11 Boundary Road

Above: S. and Anno-collaboration artwork makes clear that we have moving on our minds! (Note baby room.)

Above: The table and chairs that I designed (ok, more like picked out of an online catalogue and made a few tweaks to) - the true kudos goes to Willish, the can-do carpenter!


Above: S. being a good sport about the somewhat makeshift sleeping arrangements while we wait for our container - bobbing in the high seas off of Mombassa!

Above: Anno puts up the very first decoration in S.'s new room...

The last week has been all about the move. Our first night in the house was on December 10, the day after we moved the bulk of our belongings into it. Since our landlords had graciously given us access since December 1, and since I had been pretty much running the reno for them, the move had a bit of a soft landing to it. All in all, it has been great to be in the house because of the sense of progress which every small light fixture installation brings.

As mentioned in this blog, the house came with one dog (Frodger, pronounced Kenyan style: Froh-jee), two cats (Scully and Diesel), and one rabbit (Ziggy). The previous tenants required that the new tenants accept this menagerie, and even went so far as to pitch in for their care and feeding for a year. Neither Anno nor I have owned a dog before and are somewhat new to the nuances of dog ownership/handling. When walking the dog (no blue NYTimes deliver bags required here for poop pick-up), for instance, it has become clear (from facial expressions) that having our dog growl at a passer-by's dog is considered poor form. By and large, and with apologies to pet owners worldwide, the animals have confirmed my emotional shorthand categories for them: Frodge (simple-minded, unhygienic yet loyal and brave), les chats (snooty, inscrutable, and unlikely to be there for you in a jam), and Ziggs (pretty much a petrified inanimate object - except to S. who loves to poke, prod and hold the poor bastard...)

The house also comes with a 1/2 acre full blown African garden - replete with bougainvillea, flame cactii (at least 10 meters high!), bamboos, a 10ft trampoline (which I bought at great expense), a family of Syke monkeys pillaging the avocado tree, and, critically, the attendant security considerations of a large perimeter. I had the landlord install motion sensing lights, and reinforce the fence, but we have also had to engage a guard service. One day guard (6am to 6pm), and two night guards (6pm to 6am). Although our neighbourhood has manned entrances, and has statistically been quite safe, almost everyone you speak to hear has a reasonably terrifying break-in story. Anno and I accordingly vacillate between feeling like we're being too paranoid, and not paranoid enough.

Third night, Frodger started uncharacteristically barking up a storm at around 11pm. Anno had bought us 2 foot long Maglite flashlights, the beams of which are bright enough to clear up any Catholic church scandal. I manfully adhered to the formula of going outside to investigate. I walked around the perimeter slowly, casting the headlamp-style beam onto the fence. Nothing. I made my way to where the night guard's shack is, to find him sound asleep - oblivious to the howling dog or my torch focused on his face. I pounded the corrugated iron door of his shack and he awoke, only a little abashed.

The story has nuanced itself in the telling, with friends telling us how the guards have to bike 30kms to work, how little they are paid, and how we are probably supposed to be feeding them. I now do a quasi-nightly coffee and snack delivery to them - our interests are aligned here!

December 9 was also the day our car arrived from Japan. We had bought the car online back in October, so were a little surprised and impressed by the size of the forest green LandRover which arrived at our doorstep. It gives a grotesque 7km/liter (hence the nickname - 'The Beast from the East'), but the 4X4 action is definitely appreciated on some of the moonscapes that pass for roads here. Also, it is Indian-owned technology!

The Beast from the East (is thirsty!). Our friend and driver Steve on the left!

Frank-incensed!

- Each invitation hand-crafted!!

Last week was S.'s school Christmas concert - and I do mean Christmas. All PC notions of 'holiday trees' and 'non-denominational turkey roast' are out the window here, and it is, frankly, a little refreshing. This said, I was a little taken aback the other day when I heard S. singing softly to herself about how baby Jesus was going to perform some sort of magical intervention or the other. Their classroom also has a dradle in it. No Kwaanza here, somewhat paradoxically.

- 'Peace' is apparently an optional tenet of the message - S. (in cow costume) leads with a good looking straight left!

The concert was of off-Broadway scope and ambition. The children helped make the invitations (see photo), the costumes and even (taking turns) emceed the event. It was a rousing spectacle. S. was, along with some classmates, a cow. The rest of her class were sheep and pigs (I think). The older children were permitted to play human roles. It was our first time seeing S. participate in a concert like this, and I, predictably (for anyone who was at our wedding) had a tear or two to my eye.

The concert began with an 'all school' rendition of Mary's Boy Child. The song, due to the disparate age and skill levels of the enthusiastic participants, had a lilting dubstep/football chant-like quality, punctuated as it was by the 808 synthesizer played admirably by a teacher. The older children's interventions were delivered with oddly comical timing. At one point, when Mary was departing Bethlehem, a five year old girl sadly intonated: "And she was lucky because she had a donkey to ride on." Anno and I were the only ones to find that funny!

S. spent much of the time alternately winking at Anno or myself, wrestling with her fellow cow An., or even at times mouthing some of the words to some of the songs. Some photos below.

- Cows and sheep celebrating after tearing the roof off during the performance.

- Well played S.!

