To the Victor the Spoils? Just not Cricket.

When planning a family move to another country yes you look at the schools. But maybe, despite our most rigorous investigations, via website, via Good School Guide and personal visits, checking school libraries and art facilities and probing willingness of staff to say what they were good and less good at, maybe we were looking at the wrong things.

I'm not so very picky. I get that its hard being a teacher. But in my opinion all of Nairobi's schools have strengths and significant flaws. The kind of flaws which in UK would have us moving our state-educated kids, rapidly.  But look before you leap. Are the alternatives any better in the things which matter to us?

One of the things we looked at carefully was the racial mix of the schools.  One of Nairobi's schools is still 95% white. Our kids are at a school where a third of the kids are Kenyan African, a third Kenyan Asian, and a third expat or White Kenyan.  And the groups mix, which also isn't the case everywhere else.  Our kids have friends from a whole range of backgrounds, and that's what we'd wished for, and prize.

But the problem is, I come to realise, that despite their best pitch, most schools are run according to the values prevalent in the society you're in.  Friends of ours have recently moved to Kenya from another African country. 
'But why were your kids in the French system there, even thought that wasn't your language or the language of the country?'
'Well it was about discipline. In the other schools, if a child did something wrong, they were made to stand, holding a chair above their head in full tropical sun, often for hours.  We wanted a school which paid lip service to some more civilised ways of disciplining.'
Well yes. With you all the way there. 'Bien choisi.'

We came to Kenya from a tiny UK village school, with 100 kids, 4 teachers including the head and massive support and input from the local community. Yes it had been selective, it wasn't an open house for all, and that was its flaw. To get in, appreciated as it was, you had to be an active, engaged member in your local church. Once your kids were in you had to do your bit, giving your time by helping out in the library, running the walking bus, listening to kids read or as a governor - or giving your money.  It wasn't an academic power house. But it built community. We came to know each other in the things which matter. Our kids played in the same playgrounds, the parents drank wine at each others houses, did their bits on lift rotas to Brownies and covered for parents with scheduling difficulties. We got involved on the difficult bits too.  Weighed in on the playground to tell off someone else's child if need be. Organised rotas to spend time with a Mum with terminal cancer, to drop off meals to help feed the family. I can't say how I miss it.

When FirstBorn went for her SettlingInDay there, older children, aged all of ten, whisked her and her peers off at breaktime to initiate piggy in the middle for the anxious five year olds.  There was a Friendship Bench on which any child feeling a tad lonesome could sit, for the Playground Buddies, nine year olds, to scoop up in an inclusive game of tag.  Teachers lived up to their wider responsibilities. When SecondBorn's mate, enthralled by Alan Sugar's behaviour on The Apprentice, excluded SecondBorn from the playground game of football two days running:
'You're fired!'
his teacher told the other set of parents - also our mates - and explained to the child why, despite this happening in the outside world, this had been hurtful. SecondBorn's mate wrote him an apology on his own initiative. Friendship restored, life lessons learned, the weaker or more sensitive or Today's Underdog protected.

Underpinning it all were two things. A belief, put into practice, that each child matters. A recognition that beliefs are empty if they aren't acted upon, lived out.  And secondly, a commitment to recognising and celebrating the gifts of each.  In the weekly Sharing Assembly, each class teacher awarded an oversized rosette that week to a child in their class. Read a citation on why it had been given. And the rosettes, denoting a Beacon Pupil, were awarded for kindness, inclusion, leadership, exemplary tidying up, negotiation between friends on the playground and so on. Maybe for hard work. But not for academic success, for which there were a whole other set of prizes, shiny stickers which got stuck on work, after a trip to the headteacher's office to be congratulated.  The Beacon Pupil rosette had scarcity value. It might only be worn in the week in which it was issued.  When FirstBorn first received it she insisted we went, three evenings running, to the Tescos hypermarket near our home, where  a wider range of kindly elderly ladies could be counted on to notice it, comment, and to chuck her under the chin.  And the school realised too that if a child for some reason had not been caught by authority Being Good in a major way, then they would be encouraged for a lesser act.  I remember a child's look of startled delight and utter beaming pride when his citation was read out: 'For being kind to the classroom land snails, and reminding us daily to feed them their lettuce.'  Each plant needs watering. Children need praise to motivate them.

