Carols from Kings and other Key Customs

Tom has just come into the steamy, biscuit-filled kitchen, and found me in tears, again, at the Carols from Kings. As regular as the annual Carols from Kings I'm to be found, 3pm GMT on Christmas Eve, half-filled glass of Baileys, wet drips plopping from my nose.  It sums up where I'm not, today. With whom I'm not, today. It evokes deep homesickness, even though my home, for now, is here.

Christmas has so many spliced through experiences, both now and then, multiple layers evoked in a flash. Unpacking the Christmas tree decorations. The curly haired chorister painted by SecondBorn, aged three, at his much-loved Preschool.  I love his exuberant hair, from a carefree time of innocence. I love that he's still with us, one of the yuletide family.  I'd save him in a fire. The Christmas decorations from different stages: the baubles with glitter inside, assembled at toddler group; the gingerbread men and women bought from the Lakeside Special School Fete; the Maasai beaded decorations and tin angels, bought from community projects here in Kenya. The vile flashing Santa broaches, bought in a moment of weakness many moons ago, - source of great peer envy at school - which lurch on, batteries undinted by my dislike.  Where we've had to leave much - so many - behind at (the other) home, somehow the Christmas tree decorations become a capsule experience, an intense standing in for much which matters at this time of year.

Our post can take up to six weeks to reach us at peak times. It arrives once a week, via Tom's work, if we're lucky, if there isn't a hitch.  We generally have a ceremonial opening of cards in early February. Yesterday a Christmas card arrived from our Quaker meeting in UK. The carefully signed names, the personal comments, it mattered as much as a leaving card when departing a job after many years.  Reminders of deep friendships which are still there, despite the distance. Which matter to us, but we are the ones who moved on. It's lovely to feel that our gap, our absence is noted too. Someone got organised to get a card, to get signatures, to get them long before the final posting date. Thank you.

Assembling the key dishes for Christmas, which again, for me are signature dishes, with deeper links. Trifle for my South Wales childhood, to my Mum's recipe in a glass bowl from her Mum. Cream, jelly, custard, tinned fruit on sponge fingers. I get it's not chic. But how could it be any other?  Braised red cabbage, apples, onion, with cloves. Mince pies with Nigella's stars on top. Always look considerably more battered than hers in the photos in the book, but oh well, stands in for a certain happy falling-short in the Domestic Goddess realm.  Iced biscuits - the same recipe as for each birthday - but different cutters at Christmas. This time we've got stars, bells and Christmas trees.

I love fresh encounters with old friends. Catching up, renewing friendships. But also with familiar words of old carols, exerpts from the St James Bible, the same language as when I was in infant school.  And fresh encounters with old realities. The visiting nativity scene from our toddler group, which would travel from volunteer house to house in the toddler group, one night each, brought by the previous night's hosts, who came in for a mincepie and a playdate. New friendships, meaningful symbols of inclusion and the meaning of Christmas for kids.

'It's beginning to look alot like Christmas' goes the song. We've just returned from the coast, a long, long drive away from Nairobi, and so the song has been sung more than once, more than ten times, by the over-excited hoardes on the back seat.  But it isn't looking much at all like Christmas, not as I know it, even though this is our third Christmas here. Blue skys, hot temperatures, mosquito bites. I need cold mornings, hope of snow, ice on puddles, for things to feel 'right'.

Shamefaced

It's the Christmas holidays. FirstBorn, SecondBorn and I had been to see a film - Johnny English Reborn - at our local mall, and to have a sly pizza afterwards.  And in typical Kenyan fashion, we'd taken a doggy bag of our left over pizza and cooling chips for sometime later.

Leaving the luxury mall at rushhour, we drove at snail's pace past the small children - aged around three, five and eight, - begging for money from the drivers.  SecondBorn gets it, that that's where they live, on the street. But was loth to part with his bit of the pizza, which is a rare and relished treat for us here.

But I passed over our doggy bag, and we all turned to look at the eight year old boy's face. And his little brother, bright shining cheeks, aged around four, racing as fast as his four year old legs could carry him, through the traffic towards the cooling chips. How it made me ashamed.  Children, younger than ours, who don't have enough to eat, in our bit of our town.

Food is domestic when you have it, yet political when its scarce.  Living in a land where there's hunger makes me far more conscious of this.  When we have leftovers from our evening meal we plate them up and pass them on to our guards. But if things get into the fridge, well they can linger there and be discovered a week later, wizened with traces of mould, a blight on our conscience when others around us would have welcomed them, but were too polite to ask. 

