feed themselves!!!

Kenya's Hopes for the US Elections

“US Poll: Why the world backs Obama” was the headline in today’s Daily Nation, one of Kenya’s major newspapers. According to the report, Barack Obama is the world’s choice for the next President of the United States. That’s certainly been the feeling here in Kenya the entire election campaign, though very little has been mentioned about his policies, or where he stands on today’s current issues. He is Kenyan (or at least his father was), and therefore the country, it seems, is with him. A number of matatus have had his picture emblazoned across their rear window; I’ve overheard a father in a supermarket teaching his toddler to say, “Obama”; I’ve seen people wearing “Support Obama” T-shirts…. You’d think the election was here! Within African culture, people look after their own. It would appear that such expectations extend to those brought up in the US and Indonesia by an American mother and grandparents. There have been forecasts in the media over the last year of Kenya’s fortunes being on the rise should Obama be elected. In Sunday’s Nation, a number of people being interviewed anticipated tourism increasing due to people flocking to Kenya to trace Obama’s roots (not that he ever lived here!). His Kenyan branch of his family is clearly behind him: “Senator Barrack Obama’s relatives have congregated at Nyangoma Kogelo village and will remain together until after Tuesday’s US presidential elections. They have set aside a bull to slaughter in celebration should the Illinois senator, whose father was Kenyan, win.” Whichever way the election goes, I can’t help thinking that many Kenyans are going to be disappointed. I guess though that it’s taken the focus off last year’s controversial elections here for a while.