By comparison, in our Kenyan school, there is a focus on showcasing a minority of children who already excel in things. Frequently with the support of an additional coach - elocution for the poetry competition, five nights of swimming training for the swimmers. Yes, it's nice to show the pretty ways of the Best of the Bunch. But why are the same children given attention and the majority of the races as the Best of the Bunch across each of the six sports played?  Of course, in external competitions it's right it is the best who compete and perform. But internally? In compulsory events in the curriculum? To my mind then each child should have the chance to compete, at least in the heats.  But I have the vision of the other school before me. Of the anarchic, chaotic, highspirited Whole School Relay, in which overexcited five year olds might run three times, and it never mattered.  There were races for excellence, and children who competed at county and regional level and beyond. And there was inclusion too, about demonstrating that it mattered that each child had a chance to perform, to try their hardest, to develop their skills, to be part of the event. Being good at something, being recognised, was its own reward. But taking part, striving hard, matters for the education of all.  But we're in Kenya. There are massive payoffs here to being The Best in something, witness the lists of names in the newpapers of the top 100 candidates in national exams.  And this is a culture without formal safety nets.

I accept that our children won't star in all the races they might in a more inclusive culture. What I object to is how they are belittled during the selection process.  How, in the selection for the upcoming swimming gala, instead of conducting heats, the process was for children in their houses to put up their hands for each race in which they thought they could compete. And then they had to negotiate between peers
'Well I'm better at breast stroke than you',
with the other children shouting out who they thought was best.  SecondBorn is a reasonable swimmer - he came second in two races last year - but not a confident advocate for his abilities. And the experience of volunteering for ten races, and being selected by his peers for the float race (aimed at non-swimmers) won't have helped with that.  And in this culture, the supervising teacher didn't see her role as promoting inclusion, rather more, supervising the audience at the Roman gladiator bloodbath.  It wouldn't happen in the Olympics, that the competitor with the greatest confidence, not the one with the fastest time got to compete.

The difficulty too, what the school doesn't want to acknowledge, is that in Kenya its far from a level playing field.  Several parents have explained to me:
'If you want your child to be selected for something, because they arrived a year late, after teams had been selected, its best to get private coaching with the person who selects for the team.  That way they see what they can do, they get to feel a link with them, they feel identified with their progress.'
Just teaching them in the school sports lessons seemingly isn't enough for this.
More political parents have explained:
'Look, to move a child into the team they have to bump another child. Lots of parents get angry at this. Cause difficulties for the coaches. They can fear for their jobs with some parents. You need to make it in their interests to look out for your child.'
I'm not saying I agree with this. But it has chimed with our experience.  SecondBorn wasn't selected for the B team in cricket last year. He cried, and I explained that he'd probably get switched in, later in the term, so everyone could get a chance.  Joy unbounded, in the second week, he was selected, another child deselected.  Whose mother then loudly harranged the coach. SecondBorn played one game, and was then swapped out in favour of the other child, for the whole of the term.  It could have been on good cricketing grounds. But I have my doubts.

First and SecondBorn are learning different things about the world than I learnt at their age. SecondBorn sat in the car on the way back from taekwondo yesterday and explained to me in considerable detail which of his teachers would lie to get out of trouble with parents or authorities, and which wouldn't.  He's not a boy of great emotional intelligence, he's nine. This isn't usually in his range of interests - currently yoyo tricks. But he's given it lots of thought. He wants to understand where the solid land lies. And he does understand that it felt very different at his former school, and that that is the way he wants to be in life.

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.

Different People Do Things Differently: Employment Abroad

Living abroad, immersed in another culture, you learn different perspectives, different manners and mannerisms. Adapt. In some things more than others.  I remember as a 12 year old French exchange student with a temperature, being presented with a very large torpedo-shaped squidgy jelly pill.

'Too large to swallow' I thought. 'Huh?'

And then, by graphic demonstration, the French mum introduced me to a whole new procedure on how medicine may rapidly hit the spot. Arghhh.

On the same visit, a wobbling, yellow-ridged organic mass sitting in my soup plate, glowering at me. 

'La soupe a la cervelle', they said brightly.  'You don't eat that in Britain.' 

Gulp.  Brain soup. No, not a common dish in Seventies Swansea.

You come to learn how different things matter in different cultures.  How dropping by, on spec, on the off-chance was outlawed in Germany, even amongst liberal leftie students in 1980s Berlin.  How close friends, parched, drenched, passing by my door would phone from the phone box opposite my flat, would arrive hot-foot, a minute later, and present a giftwrapped box of chocolates Mitbringsel from their rucksack, which they'd pre-prepared for the eventuality six months ahead. Never arrive unannounced or emptyhanded, even in extemis or if just coming for a cuppa.

