Transitions

It's that weekend when Mum, Dad, Granny, a beanbag, three new frying pans and a fresh-faced queezy feeling fresh-hatched student all squeeze into a car en route to university. A mate of mine here has just returned to UK to help purchase the potplants and shift the suitcases with their son en route for college. For us it marks three weeks since FirstBorn started boarding school in UK.  I'm back in Kenya, back Home, but home feels different. Something is missing. Someone. So I've been thinking on transitions, on tales from friends in the same space and of our experiences in the last few weeks.

As FirstBorn and I sat perched on the edge of our chairs at the lunch for new international students and their families on D-Day, H-Hour at the new school, a kindly soul told us of her grandfather, who had spent his early childhood in Eldoret, Kenya.
'And then, when he was seven, he was sent off to school, on his own, on a steamer to UK.  He didn't see his parents again for a year and a half.'  Poor mite. But it puts our anguishing into some perspective.

Several of our friends who grew up in Kenya a generation ago describe memories of traumatic arrivals at UK schools, of immersion into a very different reality. One described being given a five pound note in case of emergencies before being left. Described considering what to do with it, and doing what you do in Kenya. He found a handy tree, buried the fiver under the tree, left his marker stone so he could find it again.  Post office accounts or handy envelopes left with the housemaster an alien universe away.

A mate who was housemistress at an international boarding school in Kenya 15 years ago described their then reality.
'There was only one phone on the whole compound, for staff and pupils alike. You'd all queue up, - and the guard in charge of the phone would stay in the room with you while you made the call - even when you were a staff member! If you wanted to say something private you'd have to clear the queue from the room.' Aargh.

So yes, things are far easier now. There is email, skype, mobiles, texting. I do feel that she really is in good hands. But she's still a very long way away, and we miss her desperately.  But it helps to hear the experience of others. A mate last year described tapping on her son's bedroom door to wake him of a school morning, tapping as she'd done every other day for the last x years. But of course, he wasn't there. Another, in this her son's second year away, described counting suitcases at Heathrow as she returned. Recounting them. Something's not quite right. No, the problem isn't the suitcases, it's that its not quite right without him here with us.  For me its the empty space at mealtimes that sets me off. We've had to shift round the table, so everything is off centre, so none of us are where we were before. As we aren't.

FirstBorn seems to be settling. She's found friends and fun things to do.  She's sent enthusiastic texts and emails, - and now they are coming far less frequently, a good sign I feel. She claims to have practised her flute at least once. And, out of character, even to have gone on a voluntary run.
'Once. But not again. I haven't changed that much!'
But this isn't an experience for the faint hearted, child nor adult. Not as dire as for that tiny seven year old, but heart-wrenching nonetheless. Hearing of problems that you can't solve for them, of issues that you attempt to coach through in your laborious enigmatic text speak.  A mate here whose adult children are students in UK:
'Her boyfriend split up with her over the summer. Seeing her little face and downturned smile on skype and not being able to do anything much to help, being stuck here when she needed me, oh it was awful.' 
I heard at third hand of a Kenyan student studying abroad whose passport got put through the washing cycle once too many times.
'He couldn't get it sorted in time, couldn't get back, had to spend his first Christmas away from home.'

Others, outside the experience, say sweepingly
'Oh it makes them very resilient. You don't need to worry. They adapt.'
Yes they do, and so do we. But that is the armslength cliche, and this is the soft underbelly of the reality for now. Tables laid with one place too many. Favourite foods placed into supermarket trolleys and set aside at the checkout. Mums with bleary mascara hugging each other on the playground, 5000 miles away.

Preparing for Boarding School

I know its one of those contentious topics. My working life has been working in state sector education, its where I choose to put my efforts, I know how much the input of one family can make a difference to a school, and yet here we are, Firstborn off to boarding school 5000 miles from the family home. I think, if we're honest, we each have areas where we fall short of our best lights. If you're tempted to write to me today about our decision, don't, today, D-Day minus Two, ain't the day, take the time instead to muse on your own less consistent areas.  But I thought, nonetheless I'd write on preparing for boarding school from the expat perspective.