In more pedestrian developments, we are to move into our permanent house on Friday, and the team has decidedly mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it will be nice to shed the sense of transience and start some semblance of the nesting process. On the other, our shipment has been delayed in Mombassa for reasons unclear (would that baby J. could intervene here) so there will be an unavoidable indoor camping element to the exercise. Thanks to G and E Collins for lending us duvets etc. to make this a bit more bearable.

The phalanx of contractors in my employ has generally proved to be an able and honest bunch. I've had my share of 'dog ate my homework' excuses and certainly no lack of blown deadlines, but on balance we should have security, hot water, a non-leaky roof, freshly sanded floors, a sturdy fence, and sweet sweet internet (for a modest USD100/month at 256 kbps!). This last is filed under necessity and not splurge!

I will post more photos once we get into the Boundary Road house this weekend!

Slug in a Bun

We are at the tail end (very punny) of the short rains, and the ground is fairly covered with banana slugs - which are the cause of much mirth and excitement for some of us (ok, mainly just me!). In the rich tradition of gross-out, cross-over children's poetry, I present:

Slug in Bun

Yellow and black on forest floor,

like a New York City cab - off duty.

Banana slug smugly snores,

looking impossibly snooty.

Snoozing in dead center of the trail,

I stepped around his slimy highness.

‘Detritivore!’, daddo details,

without intentional wryness.

Well, said I, inside my head,

my hermaphodritic homey.

Time for me to break some bread

and for you to show me -

How you did get that tasty sobriquet.

Quick as a blink, I did slap sluggy

into a whole wheat hot dog bun.

No ketchup here, it’s far too muggy

the food chain, mon cher, can’t be outrun

by a mere gastropod!

I dabbed my mouth, feeling a little green

With my favourite red bandana.

I’ll say this though, for outdoor cuisine:

I much prefer a ripe banana,

to that slithery gelatine!

Of abstractions and expectation management

S. hugging a 300 year old tree in a 'kaya' or sacred forest on the South Coast. Note the black robes, designating us honorary members of the Mijikenda tribe for the duration of our walk

S. is entering an age where she is grasping at abstract concepts, usually catching us off-guard on the scope of the suitable response. For instance, and as mentioned before in this blog, we often go to the hindu temple across the street for walks, yoga and roller blading classes. In a typical outing to the temple, we may well exchange greetings with the priest, see people praying, or walk by a shrine. Sofia invariably asks, what the devil is going on here? Ok, not in so many words, but to that general effect are questions such as:

• What is a temple?
• Why is the priest dressed like that?
• What does ‘respectful’ mean (this when I ask her to stop singing at the top of her lungs as we walk by the prayer hall)?

Thusly have we broached the broad topic of ‘prayer’. So far as I’ve been able to explain it to her, prayer is our way of saying thank you for all that we have been given. For instance, I tell her, I am thankful for our family, our health, my blue sweater (it was chilly), and peanut butter. In lawyerly fashion, I had organized the list from greatest to least significance. She nodded sagely. But even as I impart these gems, I am acutely aware of the law of intended consequences with S.

For the adjective ‘poor’ (another philosophical topic which arose due to Jack – of Jack and ze Beanstalk fame – and his mother being very poor because of the giant), for example, I defined as someone who doesn’t have many material things. Again the sage nod. But on a recent forest walk, S. asked whether banana slugs (which litter the path between the trees) were poor – after all, they don’t have many things.

I don't want to give the impression that we only have lofty discussions. Scatalogical humour continues to enjoy great acclaim in our household! On which point, see below the best bathroom we've seen so far (at a recycled glass factory we visited last week):

Alarmingly and unrelatedly, S. has also begun to intonate in faintly British fashion – with the last syllable of every sentence rising sharply, thereby making every sentence vaguely inquisitive in nature. “This road is very bumpy” for instance, has no business being a question but I find myself reflexively scrambling for an explanation because of the way S. delivers the sentence.

For my part, my favourite Swahili adoption is ‘sawa sawa’ – which is roughly the equivalent of theek hai, or ‘ok ok’, except for being way less dismissive, and therefore way more versatile:

• Someone cuts in front of you in line – sawa sawa (meaning you register with disapproval their behaviour, but aren’t inclined to make a fuss)
• Ending a phone call – sawa sawa
• Politely but firmly telling the bootleg dvd vendor you don’t think ‘Johnny English’ is a film you’ll enjoy – sawa sawa (may need to be amplified with a wave of the hand)

On the topic of sawa sawa/expectation management, our move date (December 9) grows ever closer. We got rid of some furniture before moving here so we have hired a carpenter to build a dining table, chairs, guest bed and armoires for us. The carpenters here deal so much with expats that they have Western catalogues (and not just Ikea, but Room & Board, Restoration Hardware etc.) from which you can pick your design. Underemployed as I am, I have married mid-century Danish profiles with a more robust country kitchen effect. The carpenter has been impossibly patient and accommodating, to the point that I am beginning to suspect that saying ‘no’ is just not in his repertoire. I’m probably gunning my Hummer of expectation directly towards the bluffs of disappointment - but I’m having a lot of fun along the way. Below, some shots of work-in-progress in Willish (the carpenter)’s workshop.

Sawa sawa!

Mvule wood office desk - local hardwood not dissimliar to oak. Note the artisan's dog Snoopy in the background! Not a labour-saving device in sight (largely because labour costs are relatively low)
Dining chair (varnished) upon dining table (unvarnished) - also Mvule wood. Upholstery will be pale green cotton-canvas.