In poverty-stricken Madagascar where pot-bellied malnourished tots abounded, how I bridled at the sparkling cement 'wasted' in my eyes on upgraded tombs for the ancestors.  My friend took me gently to one side.
'I know that in Britain when you have a little extra money you buy a pension for your old age.  Here we know that any prosperity comes from the spirits of the ancestors, and so we try to treat the ancestors well, even when we ourselves have little.'
Admonished. Chastened.

But then, when I was younger, footloose, fancyfree, when the stresses of Abroad got too much you could, in extremis, retire to bed for the day with a pile of good escapist books. Equanimity renewed, back into the fray. But in Kenya, in midlife, Abroad enters the safehaven home. Crosses the drawbridge. Penetrates the inner citadel, in the form of our staff, or in this case, our newly hired part-time cook.  Number Three so far, if you join the blog at this point.

Bright-eyed, the new cook, has worked in restaurants before. German restaurants, I noted with glee. Has a whole host of culinary skills. Is keen, eager, enthusiastic.  I'd explained at interview and on Day One that we only needed a part-time cook. 3-7pm, part meal preparation, part being a responsible youth worker in the house while we trailed home from work, or even launched into the post-summer plans of a Fitness Regime. 

'The other meals, - and at weekends - we prepare ourselves.' I said clearly. 'We want the children to be confident cooking and clearing away for themselves - they need to, back in Britain. So it matters that they, and we, keep in practice now.' 

So the deal was struck, 3pm on Day Two, Bright-eyed would be back at work.

And she was.  In style. 

It is the DogDays of the holidays. Tom it was true, had driven off to work at 630am as usual. At 750am I was thinking about getting up.  Heard a loud clanging, clattering, banging in the kitchen.  Saucepans. Lids. Glass.  And some tutting. Unusual for a burglar to tut, surely.

By the time I'd showered, dressed, the clanging had reached forttissimo levels.

'Hello Bright-eyed, what are you doing so early?' 

'I'm cleaning the cupboards. Clearing out. Rearranging them, so the things are where they should be. Where I want them to be.'

Oh dear, 0-100 on the stressometer in three easy sentences. I don't think I'm particularly possessive.  Even think I'm fairly easygoing.   Hadn't realised I was bonded to my kitchenware.  To which saucepan goes where.  Suddenly realised a whole new minefield in my psyche.

I managed to bite my tongue on my outrage.  Somewhat.  Was a tad redfaced, highpitched, pre-caffinated.  Had a clear conversation, I thought, about me cooking too. For over half the time. Of the children, me, Tom needing to be able to find things where they expected.  Of the importance of discussing, consulting, asking permission before acting in someone else's space.  Rearranging their kitchen cupboards. Did touch on the thorny question of 'but why seven hours early Brighteyed?' 

'Well I can't possibly work in conditions like this. It needs cleaning. Sorting.'

Please don't criticise on Day Two. Bite tongue again.

Several hours of banging later I venture back into the kitchen to make sandwiches for lunch.  Yes it is spick and span. Better ordered even. But much of what is now filling the large bin had been formerly Being Saved. Washed, stacked yoghurt pots for food leftovers in the fridge or for transporting guineapig pellets to the hutch.  Empty cereal boxes for junk modelling or for guineapig playpens. Ginger marmelade, imported from UK, for eating. In solitary pleasure. Snarling at anyone else who ventured close.

'Well I didn't want them so I threw them away. They were rubbish.'

One person's rubbish is another person's carefully hoarded soon to be model cardboard lorry or frozen soup holder. OK if you now had visions of a hoarder's house with piles of teetering newspapers saved from the 1950s. It hadn't been like that. Had been perfectly clean, tidy, ordered - but prepared for summer holiday eventualities. Now shorn. Bereft. Denuded. Without consultation.

Because in Kenya, 'Different people do things differently' is not a widespread catchphrase, though of course they do. In school Kenyan pupils don't learn to analyse or to see things from another's perspective, but to give the officially endorsed answer, word for word, to the question.  Officially endorsed answers are of course, not open to tweaking, responding to research, feedback, audience response, customer comments.  To difference. Intuition. Shades of grey. Gradations. Or to out and out quirky eccentricity. They instead are standardised.  Mass produceable. But it's our home. My kitchen too. Not a restaurant. If I can't be odd, quirkily eccentric, a potentially creative mum, even off the scale a daffy hoarder in my own kitchen, where may I be?

