Do we know its Christmas time at all?

So as we prepare to head off on the overnight train to Mombasa (very romantic except that it will be us and three other people sharing a cabin) we thought we would send a Christmas greeting to everyone back home that we are missing.
The atmosphere here is the same as usual, nothing really tells you that it is Christmas time, except that the traffic is slightly better than normal because the schools are on holiday. There are no tacky decorations lining every street, no cry of the best sales known to man only on offer this season, no stuffing your face with ridiculous amounts of chocolate just because it is there and no Christmas party season. I never thought I would remember those things fondly but it is strange that without the usual nonsense we have come to know so well it doesn’t really feel like Christmas. Our Christmas day will comprise of 10 volunteers from various parts of the globe struggling to cobble together some sort of meal on a one hob gas burner, followed potentially by a trip to the beach and a few drinks watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean, I know there is no need to feel sorry for us! But something in me is a little jealous that we are missing out on what will probably be the first true white Christmas in a long time, I’d like to be back to see that, well just for the day anyway.
So while you all snuggle up indoors, put on your slippers and listen to Slade and the Pogues for another year running we will be hiding under a palm tree from the blazing sun, eating some sort of carbs and listening to the reggae version of Celine Dione’s ‘Think Twice’ (strangely popular here).
Merry Christmas to you all, hope you have a good holiday season and we will be in touch again in the new year.

Jo and Gareth

Explosion in Nairobi

As you may be, we are waking up to news of a bomb explosion in a bus station in downtown Nairobi. The bus station where the incident took place is not one we use; its for long distance overnight buses - services we've been advised not to take for personal safety reasons.

In terms of the terror threat to Nairobi, it would appear that the city and not even Kenya was the target. The bus was bound for Uganda, a country whose police chief has warned is under serious threat of attack over the Christmas period from Somali militants angry at Uganda's role in the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. The militants killed 74 in a bomb attack in Uganda's capital during the world cup.

Using all the detective knowledge I have acquired through watching Morse and the Wire, I deduce from the fact that a group of people tried to get on the bus with the bomb that this was an attempt to move the bomb into Uganda rather than attack the Nairobi bus station; why waste three people in a suicide attack? Answers in the comments box from anyone with more than a passing knowledge of terrorism or police work, please.

Accident or not, there has been a bomb explosion in the city we live in. This is unnerving, but in these instances I am reminded that for five months before the July 7 attacks on London I was walking home at the bottom of the road where four men from Leeds were making massive bombs in a bath, and on the day in question Jo was travelling to work on London's buses. I am very likely to have shared buses and public places with the bombers, possibly as they moved their toxic ingredients around inner north west Leeds. At least this time the investigation is highly unlikely to derail my working life for a couple of months as it did in Leeds City Council's press office.

Logic suggests that there is never a safer time to travel than after such an incident, but rest assured I will remain vigilant bordering on paranoid throughout.

Paddle with hippos, cycle with zebra

Jo and I took advantage of the Jamhuri public holiday (independence from British colonial rule) long weekend to join our flatmate Eddie's birthday celebrations in Lake Naivasha. Eight recently arrived volunteers took the surprisingly traffic-light and spectacular two and a half hour journey up the great rift valley on Saturday morning. By Saturday lunchtime we were unpacked, settled into our fairly basic shared tent and out on the lake.

The primary focus of the boat trip was hippo spotting, so it was an unexpected bonus to be treated to watching sea eagles swoop to grab fish yards from our boat, and then enjoy hanging out with my new favourite bird, the pelican (replacing an as yet unidentified small yet vividly coloured blue and green one I'd seen hours earlier).

We then had a nervous ten minutes as we searched for hippos. My renowned capacity for worry was given plenty to feed on. Hippos are enormous, powerful, and prone to attack humans who stumble between them and their offspring, often by tipping boats over. We are humans, on a very small boat, and could hear regular, tell-tale snorts but couldn't actually see them in the mirky water. Then hippo after hippo popped its head  up for air.Unfortunately the water was too deep for them to stand up so we were denied the full spectacle of the beast, but we passed through several groups of them, at this point our boat driver/guide chose to move a little closer to these two. The character in this photo beat me in the staring competition.  

When we  returned to the campsite we were welcomed back by these tinkers, one of two breeds of monkey we found occupying our trees. The showers on site didn't have a roof, so it was a little disconcerting to know they were in the trees above us. Thankfully, none of them liked what they saw so we  were spared unwelcome visits.

On Sunday we got on our bikes for what we'd been told was something we cannot leave Kenya without doing, and the reports weren't wrong. We hired mountain bikes and cycled through Hell's Gate national park. We have heard conflicting stories regarding the name, but it plays host to a river which probably fed the earliest homo-sapiens. We therefore all descend from this spectacular park, which opens out on plains between cliffs; probably formed through a combination of glacial and volcoanic activity.
We were soon distracted from the landscape and scenery when we relasied we  were cycling on a path through fields populated by herd of antelope, zebra and buffalo; we think the later is the most dangerous of  the beasts we could come across.

