Some situations you just couldn't make up. A good friend who lived for several years in a country with even more unreliable electricity supply than Kenya described the nighttime scene.
'We'd read in bed with our headtorches on. No, we stopped using candles after we set fire to the lampshade for the third time. But the really key thing is not to turn and look at each other.'
Stars before your eyes. It got me thinking about the things you do abroad - and get used to - which might appear a tad quirky in your homeland.
Wild driving. I don't take chances. But you have to adapt. Undertaking is the norm. Not infrequent for people to drive the wrong way down the dual carriageway. Commonplace to avoid the jam by driving on the pavement. I've even evaded gridlock by driving for a mile straddling the drainage ditch. We did nearly shunt the car ahead when in Rwanda - two hours flight but a continent in road manners away - when all the cars stopped nicely at a red traffic light. Oops.
Supply chains and logistics planning. Keeping tabs on the water and diesel and preordering a bowser before you direly need it. Stockpiling milk and the essentials. There was a month when Nairobi had no butter. I already know which packmule visitors are coming for work in October who could bring some of the Christmas Amazon parcels with them.
Giggling at people's t-shirts. In our early days here I thought any t-shirt I spotted was worn by the original owner. Ran after someone in the street wearing a t-shirt from Our UK Town's Second Scout Troop. Gradually I wisened up. These were mitumba wares, the flotsam and jetsam of UK charity shops, on sale in Kenya. Tom described visiting a village in South Sudan where the whole village was wearing t-shirts from the (cancelled) inaugural marathon walk over the London Wobbly Bridge. You see lots advertising the less successful charity campaigns. I saw one man wearing one promoting the presence of genital crabs. Not a frequent sight in UK.
Pretending to be a master plumber...electrician...cello teacher....doctor... bank manager. Back in Britain we had a network of competent, kitemarked handymen. In cases of doubt we could turn to the Yellow Pages. Here there are the bodies, but sadly, frequently the skills levels in even established firms are dire. Or the people around us can't afford to buy a consultation with the experienced practitioners. In my time I've stopped electricians standing barefoot in a puddle of water from poking bare wires into the mains power. Have explained about water pressure and where to site the stopcock to plumbers. About loans, contingencies and how to stagger repayment. And my books and I have been the go-to-girls for diagnosis and treatment of chicken mites, and for our guards for management of diabetes and production of aids for arthritis at home.
Busking it. Especially with directions. I'm the kind of girl who turns up three hours early for a flight. I would never normally set out on a six hour drive without a clear, documented sense of where I'm going. But that's frequently the case here, because Kenyan directions and those usual in the UK are so different. Kenyan directions ignore all the possible turnings which aren't the right one. The speaker knows where he's going , you should too. None of this 'Take the third left by the drainage ditch.' So I've adopted a certain unknowing, a trusting that It'll be Alright on the Night. Often it is.
Luxury. There's a level of luxurious living - of Doing Things Nicely - as was never the case in a household of two working parents with small children just about keeping our heads above water in the UK. Not all the time, nor even often. But on occasion it can take your breath away. On our luxury safari over the New Year, when they rustled up a full cooked bush breakfast for us with linen tablecloth on a charcoal stove miles from anywhere overlooking the river by the elephant crossing. Quite quite different from a packet of Tescos scotch eggs in the drizzle in the local park.
And learning of the direst tragedies in people's lives in passing. That never happened in UK either. Yes dire tragedies are universal. But here they are common, are told and then buffeted by the next occurrence, so an incident which struck one hard on first telling is no longer the key magnet of attention, the raw scab to be picked at, by the end of the day. Guards whose houses and all belongings are swept away in floods. Newborn babes who die for lack of appropriate, affordable medical attention. Of incest disclosed in an open plan office. Students telling of their years out of school following their forced flight - seven day's walk - from the post election violence, of their mother dying in an IDP camp, of finally saving enough to get back to school by cutting 50kg bales of hay and carrying them 5km on their backs in the full sun, to eventually save 6000 KSh - £40 - for a term's fees. Tragedies are unusual in UK. They get airtime and attention. We remember them. But here they weave into the human tapestry, not forgotten, but also not remarkable.
