Totty Heels to the Rescue

Disaster always strikes at home when D is unavoidably off doing something lofty and highminded. There was the time when the water mains flooded the kitchen [in Sierra Leone evaluating peace building initiatives for the United Nations]. When the baby and the three year old got chicken pox [out of phone contact for 3 weeks monitoring human rights abuses in Democratic Republic of Congo warzone]. The compulsory gender-mainstreaming workshop which clashed with both children's nativity plays and a Christmas party for which complicated cakes, fancy dresses & lift rotas were needed. So with the alarm set for 5 am and a car sweeping him off at 530 to election-monitor in a local by-election, you can be sure its not just the children's plaintive wails of psychosomatic illnesses to seek to evade the compulsory school cross country on the agenda.

645 am and L, our 60plus year old homehelp, upstanding devout churchgoer, pillar of the community, phones in considerable distress.
'I've been arrested. With everyone on my matatu. We don't know what for. I'm in the police cells at the central police station. Please can you come and get me?'
Quick change from jeans to a suit and totty heels. Gather results of agony-aunt strawpoll from friends in the know - 'Don't go on your own.' 'Take someone with you who knows what they're doing.' 'Don't pay any bribes, but you might need lots of cash to pay a fine.'  This is where I discovered that our emergency phone numbers for D's work duty officer & for the Diplomatic Police have been reallocated to suitably baffled sounding Kenyan civilians. So its Catrin in her totty heels on her own. Plus a quick whistle stop tour of Kenyan law down-the-line briefing from D in a distant polling station: 'Cite the new Bill of Rights. - And don't pay anything without getting a receipt.'

Off to the Central Police Station. And there in a grim black maria with prison bars, parked at the front entrance, were those upstanding people of L's matatu who had refused - or been unable - to slip the arresting officer a bribe.  From fourteen seven were left, picked up en route to work, several in tears, waiting to be carted off to court, and back for a night in the cells if they & their networks couldn't pay the fine. They thought they were there for not having worn seatbelts, - but no one had checked their seatbelts before arresting the bus-full - and the driver of the bus had done a deal, paid a bribe, and escaped scotfree. They hadn't been charged, just rounded up and sat in a smelly, scary van.  Another income-generating scam to raise money at the most expensive time of the year, as school fees fall due.

There's a section of the privileged classes here in Kenya which use the same tone of voice on which the empire was built. You hear them in supermarkets from 200 paces being imperious down the phone to unfortunate underlings.  You see their children at school offloading bookbags, cricket bats and trombones onto staff without greeting them or addressing them in any way.  Its not a persona that I respect. I want to be Catrin, not Madam or Memsahib. Not Madam from D's work, Memsahib with the diplomatic plates on the car or 'Do you know who I am?' I strive for parity and equality in my dealings.  But Kenya is such a stratified society, and status matters here.  So I can use my best Swahili and enquire after the health of the receptionists, and the custody sergeants, the District Traffic Officer and the Officer in Control of the Police Station, - but in the end, when push comes to shove, and when L is in tears in the black maria with only me to call on, I'm using my best Swahili to ask their names, to flash my diplomatic identity card, to note that half the alleged malefactors have disappeared from custody after payment and to cite the recently voted in Bill of Rights, the right to bail without fee, the right to be charged, and for legal process to be applied fairly and equally to all the bus, not just to those who don't pay the bribes.

It was scary. And brutal for those without power or assets. While one police officer let me speak to L in the van, learn her story & pass her some cash in case they were driven to court before I could sort it out, two later ones, in plain clothes, tried to usher me from the steps of the van 'for causing a disturbance' because I noted 'Your Bill of Rights hasn't been upheld here' and asked their names.  I had to march through the hot, full, very smelly holding cells to get to the senior officers. And wandered Kafkaeque corridors painted in East German shades of paint searching for the OCPS 'what does one of those look like?' and the 'DTO'. 

My mate T grew up in Kenya & returned here with her family last year. She remembers the time when the bottom floor of Nyayo House, a skyscraper not half a kilometer from the police station,  was used for torturing prisoners and 'troublemakers'. 'You were very brave to go there on your own' she said tonight. 'You did very well to get her out.' But I wonder what about those left behind? What about the rest of the bus the senior officer wouldn't release?

