Turn Aside

Every one of us is a radical experiment in living and needs a place which will allow us to become all we know we can be.
Jennifer Barraclough, former Director of Woodbrooke 

I've just had the great luxury of four nights away from the everyday, on retreat, at Woodbrooke, the Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham UK.  Luxury because Birmingham is a long, long way from Kenya. Luxury because, when asked after 18 months in Kenya, what I wanted for Christmas, this was it. What I really really really wanted.  Luxury because getting my partner, who already leaves for work at a 620 am crack of dawn and returns home, drained, through heavy traffic far far later, and friends, who already juggle complicated lives, to cover for my bit of the conveyer belt of parenthood and life, is no small ask. Luxury because though life in Kenya can be stressful, its not like I'm an overstretched mental health worker or a paramedic to *deserve* a retreat.  Luxury because while I am so excited about and so value this chance, despite the best intentions, its not that prayer and retirement is a daily part of my regime. I accept its rather like a sporadic Sunday afternoon jogger signing up for a high altitude Olympic marathon training camp.  But I want to pay more attention to this side of my life. Why not sign up to be nurtured by the best?

The time was all, and more, that I hoped it could be. 

Woodbrooke is set in beautiful grounds with geese, lake and woods, formerly owned - and handed on to the wider Quaker family - by George Cadbury, the chocolate manufacturer.  Its hosted many change agents before their heady glory days, - Gandhi, Jomo Kenyatta. It has an amazing library, open 24/7, with a quirky, creative, fascinating range of books.  But what makes it special

for me, are its rhythms, early morning meeting for worship, afternoon tea, late night epilogue, its place for worship and retirement, and the ever-changing, ever-fascinating mix of guests. 

Over the years I've met such memorable people there.  People who truly lived their lives to the full. In the 1990s, speaking to the white South African guest, my age, who turned out to have been a conscientious objector who had spent three years in prison in solitary confinement for his refusal to serve in apartheid's armed forces.  Late night cocoa, chatting to the feisty woman in her mid-eighties, who started a sentence mid-conversation, 'but that was back when I was a man, before my op'.  Poets, former monks, African peace workers, former paramilitaries, a rich heady mix. 

Woodbrooke is a place for transitions. As prospective Quaker volunteers overseas you spend a week or two there to prepare and reflect before definitively signing your contract.   As a 20-something about to volunteer in Brussels at the European institutions, I had a memorable fortnight alongside early retirees about to work in battletorn north eastern Sri Lanka, interns at the UN in Geneva and others moving to community organisations in the Middle East and Southern Africa.  We did role plays relevant to our postings.  Told Tamil Tiger soldiers that we'd be willing to give them a lift, but they'd need to leave their weapons behind to come in our car. Learned how to deflect the predatory senior UN official from a country where the rights of young women are understood differently.  Listened to former volunteers, a couple who'd been in a very volatile warzone, speaking of their unspoken understandings, for one of them that they'd be very lucky to come out of this alive, but that nonetheless it mattered to be there, for the other that of course, all would be well, all manner of things would be well.  We talked of ethical dilemmas. Of different behaviour in different countries. Of how protesting if a teammember is arrested may prevent torture, but may endanger the future of involvement in the country.  For me, then, it was a massive eyeopener. Not that it was essential for my work in Brussels, but to feel part of a wider family with different dilemmas, of a world family with very different realities, mattered.

Two years ago, before coming to Kenya, I was struggling with my lot, with this upcoming major transition.  Headed to Woodbrooke for a workshop, Sink Down to the Seed, a chance to explore different methods of prayer, to deepen one's prayer life.  Discovered how an experienced spiritual director can hold a safe, worshipful space, can pose gentle but searching questions, help a disparate group to trust and gell, to explore their encounters with God, to share them with strangers, and to become deep friends. Learned 'tips' from others in the group, of early morning journalling, of prayers said before they step out into the day that they might welcome God in each person they meet that day. Moved beyond my wholly do-it-yourself approach to prayer to learn different techniques, walking mediation, wordless body prayers, examen, where one looks back at times in the last day when one has felt most connected and engaged to God, and when most drained and distant.  Valued a programme which had a plan, but where it was clear that what was going on, being experienced in the worshipful group, superceded any preplanned agenda or potentially useful exercises.

