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