'We'd read in bed with our headtorches on. No, we stopped using candles after we set fire to the lampshade for the third time. But the really key thing is not to turn and look at each other.'
Stars before your eyes. It got me thinking about the things you do abroad - and get used to - which might appear a tad quirky in your homeland.
Wild driving. I don't take chances. But you have to adapt. Undertaking is the norm. Not infrequent for people to drive the wrong way down the dual carriageway. Commonplace to avoid the jam by driving on the pavement. I've even evaded gridlock by driving for a mile straddling the drainage ditch. We did nearly shunt the car ahead when in Rwanda - two hours flight but a continent in road manners away - when all the cars stopped nicely at a red traffic light. Oops.
Supply chains and logistics planning. Keeping tabs on the water and diesel and preordering a bowser before you direly need it. Stockpiling milk and the essentials. There was a month when Nairobi had no butter. I already know which packmule visitors are coming for work in October who could bring some of the Christmas Amazon parcels with them.
Giggling at people's t-shirts. In our early days here I thought any t-shirt I spotted was worn by the original owner. Ran after someone in the street wearing a t-shirt from Our UK Town's Second Scout Troop. Gradually I wisened up. These were mitumba wares, the flotsam and jetsam of UK charity shops, on sale in Kenya. Tom described visiting a village in South Sudan where the whole village was wearing t-shirts from the (cancelled) inaugural marathon walk over the London Wobbly Bridge. You see lots advertising the less successful charity campaigns. I saw one man wearing one promoting the presence of genital crabs. Not a frequent sight in UK.
Pretending to be a master plumber...electrician...cello teacher....doctor... bank manager. Back in Britain we had a network of competent, kitemarked handymen. In cases of doubt we could turn to the Yellow Pages. Here there are the bodies, but sadly, frequently the skills levels in even established firms are dire. Or the people around us can't afford to buy a consultation with the experienced practitioners. In my time I've stopped electricians standing barefoot in a puddle of water from poking bare wires into the mains power. Have explained about water pressure and where to site the stopcock to plumbers. About loans, contingencies and how to stagger repayment. And my books and I have been the go-to-girls for diagnosis and treatment of chicken mites, and for our guards for management of diabetes and production of aids for arthritis at home.
Busking it. Especially with directions. I'm the kind of girl who turns up three hours early for a flight. I would never normally set out on a six hour drive without a clear, documented sense of where I'm going. But that's frequently the case here, because Kenyan directions and those usual in the UK are so different. Kenyan directions ignore all the possible turnings which aren't the right one. The speaker knows where he's going , you should too. None of this 'Take the third left by the drainage ditch.' So I've adopted a certain unknowing, a trusting that It'll be Alright on the Night. Often it is.
Luxury. There's a level of luxurious living - of Doing Things Nicely - as was never the case in a household of two working parents with small children just about keeping our heads above water in the UK. Not all the time, nor even often. But on occasion it can take your breath away. On our luxury safari over the New Year, when they rustled up a full cooked bush breakfast for us with linen tablecloth on a charcoal stove miles from anywhere overlooking the river by the elephant crossing. Quite quite different from a packet of Tescos scotch eggs in the drizzle in the local park.
And learning of the direst tragedies in people's lives in passing. That never happened in UK either. Yes dire tragedies are universal. But here they are common, are told and then buffeted by the next occurrence, so an incident which struck one hard on first telling is no longer the key magnet of attention, the raw scab to be picked at, by the end of the day. Guards whose houses and all belongings are swept away in floods. Newborn babes who die for lack of appropriate, affordable medical attention. Of incest disclosed in an open plan office. Students telling of their years out of school following their forced flight - seven day's walk - from the post election violence, of their mother dying in an IDP camp, of finally saving enough to get back to school by cutting 50kg bales of hay and carrying them 5km on their backs in the full sun, to eventually save 6000 KSh - £40 - for a term's fees. Tragedies are unusual in UK. They get airtime and attention. We remember them. But here they weave into the human tapestry, not forgotten, but also not remarkable.