Visiting the final choice school in rural England last year the head told us with relish about their first boarder from Afghanistan, who had just joined the school.
'A week in when I asked her what she'd found different, she grinned, and told me she'd just seen a woman on a bike, cycling!  You don't see that in Afghanistan, she said.'
Firstborn and I have now been back in UK for a week, engaged in the frenzied expat shopping scavanger hunt of items for a new school, a new season. :
'Yes you will need a jumper or two. I know they aren't that stylish, but warmth matters too. Yes and some gloves. And you want your goretex raincoat to be longer than that. Yes even longer than that.'
Standing back and recognising that items that were acceptable in not-very-judgmental-Nairobi, now look shabby even in not-very-swish-South-Wales. As we've scratched our heads in despair, comparing the list of essentials with the paltry pickings we find, that Afghan girl - and her bemused mother facing the same shopping list - have been vivid before me. Because difficult as it is to find astro boots in Swansea, I'd guess its far more difficult in Kabul, or on first arrival in a new country.

So what advice would I give to others from my experience?
Plan ahead. 
I thought visiting our dentist in March for an August departure would be ample time to get a brace diagnosed and fitted. But no. For while Nairobi has orthodentists, first they take a cast and x-rays, which are sent to a sporadically held Dental Panel in another country, to assess whether this brace is really needed and therefore might be part-reimbursed, or is just cosmetic.  We got an email from the Dental Panel two days before FirstBorn left Kenya, - but we now need to wait for the cast and the x-rays to wing their way back to Nairobi, for the brace to be made. Halfterm maybe?

Confer with experts.
Life in UK has moved on in our three years abroad. I am a timetravel waif from the 1970s dumped into 2012 without any of the necessary skills.  Thank you my UK mum mates who advised on clothes shops for 13 year old girls (New Look, H&M, River Island; Jack Wills & Hollister if you've come into the money).  And facebook friends and the managers of several phone shops who patiently explained the pros and cons of different mobile phone payment options, several times by the end.  Thank you expat mums who recommended tracing round the feet of SecondBorn so I could still get Clarks school shoes for him, while he stays in Nairobi. Snarls to those Swansea Shoppers in stitches, listening to the mother daughter changing room dynamic 'You can't wear that out', squared, cubed and fastforwarded when you're buying clothes for a new culture, where the vagaries and negotiated boundaries of Nairobi dress codes are irrelevant.

Manage your emotions
FirstBorn is flying the nest. I can't protect her from what is coming next, she'll be independent, without me - so my residual role as Mum for this stage is to ensure there is a nametaped mattress waiting beneath the clifftop, and that she has appropriately sized, sourced, regulation coloured wings to wear as she flaps away. Or so it feels in my surge of panic. 

I know this feeling of old. As she rushed off to pre-school, could she reliably wipe her bottom independently?  As SecondBorn started school, could he find his gloves, scarf and coat from the pile of others on the floor of the classroom?  And now, aged 13, can she do enough of the other things needed for independent twenty first century living?

As we scurried around South Wales's shops under a teetering pile of five towels and a skype headset we have discovered our own rhythm. Reduced to tears by the man in the small independent sports shop we stopped for our first reviving coffee at 9.05 am.  When confused, when stressed, when anxious, when faced with a long list of clothes for a season you haven't encountered for the last three years, a cup of tea every 90 minutes is primary health care.

Make sure you have a postal address
This is not a trip to do exclusively from cutprice travellodges. This is a trip where you need a kindly friend or relative to receive the parcels of ebay purchases, and a flourishing local market to supplement the shortfalls. Alarm clocks, skype headset, laptop bag and hockey stick. Welly boots and school shoes, trainers and padlocks. You need access to someone's internet, to rejoin Tesco Clubcard (now only online), to arrange insurance for the flute, excess insurance for the hirecar, to liaise with the soulmates who will jolly you along as you howl into your pint.  You'll be doing those Mum things, - shaping gumguards - which you just can't do from a travellodge room. Today's instructions required a saucepan, boiling water, a slotted spoon & a mirror - possible from someone's house, just impossible when all you have is a Corby trouser press and a dinky kettle (fused).  And anyway an extra set of hands will come in handy for the marathon nametaping extravaganza that lies ahead.