The Hills are alive (with the sound of my dry heaving)

Don Quixote's worst nightmare!

I do love a good hill walk.

Luckily, the south west end of Robi is studded with the Ngong Hills (say it two or three times, you know you want to), a series of peaks (approx. 2500 feet) along the edge of the Rift Valley. It is about a 45 minute drive from where we are resting our heads (pour ne pas dire 'house'), but we were in a landscape a million miles from the city. Ngong is the Masaai word for 'knuckle', and the range has four knuckles or hills (of which the third is the steepest). Walking beyond the first is considered a security risk, so rangy, bored looking men in various rent-a-cop outfits materialize from the mist at the top of the first peak - to escort you (for a modest fee). Ours had a lovely smile and an evil looking truncheon!

We reached at about 830am, having driven our loaner Corolla over a rutted road which was still slick and red from the morning rains. We were literally in the cloud cover, and the entire scene had a dream-like quality. At one point, I thought we were in a high-school production of the opening scene of Macbeth.

Except that there were giant wind-mills standing hundreds of meters above us, their 10 meter long blades cutting lazily through the clouds and the mist, and then, just as suddenly, vanishing altogether into the haze. It was difficult to judge distance, and we began to think it might be a short walk after all (no rain gear, one jogging stroller, and three kids under age 5). But as we disembarked from our cars into the thin air, the clouds has already begun to thin.

I haven't run much since the NY marathon a few years ago due to the existential angst I found long runs generated in the city - Manhattan Bridge, Chinatown, Financial District, Brooklyn Bridge, skipping the ipod, watching the late night partiers finishing breakfasts and saying boozy goodbyes, nodding to the hard core Wall Streeters on their way to the office on a Sunday morning - there was just too much to think about at any given moment. Running in the Ngong was instantly transcendent ( I use that term advisedly) - and I am really not given to lapsing too lyrical. On your right, the Rift Valley, up ahead the emerald hills and the battered red earth, and above and about you the wispy clouds. No need to play music you'd never admit to owning (although 50 cent is surprisingly fun to run to) - you are a mere piston, evolved over hundreds of thousands of generations to run these very hills.

At the top of Knuckle 3, I'm pretty sure an eagle was hitting on me. It was hanging as though pinned to the sky, absolutely motionless, surfing on a wind channel. Given that we were at the same height (he hundreds of meters of void about the valley floor, and I on the peak of the highest knuckle), our eye contact was inevitable and intense. Our moment could have led to something great (cue Lionel Ritchie's greatest hits) had I not then had to retch from the effort of making it up the hill. When I looked up to wipe my chin of vomitus, the eagle was gone...


Anno and E. atop knuckle 3.

The third knuckle beckons (blue speck is yours truly)
GC showing disregard for security advisements!
For a sense of scale, that is a LandCruiser (and a bit further to the right, some cattle) at the foot of the windmill!

On being 'hangry'

After-school/pre-nap snack - October 2011

One of the biggest adjustments to living in Robi is the nanny-state shaped hole in my life. For better or worse (and more than likely the latter) and much as I grumbled about some of the absurdities of NYC (pack of cigarettes $14.00!, MTA charging more for less, 40% tax rates), I am evidently accustomed to having an ostensibly benevolent set of authorities watching out for me - whether by means of laws, public safety interventions, or even institutions of which I was only notionally aware (like child protective services, or 9-1-1).

This is not the case here (although granted I've never lived through a Hurricane Katrina type of scenario). And perhaps because I am a parent, I feel a sense of vulnerability which is relatively new to me. Examples abound:

• A man in a clown suit at a party handing darts to a 2 year-old to throw at a dart board standing in front of an inflatable bouncy castle. (I took a deep breath but did not intervene because the mother seemed cool with it)
  
• A child of ten with vacant grey eyes desultorily asking me for change through the car window, with a sky blue pot of glue hanging from a thread around his neck (Totally not sure how to behave - just averted my eyes)
  
• A security guard's belly laugh while he absent-mindedly searched the trunk of a car at a security check point at a market popular with expats (I felt safe enough, maybe because I was alone in the car)
• Ridiculous decision-making exhibited by the 15-seater minivans (mutatus) which serve as municipal buses here (My sense of invulnerability was shaken by the sheer violence of some of the accident scenes I have witnessed).
  

On balance, perhaps a little self-reliance might be a good thing for me, but it is certainly proving more nerve racking than anticipated. Maybe it is also a sense of quasi-permanence of us being here which is contributing to this need for re-orientation.

We have signed a lease which is to begin on December 9, so I am spending a lot of time at or around the house trying to get it licked into shape by then. Some of the changes are critical (getting security sensors and fence re-done to UN spec), some structural (roofing), and some cosmetic (re-tiling of bathrooms). While the landlord pays for much of this, the onus falls squarely on the tenant (yours truly) to ensure that the work is progressing with December 9 in mind. Given that Anno will 8 months pregnant then, it is crucial that all sanding, painting and other noxious work be concluded before then.

As a result, I've had a lot of dealings with Kenyan tradespeople. First off, I have a whole new respect for the concept of punctuality. By and large, people are very respectful of appointments, and arrive on time if not early. This is especially impressive given that they travel almost exclusively by mutatu, that extremely coarse needle stitching together space and time in Robi.