I didn't grow up in a country where random torture was a potential hazard for sticking your head above the parapet. I was brought up to try to be inclusive, to seek to stand up for the underdog. But I know that much of made it work today, what meant that L got off with a written warning not a night in the cells was my white skin and the status bestowed by D's job.  And I was only able to use that 'status' for one person, my person, and what good does that do for the rest - or for the Kenyan police system which D is working hard to strengthen? 

On the other hand, maybe it did make a difference that I went. As I marched through the holding cell people muttered, 'Mama io amekuja.' 'Her boss has come to get her.'   As I held the hand of the young woman in smart suit in tears in the van who was scared no one would come to get her out, maybe it did make a small difference that I cared. When I told the senior officer how we had celebrated that 67% of Kenyans had voted in the Bill of Rights last month, but that sadly the Bill of Rights wasn't being upheld in the case of these people, and by the way half of the matatu's passengers were no longer in custody, yes, he thought I was a troublemaker, but maybe, maybe, maybe he'll have given the arresting officer a talking to.

On the way home in the car, L said she'd never been arrested before. 'What would I have done in court?', she said. 'The others, they said you have to plead guilty, and then you get off with a fine, if you can pay it. If you plead innocent, they said, and the police say you were guilty, you have to stay in the cells for a long time. I know I had my seatbelt on, I would be under oath, I don't know that I could tell a lie under oath.' 

My attitude to Truth is maybe more flexible than that. I don't know. But she made me think of the Brecht play, the Good Person on Sechuan. In it, an owner of a cafe, a single woman, tries to be kind to the weakest, to behave justly - and is taken advantage of by those around her, till her debts rise inexorably.  She invents the persona of her evil cousin who bullies and collects debts on her behalf so that she can carry on trading.

Brecht's point is that if it's impossible for the mildmannered and kind to flourish, then the structures of society need to be changed, and we need to act to bring this about.  Is it right to use the power of a white skin, of a diplomatic identity card to override the Kenyan systems - which are being wrongly applied - to help one person and leave the others? Or does it offer support to those honest police officers, if we show we too know their new regulations and quote them with respect? Does it offer hope to the others in the holding cell that people with power do sometimes care? And surely it matters that senior police officers are reminded what is right, what 67% of their population have just voted in to great celebrations, - even if it is done in a strident voice?

Guidance without Safety Nets

Two days into a part time job with Big Corporate, supporting high flying Kenyan students apply to universities in the States, and reflecting on how careers guidance is different here.


- there aren't publications to refer onto. No 'Now pick up a guide on CV writing and another on networking and don't come back till you've read them.'  We have one reference publication on US colleges, picked up by a colleague in Singapore airport. That's all.

- there aren't colleagues to refer onto either. No 'Now thats a tricky query, let me check with my colleague who specialises in that area.'  No other careers advisors in the whole country. Or not that I've yet met. We have a sparky team of Kenyans who themselves went to Ivy League colleges, - but its very different knowing what you yourself might write, and supporting another to hone their story.

- our clients are spread all over the country - we'd have to be very opportunistic to see them face to face - and most people can't afford access to the internet - at Big Corporate it's restricted to managers only - so information on the web is barely accessible.  We have one phone in our office, shared between four.

- the right to education, seamless transition, the European conveyer belt progression from one educational stage to the next, is not something to be taken for granted here.  One of the highflyers - top A level results in his district -  only got to progress to secondary school, which is always fee paying, by queuing and making representations to the District Education Officer, who personally underwrote his fees in an act of charity.  Others got top results despite school records which make it clear they missed terms here, and sat out years there, because family finances were going to get the older sibling through secondary school first.  Still others have references which show they taught all the classes to their peers a year below them for two terms, due to teacher absence.  What happened to their own classes while they were teaching others?

- Where middleranking UK universities might see outreach work as seeking out young people who are the first generation in university in their family, here this is an almost certainty. One lad writes of growing up in a village of mainly illiterate villagers.  Another of overcoming childhood kwashlikor, caused by malnutrition. A third of working as a street hawker to raise money for his siblings' school fees. One writes of growing up in a polygamous family, one of 27 children, with very little parental attention.

And yet, I'm seeing, in many ways, the job IS much the same - helping people identify and articulate what matters to them, who they are and have faith that this is acceptable. Helping them identify what they could contribute in a new setting, and how to communicate it convincingly.  Nurturing confidence in a setting where the pitfalls can be devastating.  Helping manage expectations and broaching fallback plans. But without the safety nets of 'This is the assumed knowledge'. 'This is how we do things here.' Just listening, responding, and reflecting back, - invaluable where many have had very little access to personal attention.  Trusting in the process. Trusting that supporting people to consider how they can get their questions answered from their own resources, help them imagine alternative scenarios and visions, and how they might feel in them, helping them learn to ask better questions for their lives, IS of use in this country where there are few safety nets and only handfuls have the security of trial runs.

