Herding cats and pincer movements

Learning project management, one of the key ideas was, what was the scarcest resource?  Identifying the bit in shortest supply, so you knew to focus the other resources around its availability and maximise its use.

It's been useful for life in Kenya.  Buy the essential but imported component for the Nigella pudding first, - marzipan for example, -  because if there isn't any in the first three shops you'll have to change tacks and offer bananas to the visitors instead. If you've found a parking space in the shopping centre, you set up camp and cluster together all manner of activities there.

But if its people you need, or their skills, there's another problem.  Skilled human resources don't stay, visibly labelled, in the same position on a shop shelf, either there, or sold out. Don't advertise in the yellow pages or local papers. Don't wear sandwich boards. Need to be uncovered through networking.

I've scored my successes since we've been here.  Tracked down a Chinese-trained Kenyan trampolining teacher before even we'd installed our trampoline.  Before his business took off, so in the early days we could say to SecondBorn, with some certainty,
'Do you know SecondBorn, I'd guess you're in the top ten trampolinists in Kenya.'

Loud was my crowing and jubiliation when I sniffed out an experienced cello teacher.  Kenya's sole cello teacher left the country the month we arrived.  SecondBorn and cello had breathed out a sigh of relief.  Till I stood in for a year, tried to adapt my violin experience for early stages cello.  We kept going, but it reminded me of my Socialist Worker mate from Manchester who moved to West Berlin the same time that I did.
'Really,' he said regretfully after a few months in the burgeoning city, 'I've discovered you need two Socialist Workers to sell a copy of Socialist News.  You need a pincer movement, one to approach, the other to engage in conversation.  And I haven't yet recruited anyone else.'
And so it is with music.  In my bitter experience you need one adult to set and hold the lessons, write terse notes in the practice book, and a second pincer to lasso the child to practice.  As a pincer movement its workable.

So SecondBorn had been with CoolExperiencedCelloTeacher for half a term.  CoolExperienced ticked all the boxes. Was male. Enthusiastic, experienced & encouraging. Had a ponytail.  Made duets sound in a different dimension.Taught  SecondBorn some rock cello tips alongside smoother bowing actions. Helped him to twirl his cello at the end of a more successful rendition. 

I'd been passed CoolExperienced's mobile number by a fellow parent. Lessons were arranged by text message.  I didn't have any other contact details for him, though I knew where he worked.  But two weeks into this term, my increasingly harrying texts to his mobile were still reporting undelivered.  I imagined a mobile lost on his Christmas trip whitewater rafting in Uganda. Or forgotten on his trip to his home country.  Couldn't he just contact me himself, mother of his potential star pupil? In my dreams.

Nagging doubts set in. Was it maybe only MY calls he wasn't returning. So I sent him emails via his employer. And then emailed the music teacher at our school.
'You know him don't you. Can you get a message through to him? Please.'

But it turns out he's done a runner. Left his responsible job at the end of term. Failed to return from the Christmas break.  Left the mother of his most reluctant pupil in the lurch. Without a peep or a squeak of notification. Oh woe. Back to the drawing board.

It all feels too much at the moment. It's not just the cello teacher.   FirstBorn is sitting scholarship exams for UK schools in a month.  Mistakenly I'd understood her school was preparing her for them. The illusion was only shattered when no one could locate past papers just before the Christmas break.
'Oh no, we don't prepare for THOSE exams, only these ones.  You've got to take the lead on them.'
'Who me?' (Looks behind, to see if anyone else is being addressed).

So the last few weeks have been sourcing past papers and mark schemes in UK, organising supply chains. Trying not to swoon, once I'd seen the standard. Coaxing my Mum, a former Head of English, to send me some poetry exerpts and English topics to cover. Tracking down retired teachers who've moved to lush tea farms up country far away from the din of the classroom, but who, possibly, potentially, might be willing to pick up their shield again for a few short sharp lessons over the next month.  

Because these exams are really, really tricky.  A level standard I'd say.  Not something you get 'right'.  More like whitewater rafting, something for which you buckle a lifejacket and helmet, pray a little prayer, and set off, fording rapids, hoping to withstand, drenched, not too battered. Some experienced teachers say
'Well you shouldn't prepare a child for them. The ones who should get them, will be able to do it on their own.'
But looking at them, in my opinion, a normal twelve year old (or forty five year old) encountering them in exam conditions without warning, would wet themselves, grow a moustache on the spot and escape to Mexico or another land with large hats and possible anonymity.

Even the simpler preparations are pretty tricky here.  A helpful teacher asked FirstBorn:
'Well for example, which plays have you seen recently?'
Good relevant question. But in Nairobi, there isn't a professional theatre, and its not that safe to go out after dark. You don't take underage children to the business district after dark.
Um. Well probably nothing since the pantomime in UK three years ago.....

Or
'Well which articles have you read about that?'
Well, reading round the subject is important.  But our post is so unreliable, we only got our Christmas cards last week. The one UK magazine we get, arrives anywhere between three and six weeks late, if it reaches us at all, rather than being nicked by someone en route.  Yes its the age of the internet. But browsing on a dodgy connection on a small screen to search for articles which might - or most likely won't - be of interest to a twelve year old - well I can think of far better things to do with my Saturday.

I know we're gettting different things out of our life here than preprepared articles and stimulating plays on tap. While I was writing this blog, a child's screams pierced the air. I thought it was frustration with homework on Saturday. But in fact a massive monkey, nearly the same size as nine year old SecondBorn had sauntered over the verandah, through the dining room and hall, into the bedrooms, in search of food.  As a facebook friend noted:
'That never happened in Welwyn Garden City.'

But still I persist in trying to secure for the kids the bits which matter to me which don't come easy here. Much of me says,
'Just give up on the cello. Stop banging your head against that brick wall.'
But there's regret for what might have been.
Other bits think
'Stop trying to fit them into the mould they might have been, had they stayed in UK.  Just help them to be themselves as their experiences have made them here.'

And the scarcest resource of all is any patch of certainty amidst the doubts. I'd love a spot of firm ground amid the quicksand. I can see that what still matters to me, - UK formed as I am - is maybe too much of a contortion for the children they now have become.  Too much of a contortion for me and my networking skills.  Another recalcitrant cat to be herded, when the African experience is sometimes about letting go of control and seeing what will happen.