(..) Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, (..)
RS Thomas

So, now in a happier, less strained and estranged place it felt important to meet again with the same facilitator on her next course, on Thomas Kelly.  How fantastic to discover that, of our upbeat, grounded, trusting original group of two years ago, half the participants had signed up again, groupies, cigarette lighters in hand.  No one posed that age-old Quaker query, 'How doth the Truth prosper with thee?' - but that was what underlay our time together. Space to turn aside, to reflect, with Friends,  how, and where the Spirit may be guiding us, what each of us is being called to build on and to do.

I understand the theology, the logic, for Friends of our liberal unprogrammed tradition, that as God speaks directly to each one of us, should we choose to listen, we are all ministers, and have no paid, recorded ministry. I understand the logic, and yet, at times like this, I feel their loss.  Our workshop facilitator was a recorded minister from a programmed tradition. She'd spent a great deal of time training for and leading groups like ours, and boy did it show.  I think back to other times in my life when guided time aside has really spoken to me. To the church toddler group where the vicar would come each week and lead a personal, deeply spiritual 10 minute input before coffee, for the largely secular, bustling, preoccupied group of mums and toddlers.  And of the gathered silence that would fall in that unlikely setting.   Of the Anglican vicar at our children's village primary school in UK, and how he would transform the school weekly service to something meaningful, which spoke deeply to conscripted children and volunteer parents, of all faiths and none.  Of my friend, the former nun, who led Brussels meeting in a month-long retreat in everyday life.  Experience matters.

Which is why Woodbrooke is so important to me. A resource for those bits I find too tricky alone. A place for new beginnings, for fresh attempts at old resolutions, for worthy endeavours which may, or may not, be garlanded with worldly success, but which matter just the same.  Alongside our group this time were ten prospective Ecumenical Accompaniers, volunteers from across UK, training to live on the West Bank under occupation. A programme of the World Council of Churches, the accompaniers offer protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. While we were there we heard they'd all passed the programme, had all agreed to sign their contracts, and would be off in September.  The community gave them an ovation, raised our glasses to them, made it clear we were proud of them, that they were doing this on behalf of a wider group of supporters.  I'd guess in the wider world, friends, neighbours, owners of corner shops, might be saying 'Why on earth would you go there now you're just retired?'  I'd guess there'll be times, at checkpoints, at flashpoints, witnessing human rights abuses, when our friends will wonder themselves why they're there.  Like freshfaced students returning from college with your washing, it matters to have somewhere where you belong, are accepted, where your motives are understood. For me Woodbrooke is one of those places.

'All that matters is to be one with the living God
to be a creature in the house of the God of Life.

Like a cat asleep on a chair
at peace, in peace
and at one with the master of the house, with the mistress,
at home, at home in the house of the living,
sleeping on the hearth, and yawning before the fire.

Sleeping on the hearth of the living world
yawning at home before the fire of life
feeling the presence of the living God
like a great reassurance
a deep calm in the heart
a presence
as of the master sitting at the board
in his own and greater being,
in the house of life.'
D H Lawrence

National Anthems

A month after we arrived in Kenya, in a long, cold, wet, winter holiday, the children and I discovered Mzuri Madness, half price cinema tickets at the daytime shows on a Monday.  Plus free hotdogs.  Amidst the stress and disorientation of arrival it was an escapist treat, as good as a trip to the spa or a massage, had we known where they were to be found at that stage.  Bliss. Until in week two we introduced a mate who'd grown up in Kenya to them.  Buried under cardboard trays full of popcorn, hot dogs and mustard, she suddenly digs me in the ribs, urgently. 'Get up, get up'. 'Uggh?' And explains that the loud music now playing is the national anthem. That it's the law to stand for the national anthem, on pain, she hisses loudly, of possible imprisonment.  That we need to stand up now to show respect, even though we are the only people in the deserted 2pm cinema.

And so, we've adapted.  First, Secondborn and I now always get up, respectfully, in the deserted cinema, even though the alarmed expressions of another mzungu family behind us a few weeks ago, suggested they thought we'd recently been released into the community.  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

It matters. I remember the controversy when John Redwood, recently appointed Conservative Secretary of State for Wales, was spotted on camera pretending to mouth the words to the Welsh national anthem, Mae Hen Wlad Fn Nhadau.  An English Conservative minister appointed to a country where only a tiny minority of the elected representatives were Conservative, who hadn't even bothered to learn the words of the anthem in the native tongue, - it spoke volumes of lack of understanding and cultural tact.  His successor, William Hague, was taught the words on his second day in post by a key civil servant, later to become his wife. Lets not make that mistake again.