Living with uncertainty

So we're back in Nairobi after 5 weeks away, more relaxed than pre-departure and more competent than this time last year. And with the greater detachment after absence I'm aware what I'm grappling with is the lesson of living in shades of grey, living in the moment, less worrying about the morrow, being in the here and now, seeking not to focus on the worries at the corner of my eye, but to act justly in the moment.

The month before we left was overshadowed by worrying about illnesses of our house staff. Waking up at 3am worrying. We'd decided when we employed people that we would aim to be good employers subsidising their health and their children's education. After checking with friends here long term we agreed to take on responsibility for paying 80% of their medical costs and to pay it from our pockets rather than paying for individual private medical insurance at £270/per person pa. And over much of the year it was clear that the staff really welcomed this degree of security, and the only health costs had been a gift of £30 when the 3 year old son of the handyman was knocked unconscious and needed rushing to a clinic, a scan and a doctor's consultation. Though school fees for five children and part fees for another two is another matter again.

But then one night I realised that E, the night guard who covers at weekends, had lost alot of weight. About a stone and a half. And he said he'd been diagnosed with diabetes. You buy insulin privately here if you can afford it. $80 a daily dose. But his monthly wage, as sole wage earner in his family, is about $100/month. And though we are the people he has regular contact with, he is employed by a major global firm - which doesn't offer health cover - and contracted by D's employer not by us. On the one hand it is clear he needs access to insulin and would get this, were he in UK. On the other, amidst the many responsibilities we have to others we are employing, the cost, and not creating something which can't be sustainable in the medium term at latest once we've left Kenya, beyond a supply for emergencies this is something we are choosing not to take on. With heavy hearts. And as you dig beneath the surface it becomes clear how pressing an issue this is for many in our lives. L, our homehelp, has adopted her dead sister's two children, alongside her own. But as I discussed E's diagnosis with her, she noted that the sister who died had died from a diabetic coma. And another adult sister who lives intermittently with her is diabetic, attempting to manage the situation by diet.

And so to R, our handyman cum gardener, who always wears a hat, no matter what the weather. I had just assumed he was a fanatical Arsenal fan, never to be seen without his supporter's woolly hat even when unblocking the sewage pipe in full midday sun. But 2 days after the E incident he was looking tired on a Monday morning. What's up? Heavy weekend?

He hadn't been sleeping for the last month. Bad headaches. Whipped off his hat to show a growth the size of a pancake on the side of his face and neck.
'How long have you had that for?'
8 years... but I've only had the headaches for the last month. When I went to the doctor 3 years ago he told me it would cost £60 to operate.
Brain tumour.' I was thinking. 'Thousand dollar bills.' 'And this one IS up to us.'

A friend whose daughter fell this year paid $1000 deposit before seeing a neurosurgeon and a further $1400 for a scan and consult. How much would potential brain surgery cost? But R is in his thirties, and is employed by us, again sole wage earner and has 4 young children. Though we pay generously there is no way he could begin to meet the costs of potential neurosurgery.

So I gave him £60 to go and see a doctor at the local clinic, and he queued for two days to get to the head of the queue. And off we flew on our much needed but by no means cheap holiday, while I checked my phone for a text on the debts we might have run up in our absence.

But praise be, on our return, there is R, weeding in full health, without hat for the first time, with a neat little scar on the side of his head. Its a bit hard to determine what was up from the scrappy note in internationally illegible GP handwriting and our language difficulties and lack of diagnostic skills. But not a brain tumour, only a further £60 owed, and if I understand correctly, possibly a fatty deposit caused by too much heading of the football in his youth. Headaches gone. Beauty restored. And a sound night's sleep for all concerned.

And what am I learning? That there aren't solutions to everything. That what matters more - or maybe not more, but as much - is concern and involvement. That E wasn't expecting or asking for us to pay for insulin for him, - though this IS what we expect from our solutions-focussed perspective. That what matters now to him is that we are willing to enquire, do what we can, and to sit with him in the messiness and anxiety of a life without safety nets and solutions. That he feels he can ask us in an emergency. That in our limited way, with our self imposed restrictions, we don't just walk by on the other side of the road.