Bring multiple proof of address and identity.
You'd think money launderers might be dealing in bigger figures than a debit account for an under-16 year old with an ATM card only and no overdraft. But we have to comply with the same legislation. As I brought out the piles of correspondence which proved only our complicated situation but not the address in which I was trying to open her account - how many 13 year olds have utility bills in their name anyway? - the kindly manager heaved a sigh. And thought, I think, if I were a money launderer, I might have prepared a better story. It's the kindly logic I love in UK.

For me this is a time of huddling close. Huddling close to our Firstborn while she's in my grasp, and to our denuded family on the sofa once I'm back. But huddling close too to my mates, the other parents going through this in Kenya. This stage (13+) is a time of boarding school for all but a handful who continue school in Kenya, whether its boarding in Kenya for the majority, or abroad, for a few. So all her peers are away too, though closer to hand than her.  As I loiter in Britain waiting for the first weekend when I can spring her from school, I'd been wondering what I could do that would meet my needs to be stimulated, amongst people, but allow me space to be probably actively miserable too.  I'll be going on a walking holiday, alone, in Cumbria, where I spent so many happy childhood and teen holidays, and to a writing conference. Distraction therapy I hope, while our love makes her way, with us at one remove.

Change is in the Air

It's that time of year, when normally stoic, stolid, resilient expat women adopt a wild-eyed manic expression. Coming to the end of the school year, and it's the madness on the merry-go-round, when expat families moving to new posts, move.

A new friend of mine was talking when I first met her, two weeks ago, of moving to (Spanish-speaking) Mexico.  This week I bumped into her again. The organisation's plans have changed. Now they're off to (French speaking) Mali. In six weeks. Different continent from where they'd envisaged till so recently. Different school system. Need to sell and declutter a completely different set of articles from the Mexico scenario. And they've got two school age kids, and her husband is travelling for the next week of the rapidly elapsing time left in Nairobi.

In the butchers I bumped into the other member of the remedial stream of the slick Latin American salsa class. We had howled with laughter at the back, as the sleek class rotated one way, and we, fumbling, stumbled the other. We hadn't seen each other for over a year. Barely have a language in common. But as we spoke very slowly together, out her story tumbled. Her daughter, 18, Italian, is about to go to university in UK. And it's a long way from Kenya, from their relations elsewhere in Europe, and from Mum. Their international school has just organised an evening for the parents of nearly adult children about to move to university in third countries, to lead the parents through the stages of supporting a child in a third country. How to underwrite a phone contract or rental agreement when you don't have a bank account or residence in that country.   Why it matters to have more than one sole piece of photo ID. 
'One of the teachers spoke. Her son had washed his passport twice in the washing machine in his first term. He couldn't get it sorted in time to come home for his first Christmas.'
It gives me goosepimples just to think of it.

There was a time, not that long ago, when organisations sending expats gave you a while to come to terms with the idea and to sort yourselves out before you boarded the plane. That was then. This is now. Several of my career guidance clients are only being interviewed for jobs in another country, another region, two months before the post is due to start. Two months is no time at all to sell your car and your generator, research another country, get far enough up the waiting list for a school, find willing homes for the chickens and the dogs, pack your stuff, sort out your tax affairs, maybe squeeze in a quick break and be off. Even if there are two adults in this relationship and one of them isn't in paid employment and can devote herself to it full time. If you're single, or worse, a working single parent, well get burning the midnight oil.  I see the stress of it, on the faces of my clients, the ones in employment, under pressure to find a new job in time in a new country where the family wouldn't mind being too much. Researching new issues and roles and how your skills are relevant to a different context and preparing for interview in a new country. Or, most likely, in multiple new countries. And I see it on the faces of my mates, the spouses, seeking to gallantly support, but not push, to say in a bright, brave upbeat voice:
'Hm, well it would be very interesting in Moldova wouldn't it. Or Machynlleth.  They've both got lots to offer.'