And the difficulty with officially endorsed answers in cooking, is that taste matters.  Tastes differ. Nigella's guacamole is different from Nigel's from Jamie's from Gordon's from mine.  I said to Bright-eyed on Day One,
'Well its great you can do greek salad, and we like it alot. But with olives and not with aubergine or mushrooms like you used to do it in the restaurant.'

I said it again on Day Three, this time with more explanation:

'Mushrooms are expensive, and we like them better when they're cooked. Please can you leave them out of the salads as it's a waste.' 
But each day nice salads, tasty salads - but with added mushrooms. That's how they did it in the restaurant. Standardised. Thats how we - in a different context, with different priorities - have to have it. Unless I, my cookery books, different standard answers, can get through.

And the early morning starts?  Part-time working isn't common in Kenya, though it is more so for cooks. But we discussed hours at interview, agreed them at the pre-meeting. repeated them on Day One, for Day Two. But somehow, because Bright-eyed hasn't encountered it before,
'See you at 3pm tomorrow' became an 8am arrival. Three days running, despite corrections each day.  I get that, in a new job, you want to do your best. Show what you can do. Demonstrate you're indispensable.  Not be found slacking. But it makes me feel invisible that what I say clearly, several times, in different ways just gets disregarded as too new and too confusing. 

It isn't just Bright-eyed.   Last year we had family staying in the dry season. The Friday they arrived all water to the house failed. It's happened before, quite often. We live on a hill. There are airlocks when the water pressure falls. Sometimes it comes back when you drain the airlock. This time not. For four days we carried water, poured water to flush, tried various fiddling, stopcock twisting and draining techniques, explained and explained again. At the end of Day Four I spoke to our gardener, asked if he had any further suggestions. 'Oh I switched off the stopcock at the bottom of the garden on Friday.' 

?!?!

'Because????' Without saying? With no reason or note. And then went home for the weekend?'
As though the stopcock at the bottom of the garden was maybe looking untidy. Suddenly out of place?  Needful of a rest? Could be switched off at a whim with no impact. With no need for reason, report or communication. When we had a family of four coming to stay.  I cannot understand it.

Since then I've tried to train our staff on Major Changes. Carry on your job in the usual way, that's great. If you plan or see a major change you need to discuss it with me first. What is a major change? Cutting down a tree in the garden. [Thinks of the healthy tree which was cut down without consultation, next to the dead tree which is still standing.] Switching off the stopcock. [Bitter grin.] Letting workmen take the washing machine away without warning. [But I wrote it in the guard's book that someone had taken it. Did you get their car number plate or their name? No. But they said it was alright. But you are a guard. Your job is to protect people and property. Not to let unknown visitors into our house and take away the washing machine.]  Changing all the kitchen cupboards around. Spotting a workmate who is responsible for security smoking drugs while on duty.  All true examples in the last two years.

In Britain, in Europe, if you're given a  task by a boss you do it, or report back changes, delays, failure to do it. In Kenya I give a task, communicate it, I think clearly, anticipate that it has been done if not told otherwise.  In BigCorporate that's what people do too.  But not in FormerHoardersHaven, Nairobi, Kenya.  Or, at any rate, not yet.

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.

Saying Sorry

'Sorry' is an internationally elastic concept.  Where in the UK 'sorry' is what you say when you nudge someone with a supermarket trolley, when slow to grasp a concept, or when breaking into conversation, in Germany you make yourself the butt of many jokes when adopting such an Shrinking Violet, apologetic-to-be-alive stance.  Just launch straight in, life is for getting on with.

In Kenya, use of 'please' and 'thank you' is not widespread.  I've had to teach our guards that in my culture it is really rude to stand towering over me, wagging a finger in my face, saying directively 'What you need to do is...', when what they mean, translated into British English and ways is 'Please, I know its a bit of an imposition, but would you mind doing a, b or c.'  As I've said to them, 'In UK, maybe the judge might wag a finger in the face of an axe-murderer when sentencing to a life in prison. Never ever apart from that. Please don't do it with me again.'

So the, to my mind, exaggerated use of 'Sorry' here is more surprising. Yes, there's 'Sorry' when a minor mistake has been made by the speaker. (Though surprisingly, not when a major mistake has been made.  In the three times this year when I've been shunted by a car behind, not one of the drivers said 'Sorry'.  Or rather, the first one (who also didn't have a driving licence) did finally say sorry, but only after I'd shouted, 20 minutes into the conversation, highpitched and exasperated, as if to one of our children 'And you never even said Sorry!')  But there's also 'Sorry' when I've made a mistake, as in 'Sorry' when I drop my mug of coffee all on my own,  in the sense of 'Oh dear, poor old you, sorry.'  There's 'Pole sana', 'I'm really sorry', when a tragedy has happened. And then, there are people taking on undue responsibility for my shortcomings. As with the tennis coach, who gently throws me the well-positioned ball over the net, bounce once, then hit, for me to miss, yet again. 'Sorry' he says kindly each time, as if suggesting that if only he were better at throwing the ball, I would have hit it. The fault is all his.  'Sorry.'  How WILL I adapt to tennis in the UK?