It's not simple.  My friends who grew up here handle it better. But we were at a dinner party recently, and I was chatting to an Ethiopian woman in her late twenties.
'I was in the butchers recently and saw the sign for 'staff meat'.  How awful.' she exclaimed. 'We'd never do that in my country.'
Staff meat is the really ropy old meat, which is sold to the middle classes who don't choose to feed their staff the same as they eat.  We give a food allowance so our staff can choose what they buy themselves. But intentionally buying for others worse than you'd buy for yourselves. Well that, to my mind, - and to that of my Ethiopian friend - is dire.
'In Ethiopia' she said, 'we lived rich and poor next to each other. We played together on the street. And the poorer family next door would come and eat with us each evening.  Eat the same food.'

But its what I close my mind to much of the time here. That most children here are less well fed than mine. That by prioritising how and when I give to others, I am part of the posse who buy good stuff for my nearest and dearest, and tolerate a regime of chance scraps from my table - staff meat - for the rest.


Other posts like this one:
http://onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2011/09/poverty-prison-visiting.html

http://onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2011/06/please-look-after-this-bear-thank-you.html

Shepherds, Kings and Donkeys

There is nothing which brings a tear to my eye more rapidly than a small boy, teatowel on head, beard drawn on with eyeliner, star of the Christmas nativity play.  Small girls in Disney Snow White costumes, complete with red hairband, used to do it too, but I seem to have become de-sensitised.  Tiny children dwarfed on the stage singing solo, gathered audience holding its bated breath as one, are another winner.  I guarantee, forty years from now, I shall be the granny with the inappropriate hat blocking the view of rows behind me, sobbing loudly, as the small striped shepherds in their dressing gowns troop onto the stage.  Lovely.

I state my softer Christmas credentials rapidly, as so much of the rest of the nativity play experience leaves me stressed and Scrooge-like, sullen on the sidelines. I KNOW its for the children. I understand its about deeper spiritual truths.  I KNOW they so love it. I understand how much it matters to perform, and to have an adoring audience cheering you on. I wouldn't miss it, I know these are once in a lifetime memories.  But why why why is so much of the process made so painful for a parent?

So here's my guide from the parent's perspective for successful nativity plays.

Speaking as a serial Innkeeper's Wife, who never herself scored high in the angel stakes, dear teachers, keep a list of who had the major parts in your year's nativity play.  Pass it on to the teacher of the following year. Don't always choose the same blond angelic child to be Gabriel, spread it round a little. No one knows that angels aren't lumpen, and tinsel works wonders for everyone.  YOU may not think Overactive is angelic, but maybe their parents too need reminding of their angelic qualities by this stage in the year. Be their advocate for a brighter future, go on.  You may think these things don't matter, but pick any mild-mannered parent from the playground and ask her to recite which of her child's peers had the leading roles in each year. Then try and stop her. Ancient Mariner watch out!

Nativity plays, by their nature, are held during advent. As are carol concerts, Christmas concerts, final assemblies and sports days (here in Kenya).  But for those in employment, so too are corporate retreats, major training sessions, and East African endeavours to spend end of year surplus.  In my eight active years of nativity plays for two children, I've attended two thirds of the two play performances alone, while Tom (and many of his mates) are unavoidably away doing something week-long, residential, compulsory and year end related.

I've moaned before how the expat school day presupposes a full-time driver, or a mother who loves nothing better than nose to tail traffic jams and a second home on some cold, hard step to the school cafeteria.  This trend reaches its peak at Christmas.  In an attempt to make late night performances more manageable for the small performers, my daily routine last week involved:  dropoff FirstBorn for registration at 750, dropoff SecondBorn for registration at 0900, pick up SecondBorn at 1315, pick up FirstBorn at 1600, return SecondBorn to school, fed and watered at 1800, play starts 1845 and finishes 2030.  Bar only opens at 1830 (sigh), and by the second night, had become a dry bar, as new Kenyan legislation prevents any sale of alcohol within 100 metres of any child. 'Go coral them over there and bring back the beer,' muttered a similarly un-festive Dad at one point!   Liftshares would be a solution. But our longstanding liftshare partner was also on a pre-year end work trip (to Somalia), - which in terms of complications and stresslevels, sure puts my petty moans into perspective.

As a short parent of shorter-than-average children I commend tiered levels to play producers. DON'T put the key action on the floor infront of the stage.  Only BeachTowelWieldingParents who staked out their front row seats 4 hours previously by volunteering to help with some key task in the inner enclave, will ever get to see the little darlings there.