Imagine - you have an appointment with your (economically significant) client, but you have no idea when the next bus will arrive, what condition it will be in, or what madman will be at the wheel. Now imagine arriving on time, smiling, and (by and large) work deliverables in-hand. Impressive!

Every now and then, however, the veil of formality will slip and you can taste the hardness of this sort of life. To enter the nabe in which our house is (Spring Valley), you have to pass a security guard manning a gate. Normally, you drive past in a car with a wave at the guard. Once this week, however, I was walking by to go to the petrol station (Oil Libya - you won't see that in the States, or maybe soon you might!) to buy a drink. I nodded to the guard as I walked by, asking 'how's things?' (or something to that effect). He looked me straight in the eye and said: "Very well, but I have much hanger."

This caused me to furrow the old brows. He didn't seem especially angry. I asked what he meant, so he pointed to his tummy and repeated: "Hangry" I nodded slowly, without any comprehension of what he was on about.

It was only under Oil Libya's humming tube-lights that I realised that he was very hungry. I bought some cashew nuts and handed them to him on the way back, hoping that my deduction wasn't wrong. His 1000 watt smile suggested it wasn't.

In any event, photos of the house after the jump:

Main entrance

Anno hamming it up as we check out the grounds!

View of garden

Drinking the laughter milkshake...

Last week, we moved from the old serviced apartments (Wasini) to new ones (Spring Valley Gardens - SVG), largely because the latter are much closer to our to-be-new house (lease starts December 9), the UN campus, and Sofia’s school. SVG flats are also much larger, allowing Sofia to sleep in her own room at a proper bedtime (745 to 8pm).

The UN campus is an emerald rhomboid of several square kilometers on the northern edge of Nairobi. Bordered by the Karura Forest (of. W. Mathaai fame), the UN campus is a universe unto itself, with a heated pool, a commissary (who knew duty-free champagne was still pretty expensive – although, on the plus side, I’m considering taking up a serious smoking habit and/or smuggling tobacco into NYC), restaurants, medical clinics, oh and a few offices.

The UN campus is also where I go, on a weekly basis, to wage bureaucratic trench warfare in order to get us in compliance with the rules applying to diplomatic families here. So as not to bore you, it will suffice for the present to simply say that there are some forms to be filled, some of which require passport photos and supporting documentation. The tricky bit is the Rumsfeldian nature of both the paperwork and those souls tasked with processing them – in that there are often things that an applicant (such as myself) will simply not know to ask. And no one in these offices will volunteer a shred of information beyond exactly what you’ve asked. This makes for a frustrating dialogue:

Me: So how can I arrange for duty free import of the car I have bought from Japan?

Officer: For which agency do you work?

Me: Actually, I am a mere spouse, but my wife …

Officer (interrupting): Hee-yah, hee-yah (stabbing at a printed sheet with finger), the staffa must sign forms X, Y, Z and then present themselves with Authorization Certificates A, B and C.

Me: Oh, so you need to have A, B, and C before you can get to X, Y, and Z?

Officer (barely keeping it civil now): Have you received Action Forms D, E, and F from your HR?

Me: Erm, well I do have our passports and a writing implement so perhaps…

Officer (calling over my shoulder at the line forming behind me): NEXT PLEASE!

By late morning, I had reached my personal limit for such administrative hand-to-hand combat. I hadn’t actually gotten anything filed or submitted, but the various decision trees were at least clearer in my mind.

So I decided to celebrate my limited success with a brand new experience: laughter yoga. While shopping at the greengrocer opposite SVG (another perk of the move, at the old apartments even buying a container of milk required a taxi ride), I saw a flyer announcing laughter yoga classes at the local mandir (also opposite SVG).

Now the closest I’ve come even to yoga so far are the internal breathing exercises which hung gar kung fu favours. In the spirit of saying yes to things (hence the name of this blog), and safe in the knowledge that I am totally anonymous in this town, I showed up in ‘comfortable clothes’ (I’d read that somewhere re: yoga). The grounds of the temple are leafy and several decibels more muted than the street onto which the entrance gives. People of all ages and colours were walking in ambling circles around the main temple structure, where the temple authorities have created a walking path (a rarity in Nairobi) for the general populace (no id checks or guard at the entry). It is so refreshing when religious organizations produce actual social value and relevance. I was impressed even before I got to the great hall where the class was being held.

In one carpeted corner of a football-field sized hall were a group of about 15 women, ranging in age from 7 to 75. The instructor was a kind-faced lady in her early 50s, with a mannish voice and the sort of relentless enthusiasm that had a cynic like myself rolling my eyes (privately, of course). Self-doubt began to leak into the vessel of my adventurism. But before I could engage my navel-gazing emotional sub-routines, the class began.

The instructor had us stand, and explained that eye contact was crucial to this class. We accordingly eye-balled each other creepily while she went on to explain the basic premises of laughing yoga: (i) the human body and mind are simply unable to discern spontaneous laughter from generated laughter, and the benefits (endorphins etc.) are released regardless of how laughter is triggered, and (ii) from a technical standpoint, laughter is merely a form of exhalation, and exhalation is the key to all mindful meditation. Although the wizened lady in a headscarf into whose eyes I was gazing at this point might not have been able to tell, I appreciated the common-sensical and Sanskrit-free nature of the instructor’s explanation.