Friends

It's one of the most painful experiences as a parent for me, when your child comes home, distressed, at friendships moving on, loved ones breaking up with them, upset and harsh words on the playground.  It's part of growing up. It happened on our UK playground too. And certainly for FirstBorn, the pains and manoeuverings got more manageable as she got older and recognised she'd been round this block before.

SecondBorn found our transition to Kenya particularly difficult. It took him over two terms to relax enough to find a friend, who then moved to Ghana at the end of the year. So we, and he, were very relieved that this second year is happier, and that he has made friends whom he wants to invite home.  But last week he came home from school in floods of tears. 'When are we going back to UK? When are we going home again?'  One group of his friends, all from a homogenous racial group, have decided they no longer want him to play with them. 'You can't play with us anymore because you aren't from our racial group.'

It's difficult on lots of levels.  In our tiny UK village school, inclusion was a central tenet on the playground, in the curriculum, and in the beliefs of the parents and staff who chose the school. But the school, an oversubscribed church school in a predominantly white area, was far from diverse. Yes, our children's friends had skins of different colours, but the value systems and backgrounds we shared, having chosen and been selected into the school, were very similar. In Britain, as a parent, we had a common understanding on what was acceptable and appropriate.  Yes, there were hiccups, but the teaching staff would talk of their beliefs and how they sought to apply them, they would model what they professed, and parents would get involved on behalf of the children of others if they saw something out of kilter.  It was a loving, closeknit community.

Here in Kenya, life is deeply stratified. Barriers, guards, electric fences and protectionism are part of daily life of the privileged.  Some children are picked up from school by bodyguards.  Others are predominantly parented by nannies, who fear for their job security if they discipline as needed.  Even expat liberals talk only of what we can do to support a chosen few - the partnered orphanage, the charity for the vulnerable - rather than of wholesale inclusion. Yes, we chat to a far more diverse group of people than in UK, but looking round the playground, given the choice, the different 'tribes' keep largely to themselves. White Kenyan Mums in one bit of the playground, African nannies in another, African drivers here hanging out with the icecream man, Kenyan Asian mums on that bench there, and the expat mums - of all skintones - sitting on the steps of the cafeteria.  It's not about race I don't think, its about shared experience, and with whom you feel most at home. And yes, I admit, all but a handful of my parent friends here, of all races, have spent time out of Kenya, mainly in UK.

One expat mum with children at another school told me of her preteen daughter's efforts over 18 months to break into the friendship groups. After her repeated invitations to playdates being turned down, the mother eventually collared another mother, and asked for an explanation. 'It's nothing personal, but we know you're passing through Kenya, not here for the long haul. We choose our children's friends for them.'

My best friend at sixth form came from Botswana. She related with relish how studying for A levels would raise her bride price in cows when she went home. I remember how horrified she was one day, when, true 1980s liberal, I said 'but we're all the same, aren't we?' 'No we aren't,' she was clear ' our differences really matter.'  And they did. I learned the stories of her friends who had left school to join the armed struggle against apartheid in South Africa, how to plait cornrows, to speak odd phrases in Ndebele, to dance wild Setswana dances. My world is a wider, richer, more nuanced world thanks to her.

Does it matter for SecondBorn that his friends tell him he can't play with them because of his race?  Well it does, bitterly, but does it matter more than it did in UK, when a friend would say he couldn't play today because he wasn't good enough at football?  In my culture it's unacceptable to give race as a reason for withholding friendship. But I live in Kenya, and in Kenya divides are all around. How far can I impose my values, my desire for a nice, kind, inclusive & tactful society on others?  Especially when its their country.

I wish for my son as good as I was given, and better. I wish for him friends who share their heritage wholeheartedly.  I wish for him the understanding that friends are chosen for their spirit and what we enjoy doing together, not for their background, station or future potential.  I wish for him the experience that good friends can be found and made anywhere, and that friends from different backgrounds have insights to share, not blackballs to endure.