I realise that choosing the Christmas play is probably one of the high stress benchmarks for any primary school teacher.  You aren't going to get it right. Not each Little Kevin CAN have a speaking part. Parents are not going to hold back from telling you how they see it. Tears before bedtime are a certainty.  But please, teacher, do think in choosing, what will it be like for the parents to engage with this play?  They aren't just going to see two performances, they will be living alongside a performance in loop for over a month.

Both First and SecondBorn have always entered with relish into linelearning.  By the end of the third week of rehearsals, we will have heard, repeatedly, not just their one line, but those of many others in the play. Again, and again.  Two years ago, SecondBorn had been allocated a non-speaking part to his disgust.  Then a biblical flu-bug cut a swathe through the cast, and understudy to star, in the final dress rehearsal, he was allocated a key speaking part.  Whose Rightful Owner managed to stagger back to school for the performance, demoting SecondBorn back to his place as ThirdSheep (nonspeaking).  WannabeStar managed to express his outrage at demotion. In the back row, possibly visible to only his doting mother, one sheep lipsynched the whole of the performance, often getting his version of the lines in before their true performer. Oh dear.

My last plea is a cultural one.  I get that nativity plays derive from a biblical faith story.  I think its good for children to know the stories of other faiths.  What I, as a Quaker who sees Christianity as helpful for me, but not as superior to other faiths, object to really strongly, is the nativity play chosen presenting the Christmas story as the only valid truth, with children and their parents being given no opt out clause.  It's one thing to act out the story and the verses. It's another to have to proclaim lines on its meaning, 'Jesus is our Good Shepherd',  'Jesus came to save us all', when your faith background is Islam, Hinduism, atheism or Jain.  Or even if you are an independently-minded child of Christian parents.  I'm not saying nativity plays should be about fairies and Santa with never a whiff of the outcast born in the stable.  But for me, school is about valuing where the child is at. Is about developping critical thinking. And so should be about presenting opinions as opinions, on which individuals may choose to differ.

Making a Difference for Jobseekers

Europe and US are in recession. It's an awful market for jobseekers. And worse still in Kenya, where official unemployment rates are 40%, where there's no formal social security, so if you have no job you - your family - have no income at all.

As a careers advisor I see some Kenyan jobseekers each month for free. Hear their stories: the sparky, feisty young woman with KCSE and a diploma with good IT skills, great communication skills, good exam results. A good candidate, whose education was paid for by her mum's former employer, who over the last six years has had a total of two months' paid work, on various temporary call centre contracts working for global brands you'd have heard of, - and then been retrenched as the passing demand passes.  She changed direction, set up a cafe in the slum, managed to get contracts to supply restaurants with her products. But then had to sell her one asset, her fridge, to tide the family over in their third year without any income at all. 

Or the man in his late twenties, a mechanic, whom I interviewed for my dissertation. He'd studied car mechanics on a Kenyan youth employment scheme some ten years ago. Had left the scheme with a qualification, but not a qualification at a high enough level to get a job, as it now becomes clear. When I interviewed him he had spent literally ten years, trudging daily, on foot, from garage to garage all over Nairobi, presenting his qualifications, trying to bypass gatekeepers, seeking to speak with employers, trying to get a job. He'd heard the feedback that his level two qualification wasn't at a high enough level to get work. Quoted it to me. But what can he do? He can't afford to return to college to build on it. He's now got so much invested in his search, he can't change direction now, though I fear, in his heart of hearts, he realises this might be what is needed.

Or the conversations with my expat mates with adult children.  The family home is in Kenya, for now. So their adult children, school leavers, newly graduated, not so newly graduated, have no free family base in UK while they seek work. It's harder to give supportive conversations, informal support, or the occasional bracing kick over skype.  And for the adult children who opt to be with the family for a while, its harder still to break into the Kenyan job market - not where they grew up or where they have contacts or school friends - but where they'll need to demonstrate they are better than Kenyan applicants to get a role to get a work permit.

So what can the rest of us do to help those seeking work at times of mass unemployment?

It's easy to get isolated when you're seeking work. It's easy to lose touch with who you are, with your strengths, with the anecdotes your friends tell about you, with the experiences that make you, you at your best. It's tempting to hide away under the duvet, feeling unacceptable.

Kenyan jobseekers tend to only have contact with other jobseekers. Just as expat partners seeking work tend to have contact with the other jobseeking mums on the playground, rather than with those who've spun off into the world of smart suits and someone else doing your school pickup.  But in jobseeking - as in Richard Wiseman's fascinating research on the tactics used by those who assess themselves as lucky, The Luck Factor, - broadbased contacts matter. The people who assess themselves as luckiest are those who would, for example, go to a party, and rather than huddling close to the friends they already knew, cast themselves onto the open ocean, make a commitment that they today will speak to each person wearing red.