On our induction visit to Kenya we visited many schools, liked several. But blacklisted the frontrunner because touring the classrooms accompanied by the headteacher, we progressed into a classroom, where a class of middle school children were singing lustily 'Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves.'  There could be good reasons to learn it. They might be analysing the hymns of empire. Might be exploring historical notions embedded within it. Might just like the tune. But as we backed hastily out, the head coughed once, and glided over any embarrassment.  Failed to address it. Didn't give any explanation. And left us with the unaddressed misconception that this was the kind of thing they taught there, hymns which harked back to the days of empire, without supporting the children to consider how this might now be viewed differently, nowadays, in Kenya.  (At our first choice school on the other hand, the children have been given in-depth understanding of how empire can be perceived by the oppressed.  Eight year old SecondBorn's list of spelling a few months ago included the words Mau Mau, empire, coloniser, independence struggle, oppression. His Kenyan nationalist teacher has given him a sense of African consciousness. He comes home discussing the Sudanese referendum, the revolution in Egypt, asking who in his family he can interview about their experiences during the Kenyan fight for independence.  And learning from his classmates, some of whose grandparents were interned and are now the great and the good of independent  Kenya.)

In the meantime, since the Kenyan national anthem is sung at each school concert, carol service - and all those cinema shows - I've learned the words, in Swahili and in English.  Sang today, in the regional Chamber Music Festival, surrounded by parents from another school.  And realised, with surprise, that I and the Kenyan dad next to me were the only ones to know the words of the twenty around us.  It's only a small gesture. It doesn't take long.  But I think it matters to show respect for a country, its values, its aspirations, - and I'm proud that First and SecondBorn are nearly word perfect.

Ee Mungu nguvu yetu

Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.

O God of all creation


Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty
Plenty be found within our borders.

I'm Late, I'm Late

When I lived in Berlin, some twenty years ago, there was a national survey on people's perceptions of acceptable delays before a  public transport bus, in big city traffic, was perceived to be late.  '3 minutes' was the response over Germany.  And so it was. You could leave the flat in the student hostel and, split second timing, arrive 2 minutes later at the bus stop in parallel with the bus. A marvel and miracle for me even then. 

Perceptions of time in Kenya, are, not surprisingly, very different.  Weddings start hours late.  Peremptory letters sent out by the school summoning the children and their driver (mother) to pre-dawn starts for orchestra tours up country may state that the bus will leave at 530am from the staff carpark, but no one but one German-conditionned, relatively recently arrived expat, feels themselves bound by that, not even the teacher who wrote the letter. 

I'm not a morning person at the best of times. In addition there's the perception that carjackers are more likely to be about pre-dawn, whereas, in fact, I think they are probably wrapped snug and warm in their duvets like everyone else.  So its a nervy wait, alone but for a grumpy Firstborn, in the dark in a deserted staff carpark at 515 am, till the organising teacher turns up at 600, and the busdriver has to be phoned, increasingly urgently, and eventually turns up, dishevelled, at 630.  You'd think I'd learn but somehow, punctuality seems hardwired now and I can't move with the dominant culture.

This week someone asked to meet up with me for a favour.  I phoned her to confirm our appointment, and she asked to shift it to another time, and a place far closer to her but 20 minutes drive away for me. Ok then.  I texted to confirm again that morning. No reply, which doesn't really mean anything in Kenya. Got there. Waited 20 minutes. Phoned her four times without response till she switched the phone off. But then, an hour later, by when I'd driven home, she phoned, unapologetic, 'I'm there now.  Where are you?'  'Well I'm back home because our appointment was an hour ago and I waited 30 minutes then left for my next meeting.'  'Oh.  Well come back now.' 'No, I've just driven home and have had enough for today.'  So we made a third appointment, of her choice again, - 8am on a Saturday morning. Clearly not a time of my choosing.

Off I trooped, grumpily, on PrimeLieInDay.  And waited, 15 minutes, alone. And phoned, to be clear and explicit that this was IT with me for favours for her.  To have her hang up one and a half sentences into my call. Still no apology. Still no woman.  Actually, no sense from her that having made an arrangement she felt any obligation to keep it or even flickering of guilt that she'd stood me up three times, each of her choosing.