And then we launched into our first exercise, which consisted of clapping our hands (with fingers spread out so as to engage the pressure points) twice at waist height while shouting “Ho Ho”, then three time at head height while shouting “Ha Ha Ha” – all the while shuffling around the carpet in no particular pattern and maintaining a dizzying degree of eye contact with our neighbours. All at once, the instructor called a halt to this, and started into an entirely unrelated scenario:

• You’re sick (she says), so you go to the doctor. He writes a prescription, which you get filled. It is a bottle of pills. You read the label, and they are laughter pills. Let us now take the pills.

To the great credit of the instructor, all 16 of us did exactly as she said – taking an imaginary pill from an imaginary bottle and placing it on our tongues, and then erupting into a self-summoned bellowing laughter. Incredibly, by my third pill, and locked in eye contact with a 7 year old Indian girl, my laughter began to feel true. Why not, said my heart and mind, why not?

Other such exercises followed:

• The Laughter milkshake: You have a cup of laughter yogurt in your left hand, and a cup of laughter berries in your right. Pour the berries into the yogurt, then drink it (and burst out laughing)
• The 'very good' - Bend at the waist, inhale and swing your arms, saying "Very Good Very Good". Then exhale, straighten your torso and extend your arms over your head, saying "yay!"
  
• The gibberish: With a partner, speak in an entirely made up tongue of weird sounds and gobble-de-gook (luckily, I get a lot of practice with S.). Your partner has to start their gibberish sentence with the last syllable in yours. Bonus – the instructor also said this was a great way to remove the tension from an argument with a loved one – cannot wait to try this!

I left feeling vaguely high, and will definitely be back next week. In fact, I will make a point to schedule some tedious but necessary task beforehand just so I can then drown my despair in a laughter milkshake!

It’s also such a good feeling to have the time and bandwidth to actually be mindful for an activity like this. In NY, I can remember showing up to kung fu class so frazzled that I would keep my watch on just so I always knew when I had to leave. I guess saying yes to things has its perks!

Very good, very good, YAY!

Getting schooled in Robi

This week was S.'s first in her school in Robi. Kabete Junior Academy (KJA) is a British curriculum school located not 10 minutes from where our new house will be, in a nabe called Spring Valley (I will describe the house in another post soon).

The 'British curriculum' thing set my south asian spidey sense tingling a little - how was that to be interpreted: running down foxes while on horseback, Marmite sandwiches, compulsory sodomy in the prefect's study? My field research suggests (i.e. chatting with other parents and teachers), that it simply means that they stress academia relatively early on, and that they have a lot more rules than S. was used to in Brooklyn. Both good things, in my eyes.

S.'s class is called the Rhinos, and her teacher is Ms. M. (name withheld for common sense reasons). Ms. M. is a no-nonsense lady, and speaks as if Sony had designed a speaking-voice for a Commonwealth android. Much like an android, she greets each student by first and last name:
e.g. 'Why hello, Audrey Wise-Man" (pronounced literally - Wise Man)

First day, she had each student (average age 3.5, btw) come up to the front of the class and give a brief presentation on what they did over the break (we just ended a middle term break), subjecting them all the while to such feedback as 'Please make eye contact, Mr. Farron" or "Please speak clearly Ms. Khan". S. was wide-eyed in Anno's arms watching this, and we (including Ms. M.) thought that S. would just give it a miss. But when all the children had presented (I used that term advisedly), S. volunteered to go up and gave an account, laced with falsehood, of how she'd been to the beach to see a whale. When questioned by Ms. M about the size of the whale, S. didn't hesitate for a second: small! (clever bit of diversion, that detail)

I thought we had had a week exciting enough (parties, hike in Karura forest, visit to tribal villages, handiworks market, swim class...) not to warrant being so casual with the truth, but the calm-under-fire of the girl kept me from disappointment.

S. is loving it (my current withholding pleasurable thing/activity threat is: "Ok that's it, we're not going to school tomorrow if you keep INSERT DANGEROUS/RUDE BEHAVIOUR HERE"), but there are definitely things by which she is bemused :

• Uniforms - on balance, she enjoys the dress-up routine in the morning
• Greetings - much like boarding school, Ms. M must be greeted by a full-throated volley of 'GOOD MORNING MS M' from the entire class. S. just stares with mouth open at her classmates during this ritual.
  
• Circle time etiquette: Kids are required to sit cross-legged with hands in their laps, making eye contact with the person speaking. I think this is laudable. A tall order, but laudable... S. was lying down with her chin in both hands, Maple Street-style!
  
• Activities - The class activities blow away anything on offer in Brooklyn. Monday (pony rides), Tuesday (karate), Wednesday (yoga)... Lunch is held in a sun-dappled courtyard, and S. is eating a lot of Indian food (fresh chapatis, daal, raita, curry etc.) Yesterday she said lunch was her favourite part of the day (chip off the old block!)
  
• Diversity - Again, the social (don't know enough about economic diversity of parents/kids) diversity in the class far surpasses that of our Brooklyn school. Today they celebrated Diwali (I was a little saddened when S. asked me, what is a Diwali?), and on Friday they are doing halloween. The kids' names range from Shiyuki to Imran to Devon (the Kenyan dude).