So encouraging jobseekers to identify what - beyond a job - and towards a job - would help comes first. And then helping people to network, to seek information interviews, to see whether someone in employment might let them shadow them for the day, mentor them - all this helps. Who do you know through your church, your siblings friends, your parents colleagues, your community, your high school, professional body? And who do they know in turn?  And that we offer information interviews - 40 minutes of our time - to those who'd welcome it.   'Redescendre l'ascensceur' the French call it. 'To send the lift back down behind you', so others may follow in your footsteps.

The point of wider contacts isn't a clearcut route to a job, - you know me, you'll give me a job. It's about information gathering. Which are the key tasks in your role? How do you go about them? Which are the skills your organisation is seeking at the moment? What would you say is the best way to gain them? Might you be willing to refer me on to another of your contacts in this field for a potential information interview?  Yes and seeking to leave a professional impression and your contact details, lest the contact come across a job you might fit.  But it's building a body of professional knowledge and a base of contacts who might be on the lookout for opportunities to which you could add value.

Creating slices of a job helps too. Identifying that niggling bit of work you're too busy or too cackhanded to do, as actually a project, and writing up what it could involve, the skills needed, the possible benefits, - and advertising it. Just getting out of the house to have contacts with others can help when you feel you've been knocking on doors for two years, in vain. But ideally, it'll be offering more - a chance to learn something, to gain different experience, contacts with others, a wage.  Creating sliproads into mainstream employment, a day's ironing each week which might lead to some babysitting and a reference; help taking monthly payment to the Kenya Revenue Authority, which could lead to helping out with the accounts, and work as a financial assistant.

Security is one of the key issues on anyone's mind when employing in Kenya. Even my accountant won't take on new clients without an introduction from a former client. Yes people have ID, but if someone did a runner it would be nigh on impossible to find them again in this land without integrated databases. So good references from employers willing to give their own details, to stand surity with their own reputation as it were, matter inordinately. And that's a big barrier for many. 

Giving people new opportunities helps. I heard of one expat mum, knowing they were to be leaving in six months, who bought her housekeeper a copy of Jamie Oliver. And whose family ate a different Jamie Oliver recipe each evening for the next six months, so that, by the time of their departure they could write a glowing reference for their housekeeper/cook, 'who can cook all the recipes in Jamie Oliver' and comes with her own cookbook.  But its hard. Our gardener/handyman said as we arrived, licking his lips as he looked at our dent-free car.
'I've got a driving licence you know. Just haven't had much practice. I could drive you.'
A bit like letting your seventeen year old loose in your car, rather in the dual control car of the driving instructor, we decided to pass on that one. Thank you.

Access to cash is a major hurdle here in Kenya. Little bits can make a massive difference. A friend of ours gave a local newspaper seller (average daily earnings 250 KSh, around £1.50) a loan to buy a bike. He can deliver papers - maybe the sole delivery person in Nairobi - has massively expanded what he can charge and his potential buyers.  And helping people set up bank accounts. Equity Bank has a bank account where you can save as little as 10 KSh, incur charges only when you do something.

Marking 'distance travelled' is another big issue. Having a job is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren't. You can be putting in marvellous applications, gaining fantastic experience, networking like crazy, doing everything right, hard. But still not finding a job with a paycheque.  So it matters that those around you help you see the distance you've travelled towards a job. The steps, big and small, the buying signals - even if they ultimately came to nothing. That others make concrete the successes which for the jobseeker seem so dwarfed by the deluge of rejection letters, or the disheartening silence of no rejection letter at all.

And finally helping people think what they offer in the labour market, and who would value this - and the rest of who they are.  Helping people think how they can reassure employers that this is a low-risk venture to hire them.  Some Kenyan jobseekers I've worked with seemed to see a job as something static, like a chair, that you occupy, rather than something dynamic, a need that you fill, which changes, where the requirements on you change too.  Not something where you make a difference, solve problems. More something which is bestowed on you, like blonde hair or freckles.  And while that could be the reality for some in the Kenyan job market, it doesn't really help if you're a normal jobseeker, and an uncle from your village isn't the chief executive of a major parastatal.

While knowing you're not alone doesn't help the key plight of the Kenyan jobseeker pounding the streets, I think it matters that the rest of us come out where we can. I've been made redundant. Sought work in 1980s South Wales when the only posts advertised in the Jobclub were as topless waitresses. Had periods between jobs. Been despairing that I'd ever get back to interesting work after having kids. And have been really grateful for the help I've received on the way. What goes around comes around. Over to you.

