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