Distraction Tactics

Nine year old SecondBorn is a keen drummer, and a coerced, conscript cellist.  The dynamics have been difficult.

Year One in Kenya, when the only cello teacher in the whole country had just departed. Continue your lessons with your mother (a one-time, lapsed violinist). Not popular with mother or son.

Year Two in Kenya, when a highly respected teacher of woodwind at the conservatoire had himself reached the benchmark level in cello to teach (?probably around grade three).  Take cello lessons in school, but bear in mind the teacher is a little diffident about performing himself. Not popular.

Year Three in Kenya, ThresholdMum's networking ability has developed to necessary Kenyan standards.  A US cello teacher has moved to Nairobi from up-country. He's dynamic, skilled, enthusiastic. He has a gap. But he works in Langata - an hour's drive from us using the short-cuts - fine in daylight hours. But the lesson is 530 to 630, and its not safe to drive back through the slums after dark.  And the night of the lesson is the night of my weekly Girls Night Out at which pims are drunk and the giggles are raucous. Sigh. And the first lesson coincided with the Nairobi International Trade Show, notorious for dire traffic, and even worse when the Presidential cavalcade and outriders snarl the route.

'Oooh look, what are those cars with flashing lights?'  Sigh. 

We left the cello lesson at 630. We got home at 910 pm, having adopted the Kenyan response to traffic snarl ups, driving the wrong way down the dual carriageway, and off-road, the car straddling the drainage ditch between the wheels.  (Get you, ThresholdMum, you're adapting!)  Our GradeOne Musical Genius asleep in the back.  Not popular.

So we're back in the UK for a whistlestop tour around potential schools for FirstBorn. Which will be the subject of many posts to come.
'Lets rethink.'

So this weekend, think of a small, well-filled, black hire car driving back, over the Severn Bridge, along the M4 to Heathrow. Cadbury Christmas advent calendars for a well-organised expat friend. Waitrose Christmas cake for us. Lego. Books.

Think of FirstBorn, in on the secret, primed with a list of well-chosen jokes, apt to tickle the humour of a nine year old boy and to distract in extremis.  And think of SecondBorn wedged alongside a large cardboard box.  Will we distract his attention sufficiently, all the way along the M4, enough that he doesn't wonder:

'Why this big box?' Even
'What does this big box say on its side?' 

Join us in hoping that the customs officers don't require that ThresholdMum and Tom unpack the electronic drumkit (and headphones) before the pre-Christmas boy.

'I say I say I say...'

The Right Clothes to Get Kidnapped In?

I've never been a confident dresser.  I get carried away on the spur of the moment in shops - I've worn hareem pants when no longer a student, even squeezed myself into leopard skin lycra trousers because I thought they looked fun. They did. Just not on me.  So Kenya, and its sophisticated sartorial situations have been a steep steep learning curve.

How do you tell the new arrival at the Nairobi evening drinks do?  They are the one with blue-tinged skin and goosebumps.  Our location at 5500 feet means that evenings are chilly no matter how hot the day, - but that deters no one from inviting to twilight drinks, sundowners, on the veranda, when in the UK you'd be inside, next to the central heating.  Old hands snuggle in poised pashminas. 

My mate Lisa tussled with 'What do you wear for a Sunday afternoon walk in Karua Forest with the dogs. And Prince Edward?'  Karua Forest is wildish. Muddy. Rough underfoot. A forest without a National Trust caff. Lake in the middle for dogs to jump in. Must be accompanied by rangers as risk of mugging not negligible.  So far I'm thinking running shoes, chinos and an old t-shirt.  But the Prince Edward factor is a real wildcard.  She opted for a flowery dress and high heels, and was very appropriate for the scones on white linen reception in front of the lake, - but I fear in her place I might have misread the signals!

Tom has spent the week at heavy duty security training on the Nairobi outskirts.  Industrial strength first aid in the field. What you do when a colleague is hit by an antipersonnel mine, how to triage casualties, then square that with real explosions to put you off. How to travel in convoy, simulations at road blocks, again with explosions and gunfire. Robbery at gunpoint, murder by rebels and group kidnappings.  Not a fun or calming time for him, or for the wife holding the anoraks back home.

So I giggled nervously when in the welcome home debrief on the sofa he described appropriate clothing for wear in Somalia in case of kidnap. 
???  Surely the kidnappers aren't that picky, I thought? 

But they'd been addressed by a veteran of a 10 day kidnapping in Somalia, and he'd noted how, kidnapped, you spend long periods lying on the ground in the bush with a paper bag on your head.  Ants everywhere, who bite, which you scratch, attracting more ants.  His suggestion: if ever invited to Somalia, alongside your helmet, flak jacket and ever-present first aid kit, don't wear shorts and a tshirt. You never know what's out there, but long sleeves and long trousers are your best bet.  Treat those ants with respect.