Skills for Life

A friend chanced upon me this week in a nearby cafe with a long list before me, and hands running through dishevelled hair.
'What's up?'
'I'm trying to put together a list of the skills we need to make sure that twelve year old Firstborn has learned before she goes off to school in UK. The bits she's probably missed because we've been here since she was just ten. The bits you'd just dripfeed if you were in the same country, but we might miss. So we can aim to learn them together over Christmas.'
A long list, because then I thought nine year old SecondBorn shouldn't miss out either.

Reading bus timetables. Reading bank statements. Paying in cheques to the bank. Managing money.
Planning journeys. Booking train tickets online. Comparing routes and prices. Reading an A to Z.
Cooking simple meals and puddings.
Changing beds. Putting on duvet covers.
Mending punctures.
Enquiring politely and complaining politely. Returning goods.
Sewing on buttons. Sewing up hems. Sewing on nametapes. Mending tears.
Using a washing machine. Sorting washing. Ironing.
Personal safety.
Removing splinters.
Skyping.

Oh my. It's not that she's clueless. It's not that she can't do some of these anyhow. Would learn by error. But some of them, in a strange country, without an adult next to her, could be tricky. Could add to the strain.

But the list of basic skills for life in Kenya are different.  At school they run a life skills course for the thirteen year olds after exams, after they've returned from their expedition climbing Mount Kenya - already a major challenge.  Parents come in and share their skills for independent living in Kenya, where you're often too far from skilled support.

Setting a broken arm in a splint. Basic first aid. Heart massage.
Changing the wheel of a car
Yes, making a bed - 'But why would I need to do this?' queried one child last year. 'My maid does that.'
Cooking
and also I'd add
Unblocking a sewage pipe
Bargaining in a market
Making a fire
Putting up a tent. Building a longdrop toilet.
Sending money by mpesa
What to do in a power cut
What to do when the water runs out

We've been here before. Two years ago the school announced they'd be doing sex education with the year sixes in the following week. Great. Except of course prevalent attitudes in Kenya are very different from what I, we, believe at home. From what we'd like her to understand about sexuality, gay relationships, how we celebrate civil partnerships in UK, from how we'd like this introduced to her.  Buckle your helmet FirstBorn, we had a whistlestop tour through sexuality and sex education as we'd hope it would be taught. From the basics via contraception, oral sex and difficult choices like termination, to the twiddly bits.

Next week she comes home from school.
'Well MrT the Scienceteacher didn't go into half as much detail as you did Mum.  We just did about sperm and eggs.'
'Oh.'

So I don't want to overshoot by a mile again. What do you think are the essential skills for young people to learn as they become independent?  Answers in the comment box below very welcome. Thanks/

Colleagues & Spice and All Things Nice

It's not that I'm a Gina Ford Groupie. I'm happy to tear up the masterplans, revert to plan B or F, or to busk it for a while. But three months on from throwing my toys out of the pram with BigCorporate (see here http://www.onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2011/09/when-mum-turned-into-monster.html)  I do miss the structure of two days a week of being part of a team, the routine of arriving at the same office to action my bit of the project with the same gang.

It's not I'm being idle. I'm getting lots of individual clients and enjoy the work with them. I'm bidding for more corporate work, and think I'll be busy there too soon.  It wasn't that BigCorporate had the (minor) perks of UK offices - a kettle or a coffee machine, a printer, shared network or even a stationery cupboard from which to take a new sharp pencil when the rest of life seemed out of control.  I enjoyed the work, the clients, the clear signs of progress. But what I really miss are the colleagues and the structure of someone else's office.  Wouldn't want it full time if I can help it. But like a well-fitted supportive bra, you miss it when its gone.

Even when its head down, up to the wire multi-tasking pressurised stress, I prefer to have others alongside me. I enjoy two minute inconsequential chats with the security guards, with others in the lift. I liked trying to decipher Sheng, the cool yoof Swahili dialect. Being a fly on the wall as my Kenyan colleagues chatted together about life, and I learnt by osmosis the bits I didn't realise were different.  Being one of a team with whom to share successes, to chew over dilemmas, to reach group decisions. About whom to gripe in the evenings. Occasionally.

I grew up listening to the Archers, the long-running Radio Four radio soap.  Saw my life a bit in juxtaposition with my peers there. Well at least I'm not as smug as that Shula. Or as ditsy and feckless as Nigel of the Mr Whippy van. Sadly, not as much fun as Eddy, the ne'er do well country & western crooner and general cheeky chappie.  Liked trying on the realities of their fictional everyday life. And in the same way, my time next to the lives of my Kenyan colleagues and students added an extra dimension to my life here. New realities. New experiences.  New understandings. A more intense spicier reality than the blander more homogenous existence in the expat enclave.