At BigCorporate people do turn up on time for meetings, do believe that things agreed to, have to be done.  But it isn't a general belief with professional commitments here, I've discovered.  The internet service salesman who didn't come on Thursday as agreed, explained, when I tracked him down on Friday 'well, because it was raining.'  The student nominated for the prestigious scholarship who didn't turn up for his individual personal workshop to help hone his application, and in fact, when I phoned him two hours after our intended start time to find out where he was, he was still at his desk in the branch office five hours travel away. 'You didn't think to come? Or to let me know?'  'Oh I thought I'd come tomorrow instead, we're very busy here today.'

It's not that I've got overdemanding high standards I don't think. I've worked for a long time with students, hardly perceived to be the best-coordinated time managers of UK society.  I've even worked with Italian teenagers, 80 of them at a go. But this, here, now, - this tunnel vision which isn't just about punctuality but about a sense that anyone's priorities but your own have validity, even when specialist expertise or favours are being sought - well that, for me, is rock bottom.

Good Filing Monitor

From a series of photos on officialdom around the world:   Sushma Prasad is an assistant clerk at the Cabinet Secretary of the State of Bihar (population 83 million) in the Old Secretariat in the state capital, Patna, in India.   To see the series http://www.guardian.co.uk/share/1547260

Keeping copies, filing, tabulating, systems, recalling, these are some of the underrated skills of the expat life.  Until I hit working life my family model for safekeeping key documents was that of 'putting them somewhere safe'.  In the top right hand drawer of the sideboard in my parents' living room in general.  5000 miles is rather too far for this to continue as my main filing cabinet, but its still my mental default, now supplanted by 'the desk upstairs', 'the floor next to the desk upstairs' and so on.

In your home country it is fairly clear which documents will be needed again, which are vital. The UK, I now discover, has a fairly forgiving attitude to poor filers, a reasonable computer network, a general ability to provide duplicates should this prove essential.  Sadly, this is a poor model for the rest of life. I once temped in the certification office of an elite London college, providing duplicate certificates for global graduates who'd lost them.  Several years of verifying records from the 1970s had been kept in an underground basement which had flooded, - all records lost.  But that was the exception, rather than the rule (Catrin, PhD, 1972).

I remember my outrage when there was a change of head at our children's UK primary school, and the new head, clearly a superlative filer herself, introduced a new incentive scheme for the children, the Governors' Award.  Children providing five of their merit certificates (issued at irregular intervals on gaining 50 merit stars, around twice a year) would qualify for the Governors' Award, a tea-party 'with chocolate' with the governors, and termly picnics and outings. 'Children of good filers' award' I called it sourly, until we disenterred Firstborn's certificates from archaeological layers around the house.  If only I'd known then....

Shifting the goalposts happens regularly here too. Last year there was a three month period where daily, queues encircled an administration block in town. The government had introduced legislation that no one could take public examinations without first providing a birth certificate - often not issued up country.  Hoardes of pre-KCSE students or their parents queued for days to get a birth certificate, 16 or more years after their birth.  A friend's housekeeper sought to track down  her husband who had left her 17 years previously, had never paid anything towards the upkeep of his children, and whose agreement was needed before her son's birth-certificate could be issued.  In vain. In the end she departed again up country bearing gifts for his mother and for the chief of their area, and returned, weary, several days later with the precious certificate, achieved via a back alley route.  One of the country's most respected and prized religious orphanages and vocational training schemes only takes in orphans who have their birth certificate.  It seems very hard when you'd imagine many of those in need of support, - or who had survived a time on the street - might well be missing this (now) key document.

I'm in a longstanding tussle with Kenyan officialdom. Last week I 'dropped in' to my contact person on the fifth floor of a mighty towerblock with no lift to find out the current status of my application, - filed 8 months ago.  'It's been approved!' Hurrah, fanfares. But turning up next morning with all my paperwork to finalise the documentation, I pass via my contact to his colleague four floors down, who deals with the next stage. 'It should be there by now' says my contact. Ominous words in retrospect, since the computer records show in fact it was approved 5 weeks ago, just I still haven't received the letter.  Down I traipse. Help the colleague search various files, daybooks, piles of paper at random over the office. To no avail. My paperwork is lost. 8 months in the waiting, already onto the second application, and the key bit of paper is lost. 