One of my mates described having packed up the family's stuff in Japan, and sent it shipping freight back to UK, where her husband was next to be posted. But even before the freight had arrived, his company had changed its mind again, decided actually, South Africa was where he was needed. And by default his family too. There was no way to divert the shipment on the high seas, so months and months later it arrived, all wrong for the season, wrong for the circumstance, packed for another parallel life, which wasn't now going to happen.

So if you stand in a supermarket this summer and watch someone, distrait, buying 30 coathangers, seven light bulbs, two dustbins, a machete and some chickenwire, smile kindly, hold her list safely as she seeks to stuff it all in the trolley, and maybe buy her a doughnut to keep her sugar levels up. 

New Girls and Boys

A new intake of 250 18 year old interns arrived at BigCorporate yesterday. Its a Big Day, not just for them. When I worked in universities I used to love Freshers Week, the sense of new beginnings of new intakes, the sense of vulnerable students emerging from the chrysallis, testing their wings in this new, threatening but exciting environment.  Within a fortnight people would have regained the spring in their step.  But I used to love those early days, when giving a broad smile at the university bus stop could noticeably slow the rapid breathing of an anxious new arrival, when giving an induction lecture which acknowledged the understandable worries, but also painted a picture of the potential and the opportunities during three years of study could make a sea of faces lighten, brighten, relax a little.

I know new beginnings are difficult for everyone. In UK there would also be the care-leaver, arriving independently, without mother, granny and Uncle Sam in the car with the potplants. There would also be the international student arriving via National Express coach, having run the gauntlet of immigration at Heathrow, discovering for the first time quite how chilly October mornings in Hertfordshire can be. But somehow, in UK, the shared experiences are more universal, the playing field is more level I think.

Yesterday I watched the interns arriving with their suitcases, ready for a fortnight's induction. Coming from each district in Kenya, most are from up-country, small villages, light years from the shining lights of Nairobi.  Many had never been to Nairobi before. It's a scary endeavour for the first time.  A friend, now polished, sophisticated, resilient, told me of her first trip to Nairobi, where she'd come to seek work, aged 18.  How she'd arrived on the matatu at the central bus station. Had tried to follow the directions on her scrumpled bit of paper. Had asked a woman for directions, who had taken her to a bus, told her to ride to the end of the line, and while she was on the bus, set up a robbery at the other end. How my friend was led into the forest, and robbed of everything, even her new shoes and skirt. How howling and only half dressed, she was picked up by kindly motorist, bought a skirt and helped to find her way to her relatives. The big city, its traffic, masses, anonymity, and city ways, is an intimidating place for new arrivals.

So I guess its no surprise that many of the new interns were delivered to the door by their quaking mums, also far from at ease. Not exactly helicopter parenting this, more justifiable accompanying through a maze which is alien to the family.  And at lunchtime as I squeezed through the lunch queue to get to the lift, the body language, the involuntary recoil, suggested to me that for not a few I was maybe the first mzungu, the first white person, whom they'd ever seen in the flesh.

A friend grumbled on Monday of her experiences at our gym at the weekend.  Ever keen to maximise profits, the gym has taken to hosting weddings on a Saturday, also the peak time for its regular gym-going clientelle to venture onto the treadmill. This wedding had many guests from up-country. Bemused by Nairobi ways, they'd taken time out from the festivities to tour the facilities, including the changing rooms. And had stood in the changing rooms, pointing at their first sight of white skin and giggling, as my friend tried to strip off her shorts.

One of last year's interns, now be-suited, smooth, competent and confident, explained to me recently his transition over 18 months.  'You have to understand Catrin, until my first day at work I'd never been in a big building or a smart institution, never even been into a bank before.  I thought banks were for people with lots of money. I didn't realise you could save 10 KSh at a time. I was terrified on my first day at work, utterly terrified.'

I suppose what surprises me is how rapid the transition, the accretion of new ways, can be in Kenya. A Friend in the Quaker meeting, a pillar of established middle class society, ministered a while ago on his learning from his barefoot youth spent herding cattle and goats.  Nairobi is full of glitzy malls, sophisticated suits, blackberrys and sushi bars.  And also full of those who, if you asked them, would tell of their first day in the big city, their shocks and surprises.