Office Politics

There's a German bumper sticker from the 1980s 'Alle Menschen sind Auslaender. Fast ueberall.' Everyone's a foreigner almost everywhere in the world.'  I've been thinking this week about cultural differences in offices I've worked in.

Based in the London outpost of a German embassy university advice centre, only two of the six staff were German, but we had all lived in Germany and worked bilingually. It felt German through and through. We even had a German government auditor in to check that our filing system complied with the German government Dewey decimal system, so a document filed in London could theoretically be located immediately by a new arrival from Bonn.  We typed on German keyboards and used the formal 'Sie' with colleagues we'd worked with for years, 'Frau K, ob Sie..' Mrs K, would you be so kind as to?'  And on Fridays, when Bonn Head Office finished work at 2pm, we'd shut up shop early and finish the week with cream cakes and high quality coffee from china crockery. Kaffee und Kuchen. A 1030 am glass of sherry on the red letter day when Margaret Thatcher, never a great advocate of strong UK German relations, resigned. Those were the days.  Working life never really reached those heady heights again.

In small consultancy business start-up in metropolitan Wales we bonded during those early days when we had no desks, phonelines or clients and mobile phones hadn't yet been invented. Greggs pasties and team meetings often over egg and chips at the local greasy spoon.  Outreach business advice to imperilled rural firms in Angelsey by public transport in those days before I had my driving licence:  slipping into my slingbacks before client meetings after an uphill trudge from the train station that truly was only a telegraph pole, not even a phonebox to call a taxi, in the Angelsey rain, again. Late night midnight oil proposal writing.  My intensive early morning Welsh course where we learnt to address council meetings appropriately 'annwyl cyfeirion...'  Hwyl and high spirits.

Brussels life, in a swish office where we wrote letters in 9 EU working languages, and spoke five of them in meetings depending on whom you were chatting with. Dutch or English for the Flemish admin staff, polished French and subjunctives for the director, Spanish for the Cool Crowd, - at its coolest with Latin American accents, Danish or Swedish for the interesting sounding high level discussions which I couldn't follow.  Bises or handshake, one way of determining nationality from afar.  French, Belgians, Italians, Spanish kiss, Dutch, Germans, Scandanavians shake hands. Two kisses (French) or three (Belgian)? 

How the Scandanavians would enter an office with an urgent & important request, and politely wait for the interminable personal gossip to grind to a halt 20 minutes later:  their assumption, if you're talking about it in work time, it can only be work, and therefore should be allowed to continue without interruption to its conclusion, even if its function is not immediately evident.  How space was made for lunch, no matter how frantic the pace, - a proper lunch, with soup, main course and salad. How wine at lunch time would  never be frowned upon.  How pastries, not biscuits, were the appropriate accompaniment to coffee. And how, when I worked for six months in the Italian sister office, cappuccino was only drunk after 10 am by one anglophone new consultant, to hoots of derision from all others.  Seemingly a bit like ordering 'buttered toast with marmite, cut into soldiers, please' in a high class breakfast meeting. Not done here, grown ups drink espressos after a passing early morning frailty.

And in Kenyan BigCorporate, I start to realise the similarities and oddities in all the other places I've worked. Kindly BigBoss welcomed me to the company by taking me for a true African lunch of goat, ugali maizemeal and greens.  And, in true African style, your family matters, and I've been introduced to both his wife and his son.  What till now I've taken for granted & suddenly isn't there: no stationery cupboard, with paper, pens, maybe even a secret stache of post-its and new unchewed pencils with nice sharp points. Here its bring your own supplies. Bring your own flash drive. Bring your own biro, workbook and phone.  One landline to the office of four.  One computer in the department of ten networked with the printer.  Internet access for managers only.

Friendly, competent colleagues, clear commitment to corporate social responsibility, but startling for an outsider to Kenyan corporate life, a weekly day of prayer.  A desire to win shouldn't surprise anywhere in the corporate world, but BigCorporate puts its money where its mouth is. All staff selected for the high prestige intercompany athletics were seconded for a month to the preparatory camp, with professional coaches to hone their game.  They won, hands down. 

And as a newcomer the things I don't know how to interpret. Is it a typical Kenyan architectural design flaw or well designed security measure, that there are no buttons to select your floor from inside the lift?  Could be either. Lack the data to analyse it. Just don't run for the lift as its departing, don't absentmindedly continue chatting to your friend as you enter. Stop, look, press button, and only then enter the lift indicated, or you end up, yet again, whizzing past your floor, on, up to the top floor with seemingly no means to redress or return.