'Can't you proceed without it as you can see the approval on the database?' I say in wheedlng tone?  Come back tomorrow, I may have found it by then, he says, hoping to defer a thorny problem or put me off.  'Someone is back here for the fifth time,' his colleague says disapprovingly in Kiswahili, thinking I don't understand. Oh dear. In for a long wait them.

Thwarted Ambitions

It's not that my life has always been smooth sailing, serene mountain streams down to a tranquil millpond sea. I've had my choppy periods, ups and downs.  I've searched for work in 1984 post-industrial South Wales. I've been unemployed, and made redundant. I've worked as a hotel cleaner, a security guard, on the till of the Marks & Spencer food counter on Christmas Eve and in credit control, as well as in more professional guises. But life in Kenya has presented more challenges to my realistic ambitions than any other period, I reckon.  And maybe that's how life is in Kenya.

For me, the challenges have mainly been around work, work identity and acquistion of work permits. It started with the induction visit, where I was told, very firmly, in 1950s tones, that  'It's very difficult to get a work permit here. Your job will be to support your husband.  We might, over time, be able to get you a nice little admin job here.' D's hand firmly on my knee stopped me from savaging the messenger with a blow by blow account of my professional credentials, and tarnishing our first joint visit to his new office.

Despite the rocky start, for the first year I was mainly content to bide my time, acclimatise, and concentrate on finding my way through the shrubbery. Lots of strategising maybe, scribbling in a hotly held workbook with today's newly acquired smart gel pen, laying plans, but a generally calm, if fallow, period.  But then, in response to advice from the Ministry, I managed to set up a Kenyan registered company, and the fun started in trying to obtain a work permit to go with it.

Firstly you can't get reliable information. Having submitted my first application in compliance with the explanatory email from the Ministry, three months later I then receive word that none of what is written in the email is correct. Fill in another form, apply under another heading, disregard that coherent email, start again. 

It wasn't that I was unrealistic at the outset, I thought. A friend had prepared me for a long wait.  Hired for an urgent timelimited job, after 4 months she was issued with a work permit in the name of her husband. Back to the drawing board. Then her papers got lost. 8 months till she received the (simpler) employee permit.

How much DO you need to invest to demonstrate you have enough capital to get a work permit as a sole trader? One might imagine that maybe £15,000 plus a comprehensive insurance bond would be enough? No, no, £200,000 I was told, and it must be lodged in a Kenyan bank. On the other hand, others say you just need to demonstrate that level of capital, for example, safely in bricks and mortar in a UK house. And still others say $50,000 must be enough.  And I'm not trying to set up a boutique hotel. Not planning to employ anyone. Only supporting people to find and create employment. Could be defined as 'of benefit to the Kenyan economy'. One more potential worker, aiming to create her own employment, willing to pay Kenyan taxes. And supporting jobseekers in a developping country, unlikely to earn megabucks. But further digging just results in further tentative, partial responses.

Then there's the corruption issue, 'graft' as its known here. My bottom line is to seek to do this reputably. Not to undermine the valiant attempts by many Kenyans not to bribe. Not to create a market for the bribeable.  But its easier said than done. The effective way to get a permit is to use a fixer. No standing in queues for days, no seeking to develop a schmoozing register to one's Kiswahili, no trying to understand the impenetrable yourself. But the fixers bribe. Mainly. One stalwart sole trader predecessor, steadfast against bribery, struggled for 3 years before his permit was awarded.  And then, a fortnight ago, 12 staff from the Ministry of Immigration were sacked for corruption. Gossip mills allege that permits had been bought for between £2,000 and £10,000 (on top of the £2,000 official fee).  And word on the street is that issuing of any work permits at all, even those legal to the hilt, has ground to a halt, as the staff in the Ministry are fearful that any decision taken at all will put them next in the firing line.

I understand that things are done differently in different places.  In Germany, where I've also lived and worked, official regulations are complex, but are written down and applied stringently. Woe betide you if you forget or misplace one certified, translated copy, but what you need is clearly laid out in paragraph 3.6.3.1.  In UK, regulations are transparent, there's a recognition that filing systems may sometimes be chaotic, and there's always potential for a conversation with a sensible administrator to cut through problems.  In Belgium things are murkier.  Presentation of the right party card on the table at the appropriate moment can overcome mountains. Unlikely candidates and project proposals may win through, thanks to judicious application of a 'piston', a word in the right ear from a VIP mover and shaker. What I don't yet understand is the officially sanctionned but effective way to go about things here.