Photographic evidence of S.'s love of KJA below. BTW, this face of hers (which you will see over and over in recent photos), is an imitation of a billboard advertisement for a paint company called Duracoat, which billboard is plastered all over the city. In it, a guy with vaudevillean face is holding up a strip of paint, and pointing at it with his other hand. It is unclear how this tableau evidences the quality of said paint. Regardless, S. calls this guy 'my buddy', and junctions/roads where we know the billboard will be are cause for great anticipation and excitement as we drive across the city. Without further ado, I give you (in the spirit of Zoolander) the 'Duracoat':

You know you're in a different environment when... (at least 6 inch wing span!)

'Duracoat' in Karura Forest


Mau Mau cave in the forest (from where the freedom fighters waged war on British colonialists)

Duracoat Hearts KJA (note the uniform!)

To the Rift Valley, and beyond...

This past weekend, we took our first road trip in Kenya. It was part business, part pleasure (ok, all pleasure for S. and myself). Anno had to be in a town called Nakuru (about 2 and a half hours drive north of Nairobi, the 3rd largest city in Kenya, population 300k - just to give you a sense of how low the population density is here), on Friday and Saturday for the regional celebration of Global Hand-washing Day.

I. Business - Global Hand-washing Day

The goal of the global hand-washing movement is to (i) spread the message that timely washing of hands is a simple and cost-effective way of preventing death and disease, particularly among children, and (ii) to engage local-level lawmakers, school children (who are more susceptible than adults to changing their hygiene habits), and the private sector in committing time and resources to this goal. In terms of development/medical initiatives in developing countries, hand washing is on one end of the interventionist spectrum, in that it is relatively cheap, non-invasive, and makes for a message easy for disparate parties to rally around (and/or co-opt). At the other end of the spectrum lie mandatory vaccinations, imported toilets etc. These remain fashionable because they generate good-looking statistics - x million children vaccinated, y million toilets installed etc. In a way, hand washing is like the special forces of public health, because we may never really know what calamity was definitively averted because they were deployed (and I'm not just plugging for Anno here).

Which is why the very public festival which was Nakuru's Handwashing Day was so impressive - it was a public yet coherent attempt to connect the dots between a pedestrian and yet somewhat taboo-to-discuss act (rubbing hands with soapy water) and a rather abstract but ultimately laudable end-goal (making sure children don't die needlessly). About 5000 school-uniformed children were in attendance (seated on the grassy floor of the city stadium), as were the to-be-expected gaggle of political, UN and corporate hot-shots (seated in the VIP section - shaded bleachers overlooking said children).

Caption: View from VIP-land.

When we arrived, we were ushered into the VIP section, which felt (to me anyway) a little undeserved. Official confirmation of our status took the form of a luke-warm bottle of Fanta, presented to us by a Kenyan boy scout. I accepted greedily, and the mixture of our somewhat subprime seating (well back from the politicos) and the giddyingly sweet drink (so evocative of my childhood) dispelled any guilt I felt about my spot in the shade. I settled in (S. asleep in my arms) to watch the spectacle. First came the corporate guys, waddling mincingly in starched collars, speaking at the kids with all the grace of a securities filing committed to memory. As if to complete the caricature, one actually asked his assistant to bring up a daytime-TV-show sized cheque evidencing his company's donation to the Ministry of Sanitation. The children applauded the way one does after a wonderful magic trick, so I did too.

Those of you who know me know just how dim my view of politicians is (yes, this includes Obama - new campaign slogan suggestion 'Perhaps We Should', third book title suggestion 'The Audacity of my Father'). I am pleased to report that this position was entirely vindicated. One by one they sidled up to the mic, as the children squirmed politely in the sun. One by one they stunned us with platitudes relating only tangentially to the proceedings. One, the guest of honour, actually asked the children to please be quiet while she spoke. Ah well, I thought, as I got up to use the washroom...

I was a little groggy from the speech-making as I shouldered my way into the washroom, with S. holding on to my hand. She literally gagged at the smell (although she does have a very enthusiastic gag reflex), so I asked her to wait outside. I had only to pee so in the spirit of 'how bad can this be' I pushed on deeper into the semi-darkness. Gentle reader, let me spare you the depravity of the scene which now came before me. Suffice it to say, from a thematically relevant standpoint, that the issue of the lack of handwashing facilities was so trivial as to be laughable - slipping and sliding as I was on the film of human waste which was the floor. I sashayed back towards the daylight coming through at the exit, unequal to the task of urination. Expecting to see S. waiting for me, I was greeted instead by a man with numerous weeping sores on his face (not a Kenyan boy scout it seemed), asking me with some vigour to inspect the contents of a plastic bag which he was holding out to me. I could see it was organic matter, so I muttered my excuses and rejoined my child.

Holding hands (such as they were), we made our unsteady way back to the speeches, where the glories of hand washing were being extolled in Soviet fashion in front of a sea of absurdly well behaved school children. Some of the children performed songs and poems, which were definitely the highlight of the event. One girl had composed and declaimed a poem entitled (I'm reasonably certain) 'O Diarrhea.' It was funny but also poignant because she was so talented and earnest. I felt a stab of murderous rage at her 'leaders' seated in front of me, once this performance concluded.

Soon after, we left, for the pleasure part of our trip.

