Change for Beginners, level 1

I was too bewildered to blog  - or indeed to do much more than grunt - when we first arrived in Kenya, but it was then that my impressions were most vivid.  Now 18 months in-country, I have just reread the letters I sent to friends in UK just after my arrival.  This is some of the first one, one month after I and the children had joined D, who'd already been here for some six months.
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I suppose the thing about change is that it isn't phased, - Change for Beginners, level 1. This first month here has been demanding beyond. Partly linked to the start of water and power rationning the week we arrived and to the range of things to coordinate. But also linked to pent up needs from staff who had been waiting for me to arrive for the six months when D was here alone, and to the range of definitive answers creating precedents which people want, ideally now. On one hand I so understand it: people want economic security for their families, they want a clearcut yes that they can continue working for you, with a range of additional benefits. And in the mean time they need me to get them an electric ring (for lunch), a large thermos (for drinks for guards), a large alumninium ladder (to cut the branches shorting the electric fence), a set of overalls (extra large) and welly boots (size 10) – for gardener, 10kg of ugali (maize flour for lunches), 2kg of sugar (for tea), and so on.

So my first week was full of interesting little expeditions to find alumninum ladders, - so different from what one might be doing as a tourist, but a means to meet other bewildered expat wives on similar errands. Life starts so early here, so by 730 am people have already collared me to explain about the situation for school fees for their children and to request a loan, or the latest emergency needing sorting has happened. Really not a time of day when I’m at my best. Theoretically I know I just need to get organised and to manage the situation better, with an office hour when I have had a cup of coffee. Maybe two cups of coffee, extra strong.  But in practice its difficult, and there aren’t clearcut right answers. It feels like being the parents of hoardes of rather demanding teenagers, who want yes answers now to things which stretch your boundaries a long way.


So at present, because of the severe drought, we have power rationning 3 days/week – no electricity between 6am and 6pm. Though our days are preset, they do move without notice. There's no water at the house without water tankers, which need coordinating. And last week 'our' tanker got impounded by the City Council for 3 days though it did deliver a few hours after everything ran out. Plus the day when there were several very loud explosions in the garden, which I and L thought were gunfire and ran to barricade selves and children in the secure area. It turned out that one overhead power cable had touched another one running over our garden, creating a fireball. Big bangs, and shorted power for the road on a day when we had it. Sorted surprisingly quickly but very scary at the time.

And again we are very fortunate. We can afford water and it tends to arrive. L, our housekeeper, has not had mains water at home for 7 months. But what too is difficult is trying to manage demand for the water. We got a small tanker load last Monday and already, a week hence, we are nearly out. We have been flushing only when necessary, having only short showers, and I think CAN’T be using that much – and yet I so get that there are the families of L, R the gardener and the 3 guards who are also, I imagine, living from smuggled jerrycans of this water too. And I don’t want to be the employer who says ‘You can’t use the water we are fortunate enough to have.’ But I do want to say 'Only in moderation and for heaven’s sake we can’t get through 500 litres in a week!’

Life was certainly much easier doing this kind of thing just as a volunteer in Madagascar, rather than with a beautiful house and other peoples expectations. I felt much more positive after meeting the VSOs who do all the things against which I was warned fervently at the terrifying security briefing, unscathed.

So much of life isn’t about certainty.  I realise how much I depend on my friends to help me find my way when uncertain. Here right answers are hard to come by, just less wrong answers.  And one month in is very soon to meet proper friends to help talk through the issues and guide the way.

Much love to you and yours,   Catrin