I've got professional experience in international, local and regional organisations. I've been nominated for prestigious awards. I speak three world languages fluently, and have worked, more or less competently, using another 3 less widely spoken ones. I have professional qualifications and experience needed and in short supply in the Kenyan labour market. I even have potential clients who want to hire me. I'm not a former axe murderer or a potential arms dealer. You might think that might make a difference. No.

I try to tell myself it isn't personal. And sadly, it isn't.  I interviewed jobseekers, jobholders and employers here last year for my dissertation.  One jobseeker, aged 18, stands out.  She'd done well in her KCSE (A level) exams, gaining the top grades which would mean she could get government funding and a place to study Medicine.  But she was the eldest child in her family, now responsible for helping find the school fees for her younger siblings. Her former school wouldn't release her KCSE certificate to her, to allow her to apply to university, because her family still owed 14,000 KSh (about £120, the whole of a good monthly salary) in unpaid school fees. All the family's spare cash was now going to her younger siblings' fees, and she couldn't see when, if ever, she, or they, would have enough surplus to secure her certificate.  She had found work as a teacher, but without the key certificate, and with her former headteacher unwilling to pick up the phone and speak out on her behalf to explain the situation, lost the job again.  I passed her some cash to start paying off the debt, to demonstrate faith that she would one day reach her goal, but its one small drop in the ocean of impeded jobseekers.

Another interviewee, a mechanic, had been searching for work, in vain, for ten years. Searching for work here means tramping, dressed in borrowed best clothes, knocking on doors, engaging in conversation, bypassing gatekeepers, bribing to gain access, presenting certificates, waiting, returning, pressing.  Each working day for the last ten years, he's been on the road somewhere in Nairobi, asking for work as a mechanic.  In vain.  Discussing his situation and the feedback he'd had over the years, it became clear that his training as a mechanic, gained on a Kenyan government youth employment scheme, actually wasn't at a high enough level to gain him work.  He had heard this - he bitterly repeated the words of the employer who'd explained it to him - but had so much invested in this future, that he'd been unable to roll with the punches and change direction.   Unwilling to seek further training or opt for work in another line.  Head down, just keep on trying.

So I suppose feeling that one has skills, expertise and commitment to offer, but no place to go because of insurmountable, implacable, indecipherable obstacles, is part of the African experience. Someone spoke once of a 'wilful obstinacy' and for me, that seems to sum it up. This time does help me identify more deeply with my interviewees, and with other jobseekers, here and elsewhere.  But if you ask me, its no way to run a country.  No way to make a population feel valued. No way to power an economy to the next level.  Its a cruel waste of talent. And a tragic loss of Kenyan potential. And I'd like to be out there, helping support those impacted by it, rather than sitting drinking coffees in a plush cafe, waiting for school pickup time.

The Right to Work

I once had my palm read on Brighton Pier.  Nothing much that the fortune teller foretold has stuck, - she didn't promise winning the lottery, and I haven't - except that she shook her head and said, 'Working is important to you. You'll always earn a living.'

In my more bitter moments seeking to get a work permit here in Kenya, I've thought of that fortune teller, 'If only you knew.' And it has been a hard, hard exercise in patience and hurdles to overcome. But today, fanfare, I am the proud recipient of a class H (self employed) work permit, stamped into the back of my passport.

The journey started exactly a year ago, when I used a reputable, non-bribe paying company, to set up a sole trader company for me. Time taken, 2 months. Hassle free, they stood in queue, they knew the regulations - and though they were based out, through heavy traffic, at the airport, they would come in to coffee shops and central points for me to sign the paperwork.  My expectations for the next stage became unrealistically high.

Application one submitted in September, with full paperwork. Advised in December that I'd applied for the wrong class. Coincided with a clean sweep approach in the Ministry, where twelve civil servants were sacked for corruption in issuing work permits. The Ministry ground to a halt. No work permits were issued at all, even to upstanding and well-deserving cases, for fear of the issuer being the next to be sacked.

In December the investment rules were changed too. Where before you'd had to prove access, in Kenya, to $50,000, now it was $100,000 dollars.  Back to the drawing board. 

