Some songs just hit a deeper level. Rugby stadia full of deep male voices singing You'll Never Walk Alone are one of them for me. And today it was part of my mental backing soundtrack as the evening unfolded.
We've had six weeks of torrential rain. The main waterpipe from the reservoir feeding 10% of Nairobi's homes - including ours - has been washed away, leaving tens of thousands of people without water. People and homes have been swept away. A friend's guard came tearfully to work last weekend. His whole house had disappeared. On our drive up-country at the weekend we passed several hundred people trying to pick up a church which had been swept from its concrete foundations onto the main TransAfrica Highway. It wouldn't seem possible in UK, that several hundred people could lift a church back to its foundations. But on our way back home a day later, the church had gone.
It was 8pm. I was snug in my dressing gown infront of a roaring fire when I got a phonecall from Tom.
'I've driven into a large hole. Can you come and tow me out?'
He'd taken a shortcut home, not far from our front door. It's a road he drives regularly, though not for a while. When I got to him, in the pitchdark on the dirt track, our 4x4 was resting on its bumper, front wheels stuck in a newly hatched four foot chasm. No warning, no nothing. Urgh.
But the guards from the surrounding houses and various passersby had gathered round and were lending a hand. Around ten men pushed as we reversed. And eventually, to much jubilation, out the car popped. And as we shook hands all round one said,
'Hello, its me, Samuel.'
And so it was, not that I'd recognised him in the pitchdark. One of our previous guards, now posted to a house along this road, had been first on the scene. And the passersby and other guards had been willing to get their hands dirty, literally, to do something practical, to earn an extra penny, to offer us a kindly hand. We couldn't have done it alone. And we didn't have to.
Arriving in Kenya everyday life is overshadowed by dire security warnings. After three years here, maps have become pinpoints of friends' houses and errands run, life has become a patchwork of relationships and linkages. We weren't far from home. But a guard who had shared our bread three years ago remembered us, when he could have chosen not to, and rallied his mates to lend a hand. In my head the home rugby crowd roared as we drove slowly home.
We've had six weeks of torrential rain. The main waterpipe from the reservoir feeding 10% of Nairobi's homes - including ours - has been washed away, leaving tens of thousands of people without water. People and homes have been swept away. A friend's guard came tearfully to work last weekend. His whole house had disappeared. On our drive up-country at the weekend we passed several hundred people trying to pick up a church which had been swept from its concrete foundations onto the main TransAfrica Highway. It wouldn't seem possible in UK, that several hundred people could lift a church back to its foundations. But on our way back home a day later, the church had gone.
It was 8pm. I was snug in my dressing gown infront of a roaring fire when I got a phonecall from Tom.
'I've driven into a large hole. Can you come and tow me out?'
He'd taken a shortcut home, not far from our front door. It's a road he drives regularly, though not for a while. When I got to him, in the pitchdark on the dirt track, our 4x4 was resting on its bumper, front wheels stuck in a newly hatched four foot chasm. No warning, no nothing. Urgh.
But the guards from the surrounding houses and various passersby had gathered round and were lending a hand. Around ten men pushed as we reversed. And eventually, to much jubilation, out the car popped. And as we shook hands all round one said,
'Hello, its me, Samuel.'
And so it was, not that I'd recognised him in the pitchdark. One of our previous guards, now posted to a house along this road, had been first on the scene. And the passersby and other guards had been willing to get their hands dirty, literally, to do something practical, to earn an extra penny, to offer us a kindly hand. We couldn't have done it alone. And we didn't have to.
Arriving in Kenya everyday life is overshadowed by dire security warnings. After three years here, maps have become pinpoints of friends' houses and errands run, life has become a patchwork of relationships and linkages. We weren't far from home. But a guard who had shared our bread three years ago remembered us, when he could have chosen not to, and rallied his mates to lend a hand. In my head the home rugby crowd roared as we drove slowly home.
What a lovely post - except for the suffering all that rain has caused.
ReplyDeleteMakes you realise the good in people when this kind of thing happens.
ReplyDeleteI adore that song: my mum used to sing it when she was younger, I have sung it in an am-dram production of Carousel and we once watched a football match in Liverpool, at Anfield - so moving.
I love your tales, they are so positive and full of vitality, makes me believe in the human race again.
ReplyDeleteI hope you got your water back on. x