Life starts early in Kenya. Alarm at 550. Kids up by 620. Kids' departure with our school lift rota by 730. And then, on my non-work days, there's a whole swathe of the day which I've only rarely encountered before. Certainly never before with pleasure.
Assisting Daffodil the hen in her morning escape from the coop. Lily never did take to the coop, and still roosts in the shrubbery. Fine at night, but at breakfast time, as I linger over a 650 am cup of coffee, Lily sneaks off to snack on any leftover maize while Daffodil is still incarcerated. You can hear the outrage from half a mile away. How DARE she?
Once out, like a ceremonial guard, they flank me on either side and frogmarch me back to the kitchen. Don't forget the breakfast you can see them muttering. Don't get caught up in locating a child's shoe and forget about us. Do it now! Wheep, go the guinea pigs, wheep, wheep, and no more boring carrots. What about some apple today. Damp grass underfoot, quiet road, lilac jacaranda petals strewn, no one about. Just me, the chickens and the guinea pigs. Simple pleasures in the early morning garden.
And today too, L, the guard's pure delight at a few more books added to our 10 book 'library'. Books are expensive in Kenya and there are very very few public libraries. We started off a tentative book shelf for the guards a month ago: Dick Francis, John Wyndham sci-fi, some Kenyan classics people would have read at school - Ngugi wa Thiongo, Chinua Achebe - and some up to the minute Kenyan books you can only get under the counter here - Our Turn to Eat, on the massive corruption scandals, and the literary & very weighty, Wizard of the Crow. (I got stuck on page 57.) Plus To Kill a Mockingbird, and Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry.
While the guards were definitely pleased, for several it was a bit like being given a new toothbrush. Kind thought, bit perplexing, definitely underwhelming.
For L however it has been a tickertape parade of pleasure. He beamed, he jiggled from foot to foot at the sight of them. He got stuck in straightaway. At 830 am there he is, opening the gate with his thumb keeping his page. He yomped right through complex Wizard of the Crow in three days. He cried at To Kill a Mockingbird. He disdained Dick Francis (to my sorrow, as I have lots of them). He discussed, he recommended, he put in requests for more by favourite authors. He noted that several of the guards didn't share his enthusiam: 'Well, they like it, but they are more sluggish about reading.'
Watching L sitting on a plastic chair by our guard hut, engrossed in a book, I feel as I do when T or K do something generous, thoughtful, unprompted and unanticipated. A sense of thankfulness at someone else's actions. A sense of things, in small small ways, going right with the world. A sense of barriers coming down, of individuals venturing into the joys, pressures and realities of others' lives.
I remember taking K and friends to a reading by Jacqueline Wilson at University of Hertfordshire, when the girls were around 8. Suddenly, as they entered the auditorium, full to capacity with bubbling girls and their parents in tow, there was a change in the atmosphere. A private, solitary, secret, almost furtive activity, reading, had become a cool preteen, group activity. This distant author on the book cover revealed herself as an interesting adult, keen to interact with children, wearer of artistic rings. Reading and its pleasures became communal.
Blinkering ones eyes to unmet needs of others is much of the daily experience in Kenya. Defining to oneself, I've been asked to do this, and I will do a and b, but not c, d or e. Seeking to know one's boundaries, to model appropriately, to respect the individual even if not always responding to their need. Feeling inadequate. Embattled. Not the person that I believed I was, or that I wanted to be.
So its so good to start the day with simple actions where you can do what is wanted. Where your input is enough. Where a handful of maize and dried fish is enough to prompt happy clucking and fluffed feathers. Where the loan of a book changes someone's memory bank, if not their daily reality.
Assisting Daffodil the hen in her morning escape from the coop. Lily never did take to the coop, and still roosts in the shrubbery. Fine at night, but at breakfast time, as I linger over a 650 am cup of coffee, Lily sneaks off to snack on any leftover maize while Daffodil is still incarcerated. You can hear the outrage from half a mile away. How DARE she?
Once out, like a ceremonial guard, they flank me on either side and frogmarch me back to the kitchen. Don't forget the breakfast you can see them muttering. Don't get caught up in locating a child's shoe and forget about us. Do it now! Wheep, go the guinea pigs, wheep, wheep, and no more boring carrots. What about some apple today. Damp grass underfoot, quiet road, lilac jacaranda petals strewn, no one about. Just me, the chickens and the guinea pigs. Simple pleasures in the early morning garden.
And today too, L, the guard's pure delight at a few more books added to our 10 book 'library'. Books are expensive in Kenya and there are very very few public libraries. We started off a tentative book shelf for the guards a month ago: Dick Francis, John Wyndham sci-fi, some Kenyan classics people would have read at school - Ngugi wa Thiongo, Chinua Achebe - and some up to the minute Kenyan books you can only get under the counter here - Our Turn to Eat, on the massive corruption scandals, and the literary & very weighty, Wizard of the Crow. (I got stuck on page 57.) Plus To Kill a Mockingbird, and Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry.
While the guards were definitely pleased, for several it was a bit like being given a new toothbrush. Kind thought, bit perplexing, definitely underwhelming.
For L however it has been a tickertape parade of pleasure. He beamed, he jiggled from foot to foot at the sight of them. He got stuck in straightaway. At 830 am there he is, opening the gate with his thumb keeping his page. He yomped right through complex Wizard of the Crow in three days. He cried at To Kill a Mockingbird. He disdained Dick Francis (to my sorrow, as I have lots of them). He discussed, he recommended, he put in requests for more by favourite authors. He noted that several of the guards didn't share his enthusiam: 'Well, they like it, but they are more sluggish about reading.'
Watching L sitting on a plastic chair by our guard hut, engrossed in a book, I feel as I do when T or K do something generous, thoughtful, unprompted and unanticipated. A sense of thankfulness at someone else's actions. A sense of things, in small small ways, going right with the world. A sense of barriers coming down, of individuals venturing into the joys, pressures and realities of others' lives.
I remember taking K and friends to a reading by Jacqueline Wilson at University of Hertfordshire, when the girls were around 8. Suddenly, as they entered the auditorium, full to capacity with bubbling girls and their parents in tow, there was a change in the atmosphere. A private, solitary, secret, almost furtive activity, reading, had become a cool preteen, group activity. This distant author on the book cover revealed herself as an interesting adult, keen to interact with children, wearer of artistic rings. Reading and its pleasures became communal.
Blinkering ones eyes to unmet needs of others is much of the daily experience in Kenya. Defining to oneself, I've been asked to do this, and I will do a and b, but not c, d or e. Seeking to know one's boundaries, to model appropriately, to respect the individual even if not always responding to their need. Feeling inadequate. Embattled. Not the person that I believed I was, or that I wanted to be.
So its so good to start the day with simple actions where you can do what is wanted. Where your input is enough. Where a handful of maize and dried fish is enough to prompt happy clucking and fluffed feathers. Where the loan of a book changes someone's memory bank, if not their daily reality.
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