Resubmission of the permit forms in February. A glimpse of light in the clouds in April, when I visited to find out the status of the application, to be told it had been approved a month before!!!  Hoppity skippity over-eager, I rushed down to get it issued, to discover the paperwork had been lost.  Oh dear.

Three weeks later I re-entered the fray. To find the Filing Fairy has been at work. Paperwork has been filed. And there it is, a nondescript little horcrux of a form, with deep hidden powers.

And so today, after a quick trip round the block for more passport photos, another quick trip to get copies of the permit for the aliens card, my first time being fingerprinted so they can distinguish me, there I am.  As the man at the counter said, 'You're independent now.' I now have the right to pay 40% taxation. To submit monthly tax returns. But to work and to get to know Kenya in a different way, no longer on the sidelines.

I wrote many bitter blogs during the gestation process, but thought it better not to post them till everything was settled. In the way that seeing other people's holiday photos is maybe not enthralling, I fear these might not be either. I'll prune, and see what remains.

Camping

I like camping. I have really happy memories of camping weekends with friends as a teenager. In the rain, in the main, but still.

I like the pared down existence, campfires, woodsmoke, dew, even, amazingly for my everyday workaday persona, early mornings.  Snug sleeping bags, gratitude for home comforts on return. Here in Kenya I love the dawn and dusk views, orange-tinged, indigo colours, the wildlife spotted inadvertently. On this last trip, the monkeys in the tree overhead pooing in the early morning, catcalling in disgust when awoken by the rowdy group. At Lake Baringo the hundreds of crocodiles ten feet away at the lake's edge, the hippos emerging to eat. Unaccustomed noises, of the forest, the dawn chorus, the bushbabies crying, monkeys burping; at our last campsite a beautiful, lone voice in the nearby mosque, calling to evening and pre-dawn prayers.  A different, more contemplative, more conscious reality.

Sadly my attempts to persuade our family that camping is a fun and profitable activity have been less garlanded with success.  They share excitement at bits of it, - toasted marshmallows and the wildlife centrally.  But many of our trips together over the last 18 months have had major dealbreakers.  Baringo, on the banks of a beautiful lake, amazing views, world-rated birdlife, swimming pool in the next door hotel. But invasion into our tents by biting ants, leading to a total of 237 bites in one night to four family members.  Collapse of stout family and rapid decamp to hotel next door. 

Last weekend we had planned to camp on the slopes of Mount Kenya. But after our two nights in a beautiful lodge further up-country we decided that two further nights of drizzly camping might not add to the experience and returned home early. Fortunately as it turned out, because, despite a car jam packed with camping mats, duvets, plastic plates and so on, it transpired on our return that the tent poles were still neatly stacked intact in the hall.

So this weekend we decided to remount our steeds, undaunted by our previous falls. Back to Timau on the slopes of Mount Kenya. Stunning views of the peak from our tent, beautiful solitary pitch on green, green grass on the banks of a small river. Peacocks, geese, ducks and ducklings gambolling happily free range. Magical waterfalls. And smugly we patted ourselves on the back at this beautiful, beautiful bargain spot.  But April is the rainy season, and while Nairobi has been dry as dry, we were in Mount Kenya the area of peak rainfall.  We wandered off for a Sunday outing elsewhere and returned three hours later to find our tent awash with water. Bailing helped, but the bedding was sodden.  Water squelched in as you trod on the groundsheet. Don't pitch the tent by the stream on the lush green grass in the rainy season.  Make sure you line the awning up 100%. And make sure you read the small print instructions of the luxury tent in detail before the first major rainfall, - in particular the bit which recommends you play the sprinkler over the canvas three times before you first set off to 'expand the cotton cells', to check the luxury seams for leaks, and to wax, rewax and wax again.  Sodden decamp to another hotel and return this morning to pack up the now, somewhat dryer, tent.

So much of life in Kenya is about coping with contingencies. Improvisation. Lateral thinking with limited or inappropriate resources.  Those graduate assessment games - which team can build the tallest tower with uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows, which team can build the biggest freestanding bridge with just newspaper and sellotape - they don't particularly reflect life in UK, but they are just perfect induction for life in Kenya.  On our way home today the car radiator kept overheating, despite the extra coolant added yesterday. As we lurched from small town garage to the garage in the next small town we tried a range of different tacks to remove the heavier water which was preventing the coolant from getting where it was needed.  What was needed was a small tube, - but neither we, nor our new mechanic friends, had any tubes.  We tried sopping up the water with a flannel. With wider tubes. And then, gingerly, coasted home, trusting to luck.  Decamping to a hotel isn't a very imaginative response to our different problems camping. But what, in retrospect, I think we're all learning, is about sizing up situations, assessing, looking for solutions, working out the risk, being willing to leave the straight and narrow preplanned option for the unexpected byway.  And that, I think, though not pared-back camping, is new simple learning of the same kind, to be proud of.