II. Pleasure - Nakuru National Park

Nakuru is situated minutes from a national park which lies around Lake Nakuru (freshwater but, due to geothermal eccentricities, with salt accumulations on its banks). The salty banks attract hordes of lesser flamingoes and pelicans. On my first safari, I was eager to see something other than a bird or a herbivore (I understand how illiterate this makes me sound). I think Anno and the driver were getting a little sick of this refrain when we came across 2 male lions and a lioness sauntering across the path. This shut me up, for a while.
Final tally: 3 lions, zebra, black and white rhino, impala, all manner of birds (sorry I'm so uninformed), buffalo.

We even spent the night in the park at a Wildlife Society of Kenya lodge, which had a rustic charm (think, boarding school), and a backyard with a black rhino in it (seriously!). I felt very grown-up, surrounded as we were at night by Scandinavian backpackers saying 'dude' a lot. I want to be careful not to be unduly negative here, but the &***ing chef produced one meal after another which had me wanting to hurl the plate at the wall (doubly irritating because he would lull you into a sense of security by carefully consulting prior the meal re: the menu, your dietary goals etc., and also because Anno is always so zen about things like this). On balance, a fine place to crash for a night or two, but please make other food arrangements.

Caption:
This is explicitly not what we discussed re: breakfast brah!

More photos below:





Caption: Climbing Menegai Crater (baby bump barely visible under parka).



Caption: Pretty impressed with those white rhino!

First time in the Rift Valley

This past weekend had a lot of firsts (road trip in Kenya, political rally, safari, etc.), but that initial view of the Rift Valley even shut me, inveterate road trip trash talker, up.

A more detailed report (with photos) will follow soon. In the meantime...

How to be H. sapiens

Cacti incandesce
on the lip of the rift,
as a drop of ink
in a cup of water.

Unblinking sky’s
crossed arms
transom’d this geological cathedral,
as I, wise wise man,
discretely scanned
the scar of the tarmac,
for a coffee bar.

Ballad of a thin man

It is said that all hatred is insecurity.

So, I propose a modest corollary:

• All culture shock is disorientation.

The last few weeks have been very positive - a lot of fun with the family, new experiences, reconnecting with old friends (hey Gareth C.), and generally growing a lot.

New places are, however, like a house of mirrors in the sense that they exaggerate precisely those features about which you are the most self-conscious. The last week has provide ample examples of the fact that I am no longer in Kansas.

Each of the examples below is, in and of itself, trivial, but in the aggregate amounts to the question which Dylan made famous: "Oh my god, am I here all alone? "

Something is happening here, but I don't know what it is:

• Am I too rigid in my worldview?: Simply put, things are different here. The restaurant that serves a warm avocado mousse (I shudder to contemplate warm avocado anything). The load of laundry that cost me $80 because it was calculated on a per item basis (we had put in 26 various undergarments - at a dollar a pop) (ed. - this bill is under appeal at the hotel - on the sheer principle of it). The nanny who was literally 12 hours late for an interview/evaluation session (arrived at 8am instead of 8pm). The bottle of pinot noir which I absolutely knew was corked but with respect to which I wasn't sure how to act given that it likely cost many times what the waiter was making.
  
  
• Am I concerned about self-actualization?: Not to get all law school on you, but in Kenya, your legal personality flows from the person who holds the job in-country. This phenomenon has its own vocabulary: e.g. Anno is a 'staffer', S. is a 'dependent', and I am a 'spouse'. My UN ID card (required to get onto the grounds, the duty free shop, and, crucially, the squash courts) reads 'Thomas, A. - spouse'. The UN spouse agency reps routinely call me 'Thomas'. I'm not too fussed about it, but was surprised to learn that I wasn't a person in my own right for many of the procedures I was undertaking (e.g. house search, buying a car, filling out the never ending paperwork). This week I will go to my first Nairobian mummy's group meeting, which should be a more positive form of 'spouse-hood' - I will report back!
  
  
• Am I, in fact, racist?: I find myself escalating what would be considered merely inconsiderate behaviour in my comfort zone to 'who do you think you are?" scenarios. For instance, S. and I were stuck walking behind a lady in a UN campus verandah (outdoor but covered - definitely non-smoking), which lady was smoking while she was walking. I could scarcely contain my scorn (I did so to spare my kid an ugly scene because she didn't seem to care about the smoke at all), which was perceptibly heightened because she was not a black Kenyan. In hindsight, why should it matter who the person was - all that was annoying was that my daughter and I were inhaling second hand smoke in a place where, by law, there shouldn't have been any.
  Similarly, whenever I meet a South African person, I tend to miss the first 3 minutes of the conversation because I'm too busy guesstimating their age and subtracting it from the year 1991 (the year apartheid was formally abolished).
  
  
• Are we making sure S. and the new baby are ok?: We has our first pediatrician wellness visit this week, and the doctor seemed really cool (although much less interactive with S. than we were used to in Brooklyn - all his questions were addressed to us). In terms of a decision tree, much rests on where you live before you can pick your child's school, hospital, gym (due to traffic patterns, safety etc.) In this sense, things are moving positively. Today, we met with the landlord of a beautiful house in a nabe called Spring Valley (opposite one of the forests which Wangari Mathaai fought for). It was very positive, and the house itself is near a very good school with a martial name that I like very much: the Lower Kabete Academy. The house is a cosy bungalow with a staggeringly beautiful garden with mature trees, a rabbit, a dog, 2 cats, and some wild monkeys. We get a much more positive vibe from this than the Italian house (which fell through, inexplicably but in hindsight happily). I won't say any more now so as to not jinx anything. Keeping ze old fingers crossed!