Right ugly an' all. Zebra, on the other hand, seemed happy enough to graze a few meteres away from us. These beasts have earned my respect as no-one can tame them; not for them the hod-carrying life of a horse. I am trying to convince Jo that I can become the world's first zebra whisperer, but she has very little faith. The camouflage - which would appear to contrast with its surroundings - works so well because the zebra's main predator, the lion, is colourblind. When a herd of zebra runs off the lines confuse the predators and upset their vision so they can't easily pick one out for dinner.

When we stopped for lunch before strolling through a Masai cultural site, we found these characters intent on eating our food before we did. This picture is taken moments before this baboon tried to grab a banana from our mate Liz's hand. Just like the fat seagull on Rhyll promenade that stole my sandwich, they've evolved into intimidating  scavengers.

We were then led astray by some very bad advice, taking an allegedly easy route home which was thrice as long as the one we had taken to get there, and involved at least three protracted climbs up hills we didn't need to pass. It did afford us a view of a couple of giraffes, which more than made up for the smell of the geothermal power plant we had to ride through. We also managed to capture this view of Lake Naivasha, a place I feel we'll get to know a little better over the course of the next 12 months.

Action Network for the Disabled: Kili fundraisers visit lives set to change thanks ...

Latest blog from my work

Action Network for the Disabled: Kili fundraisers visit lives set to change thanks ...: "We hosted our second visit of the week from UK partners AbleChildAfrica on Saturday, after a group of the fundraising climbers came to meet ..."

ANDY's offices - where the magic happens

I thought I’d break our recent blog silence by introducing my new workplace while also responding to some feedback from earlier posts; this post is littered with lots of pictures for Jon Crampton to look at while the grown-ups read the words.

ANDY occupies three rooms adjoining an enormous church building on Kibera Drive, the main road which runs through the informal settlement (which is apparently about the size of New York’s central park).

This first picture presents the biggest issue with the office. This abandoned garage outside the church compound has become a fly-tippers paradise. The smell can be somewhat overwhelming, especially after the debris has been under the sun all day. Surprisingly, I haven't seen a single rat in it, but then they probably struggle to get a look in with the goats, dogs, chickens and birds that scavenge in it all day. One day I arrived to find some big machines clearing it away.

I expected by the end of the day to find the area clear and on its way to respectability. However, in removing some of it they succeeded in exposing the older, decaying layers to the sunlight, releasing a totally new category of smell into the air. Delightful.

The offices are in a fairly pleasant courtyard which seems a world removed from its surrounding streets. There are a few things about the office which I am sure would lead to everyone being sent home from Merrion House, my previous place of employ, such as some of the electrics (I stopped using one of the plugs after it hissed at me one too many times) and a lack of running water. And over the past couple of days we've been alternating between loss of internet and loss of power., which can be a bit frustrating. The difference here is that the office does not grind to a halt when the technology fails.

The power cuts seem to be linked to the short but very strong rains we've been getting, which makes me wonder at which point the rainwater is interacting with the electricity supply grid, and who is being put in extreme danger when it does.



Lilian and Geoffrey in the cybercafe

The offices are humble, but it’s the people in them that count and my new colleagues are great. In the ICT suite which doubles up as an income-generating printing service and cyber-café (fast connection, modern machines, only 1 Kenyan shilling a minute) are Lilian, a qualified counsellor who lives locally, and Geoffrey, who also lives here and manages our sports programme.

Geoffrey has been my guide to Kibera, taking me to meet people, giving me safety tips and even short cuts which have shaved an hour of my journey to work. He has promised to ‘make me famous’ here. I hope he simply means that I will know quite a few people.  

In my office I sit with Joshua, who you may recall from an earlier post I met during my week-long in-country training. He has a bigger desk, with drawers, but he is a lawyer so probably made a compelling case to receive it. What is great about ANDY is that it is an organisation which leads by example; so many organisations which advocate for marginalised groups don't include those groups as much as they could. Most of ANDY's staff are from the ranks of the young people with disabilities who we are helping to take control of their own lives. This provides an exceptional challenge to some of the negative perceptions of disability which permeate Kenyan society, while also providing inspiration to the beneficiaries of our programmes.

I don't have pictures of the boss, Fredrick, or the accountant Philomena but will amend that at the next opportunity. I have plans to adorn the walls with the colourful results of many a participatory exercise, but I will need to clear this with the boss when we finalise how exactly I'll be doing the job I came here to do. The golden VSO rule is that I am not just here to just do a job, I am here to make sure that my skills remain here when I leave. And in these rooms I shall rise to that challenge!