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle: Nesta Lewis

Often in low-level parenting I wonder, what is the point of this? Does anyone (the children) notice? Does it make any difference? 

I remember when SecondBorn was around three, chatting with a mother of an eleven year old boy on the school playground.  We were still being woken at ungodly hours, and she said smugly, 'Oh I got to sleep in till eight on Saturday, but then Charlie came in and I had to put my bra on so we could armwrestle.'  ?????  A flash of insight there, that life with a prepubescent boy wasn't going to be all boardgames and cross stitch.  And so it has proven to be. SecondBorn is an avid reader, true, but what he likes best is armwrestling, thumbwars, circuits round the garden on his bike, one on one basketball, active tussles. I'll be lying quietly on his bed finishing off the bedtime story, when there's a random cry of 'Wrestle her to the ground boys!' and the bedtime story is finished off in the way that HE likes best.  Fair enough.

Yesterday was the UK Royal Wedding. We're in Kenya. I'm a republican. I wish the royal family well but we'd decided to opt out of the low key streetparty and the formal reception to which we'd been invited - and had been thinking, about a month ago, of using D's four day weekend for us to go away on a farflung holiday.  But then we had an unexpected discussion, where D noted

'I think we should all watch the wedding.  It's part of our heritage, what we're passing on to the children, it matters that they feel part of it.  Don't you remember where you were when Charles and Diana got married?'

And suddenly I was plummeted back into childhood.  The excitement of the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Charles's Investiture as Prince of Wales and of the excitement of being hoisted onto shoulders as he passed, and he blew me, Welsh costumed dwt of a three year old, a kiss. Street parties, bonfires, flags and bunting, special coins and mugs handed out at school, meringue dresses, fanfares, red white and blue cakes, when in Swansea, in 1977 multicoloured cake dough was true cutting edge technology!

And there's the awfulness of Diana's death. Of deep down, wanting to be of support for those motherless boys, for that small boy, now grown, of whom my most powerful memory is him following behind the coffin of his Mum, infront of the world's media.

And amidst all my questioning whether a hereditary head of state is the imagery we want for today's Britain, of indignance at lifestyle and inequality, there's a deep visceral fondness for the royal family. Which I trace back, if I look, to early, early childhood memories.  Knee-high to a grasshopper, sitting on a pouffe, hours spent playing rummy with Aunty Nesta, as she talks me through the latest doings of our kin, and of royalty. Avid Daily Express reader she knew them all, knew their every move. Cared, deeply.  And as I look back, 40 years on, I still know my Princess Michael of Kents from my Princess Margarets. Still feel, somewhere, that it matters to be part of this.

So last Friday after I'd watched the whole service in real time, the children were yanked unceremonially from their playdates, and we sat down together as a family to watch the highlights.  Their knowledge and understanding was at a different level to mine at the same age. Secondborn 'Why are those men wearing wigs?' 'No, no, they're special bearskin hats, those soldiers wear them to accompany the Queen.'  Like watching a video of distant relations, they got inducted into telling their Prince Charles from their Prince Philips, their Princess Beatrices and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to the pomp and ceremony of how their country does big occasions.

And did it matter? Well, in the end it did to me. I was glad to wish the couple well. It mattered that we watched it together as a family. It mattered that we felt part of something going on in our home country, that we didn't feel semidetached, that our children learnt something of their heritage.  It mattered too because Aunty Nesta would have been comforted that twenty plus years after her death I still hear her silent commentary, 'Chware teg to Prince Charles', 'Fair play to Prince Charles'.  'Ooh now Catrin, that's Princess Beatrice, you know, shes... now.' And it mattered to realise that those hidden moments spent with children, the games of rummy, the idle chatting, the words and language, the sharing of what matters to us, lives on, runs deep, bubbles forth unexpectedly, long after we ourselves have gone.