How to be father

Somewhere in the last 24 hours, we officially shattered our parenting record of unbroken 'no-paid-help-whatsoever' streak. I don't mean to disparage professional care givers (or 'child minders', are they are known in weirdly Victorian fashion here), especially our nanny in Brooklyn who is truly a saint (and that rare person whose judgment I don't question even if S. sometimes told us stories involving Dunkin Donuts restaurants - We just figured, hey, they have a/c in there!)

What I mean is that we have been without any sort of child care assistance or day care/school since our arrival in Robi, and are settling into something of a routine. Anno is, of course, working full time (including a somewhat harrowing 45 minute each-way commute) and 24 weeks prego as of this writing.

This was always intended to be my time with S. I think there is enough preliminary data to identify emerging patters in our relationship:

1. No such thing as 'quality time'.
A friend of mine (nice one, Peter M.) likes to say that kids only appreciate and understand quantity time. Meaning, you have to hang out with them a LOT to deepen the relationship meaningfully, even if some of that time is spent, say, in the back of a taxi without a car seat, or waiting for the &&%ing resto to please-for-Pete's sake bring out the grilled cheese already (hypothetical examples, rest assured, dear readers).

The quantity time school is fun and easy to apply (at least in my current employment environment), and effective because you tend to be more mindful in whatever it is you happen to be doing together - even if it is unpleasant and/or tedious. For instance, S. and I hang out all day, literally. We wake to have breakfast with Anno. Then, depending on our rental house visiting schedule, we either hitch a ride with Anno to the UN campus (this will be the subject of a later post) or hit the gym. In NY, going to the gym with S. was always a hare-brained endeavour involving incomplete routines, profuse apologies to other patrons, and generally requiring nerves of steel. This time, I find that we find ways to get along: she helps me count sets, does pull-ups off the treadmill frame, or just generally tools around quite contentedly, dancing to the amazing late 80s/90s pop music which Kenyan radios play all day (Lionel Richie - vastly underrated). We have our gym-jokes - S.'s biceps are named "Shock" and "Awe". There is no red-line separation between 'her-time' and 'my-time', it isn't minute-based charity from one person to another. I try to extend the same courtesy when she asks me to read 'We're Moving!' (thanks Linda L.!) for the nth time in the afternoon. As a result, I think (and Anno concurs) S. and I are more relaxed around each other, which generates a virtuous cycle of better communications.

Quality time seems, freed as I am from daily commutes, neckties and neurotic BB checking, a construct intended primarily to soothe the consciences of working or otherwise absent parents. Lesson learned (for now, anyway).

2. Results-based expectations
In addition to the difficult-to-measure aspects of deepening the father-daughter relationship, I am keen to use this time to impart certain skills to Sofia. Upon review, that sentence makes me sound a little pompous, and a lot not-fun - but I will leave it in. What I mean is that I firmly believe in working towards specific short-term goals (not so good at establishing long-term ones, but working on that).

So, S. and I are working daily on her swimming and her reading. I figure there's no reason why I shouldn't be the one to teach her these. I love to read, and I think swimming is kind of boring. Each, however, is a critical life skill which takes relatively little time to grasp (as opposed to master).

Almost everyday, we go the pool, of which we have designated various sides with different city names. For instance, S. can now swim from Nairobi (poolside near the cafe) to Brooklyn (opposite end of the shallow end) to visit her friend Laila, and then back. Also, and hilariously, S. insists on popping up and either calling me (i.e. shouting across the pool, to the annoyance of a sour-faced German lady also staying here) or sending me an email about her safe arrival and local meetings (i.e. high volume typing motion with both hands at water level). It's going pretty well - she swam backwards (in a life-vest, but still) for the first time yesterday!

The reading is slower going because of attention span (hers not mine). But if any readers have ideas or techniques to share, I'm all ears. Right now, I have some 'tracing letters' and 'a for apple' kind of books from a local bookstore which I figure are increasing her familiarity with the concepts. Plus, they provide a fun activity while waiting for the ^^&%&ing grilled cheese!

3. The reason anyone visits this blog.
Photos. Of Kenya. Nothing artsy whatsoever - promise!

1. View of Wasini apartments (the place we are staying) pool and courtyard from our window
2. S. in transit on the way to NBO in the Zurich airport lounge
3. 'Still in pyjamas' sing-along with faux guitar
4. Mixed feelings about balloon giraffe

What this blog needs...

...are some photos.

Happily, as part of my NYC bucket-list, I took a photography class - the last class and student exhibit of which I missed due to our move.

Instead, I have provided here a few of the photos I would have considered for the exhibit. I really enjoyed the class (Photo Manhattan), but it sort of confirmed what I had suspected all along - that photography is to art what american football is to sport - over-reliant on technology for the 'translation' of what should be an elemental experience to the viewer, and therefore increasingly baffling to the 'outsider'.

In this spirit, all the photos in this post were taken with my trusty D-Lux, with no filters, no zoom, and strictly no software. No need for impressive abbreviations and jargon - call it the 'plain language movement'. What you see is what I got, and this means getting in close, and sometimes *gasp* even having a conversation with the subject!

1. The last of the summer cherries

2. The American craftsman

3. Bank Street painter

4. Post-beach pizza wait

5. Ostrich profile

6. Father Charles in the garage