Ryt laidz neet in

 To celebrate two of my colleagues securing proper jobs within ANDY's comic-relief funded new sports and access to work programme, I invited the two of them and the other male in the Kibera field office, Maxwell, round to ours for a few bia baridi and a simple dinner.

A Yorkshire calendar kickstarts any party

I had to leave it at the men in the Kibera office because I was unsure how the first invitation round to my house coming on the day Joanne went away for a couple of days would have been perceived by Kenyan ladies. Besides, the flat is great but the four of us filled all the available seating.

Anyway, those lucky enough to make it onto the exclusive VIP guest list were treated to avocado and tomato salads - one with pastrami and the other with ham - the obligatory bowl of crisps and some cold-ish beer. Cold-ish because our fridge packed in again, having just secured its second full week of functionality since it was purchased in early January.The soundtrack alternated between traditional music from western Kenya and a whistlestop tour of my music collection, and a merry time was had by all. it was of course a valuable cultural experience. This is what I learned:

1. It doesn't matter how skint your guests are, how much you've bought or how much cheaper it is than Tusker - they'll still make fun of you for serving them Allsops lager.
2. Any food served which is not ugali with beef will be referred to as 'English food'.
3. Even taking into account the cultural differences and the playboy reputation of the tribes these three belong to, one of our guests still managed to amaze me with some rather odd views about women.
4. Raphael's football loyalty is not, as I had hoped, on a journey down the M62.

Geoffrey enjoys yet another hilarious quip from his host

5. The 7/11 on Jamhuri High Street is in fact open until 11, and sells Tusker, but the female proprietor does not appreciate jokes about confusing her husband and the other man who works in the shop.
6. Hangovers are still nowhere near as bad here - I think its the additional sweating.
7. Despite all speaking fluent English, they were unable to pick out more than one word in 20 sung by Dave from the Zutons.
8. These three would have loved the regular floor-fillers at Leeds' mid-late 90s mod/indie superclub, Brighton Beach. 

Allsops - Kenya's Carling, apparently

I bless the rains down in Africa

There are two rainy seasons in this part of Africa - the short rains, which were taking place when we arrived here in November and we now know are very timid compared to the 'long' rains, which have just begun. The torrential downpours are something to behold – like nothing I have ever experienced, even during a life residing in the grim north of England and visits as deep into Scotland as Loch Ness.

The rain is very much welcomed by all those who appreciate what has been happening here; lots of fires caused by the extended dry weather, and fears over water – and resultant food shortages later in the year – in some of the more remote areas of the country. Cattle prices have been rising high as many died due to malnourishment, and a devastating effect is feared on crops this year. The country is also heavily reliant on hydro-electric power, so the longer we went without a downpour the more frequent and long-lasting the power cuts.



Jamhuri high street after a light shower



The rains are once again very late this year. All this is very confusing to Kenyans, who have up until recently been able to plot their weather patterns almost to the day, and during those days almost to the hour. It is helping to make the environment and global warming real to its citizens, but immediate remedies - such as trying to reduce the number of people chopping down trees to make charcoal – will simply serve to deny persons access to a traditional livelihood.

But when the rain did arrive it was easy to forget how important the rain is to the very fabric of the country and bemoan the chaos it causes in Nairobi.  A city which struggles to move faster than ten miles an hour in the rush hour simply grinds to a halt.  And to add insult to injury the matatus will charge much more to sit in a traffic jam in the rain than they do to move in the sun. They will complete less journeys, and are already operating within extremely tight margines, so have to take more money for the jobs they do. There is of course a large amount of opportunism but it is simply accepted.

Jo copes with the rain in typically elegant fashion

These issues show how narrow the margines are for the poor; if matatu journeys go up by 40 bob a day then tough decisions have to be made – about eating, sending children to school, even going out touting for work around the industrial areas. Now add another dimension to that; imagine you have a disability. Add to that a totally new dimension; getting around if you’ve got a disability. Many simply can’t leave their house as the small lanes between houses fill full of water and the steep paths turn from the driest dust into the thickest mud in a matter of minutes. The slums have no irrigation, which is a big problem as all the water runs from the nice middle class area we live in down the hill to collect in Kibera. If you can't leave your house there’s no sick pay or calling in to explain to your boss that you'll have to work from home today. Most of the time you are your own boss and if you don’t do it no-one can open your stall for you.

A footnote – my near death experience in the rain



The first time it rained properly this year I made the mistake of trying to wait it out at work. The rain simply belts down, relentlessly for hours at a time. I realised after about an hour that the rain was not going to pass quickly, and so set off on the ten minute walk home sporting umbrella, north face jacket and wellingtons. The streets, I quickly discovered, were in the process of turning into rivers. Clay-red, flowing rivers which covered undulating, broken road surfaces – making walking steadily impossible. Many a Kenyan laughed as I plodded past them, confidently placing one foot in front of the other only to sink up to my waste as I found one of the many potholes. The flowing water passed over a couple of the open sewers which line the streets in Kibera, but all thoughts of what exactly was in the liquid filling my wellingtons were replaced by blind panic as I heard a worrying, loud popping and hissing above my head.



No idea what that liquid may have contained



I looked up to see that the electrical wires running overhead had probably been hit by lightning, with the popping, hissing and sparks travellling down the wire towards where i was stood. I froze, knee deep in water, waiting for the end. Then two seconds later I forgot about my dignity and ran for what I thought was my life. Most of the Kenyans nearby stared at me but a couple decided to join my dash for safety. The noises continued, the heart quickened but the panic was soon over and I was back in Neema Court
, telling Jo of my epic quest while pouring the foul water down the drain.

An interview to remember

I have recently had the pleasure of being involved in recruiting the latest fantastic addition to team ANDY. During the process, I was reminded of a conversation I once had with senior manager in an organisation I used to work for after identifiying recruitment as an area in which we could potentially make huge savings.

No day-long, multi-room recruitment with lunch thrown in, said I. ‘Well, good luck recruiting me then’, said the colleague. The theory is that for some positions the company has to sell themselves to the candidate as much as the candidate sells themselves to the company. A slick, professional recruitment at a posh hotel indicates that we mean business and that this is a comfortable working environment.

In the case of the organisation we worked for it was also borderline fraud. The people and work were both wonderful, but your next taste of the organisation after interview was a long wait for a lift which (most of the time) creaked and jolted its way to an open plan office which was either far too cold or far too hot. You only return to the plush hotel when you in turn try to recruit someone else to join you in the office block which architect and building firm had conspired to make totally future-resistant; trapping those within it forever in the decade of its construction.

Our compound's security is unconventional

I wonder how this individual would have reacted to the pressures placed on our recent interview candidates. The path to our Kibera office is adjacent to an abandoned, vandalized garage which has become the fly-tipping capital of an area which has no waste collection arrangements and no public bins. Visitors are just getting used to the smell when they are required to negotiate the collection of ducks, dogs and a group of horned goats which scavenge through the litter and trot in an intimidating fashion around the driveway. Thankfully none of the group around on the day were with newborn calves or we may have seen some action.

The interviewees arrived to find ANDY already falling behind its rather ambitious schedule, so wait with other gathering candidates in our cyber café, mingling with paying surfers and their potential colleagues- exiled from the main office by the interviews - excitedly playing traditional Luo music, bought during a recent work visit to Kisumu.

Some kids scavenge for valuable refuse

When the candidates did take the hot seat to be grilled by Fred and me, they were interrupted by various noises from our visiting beneficiaries and the activities of our neighbours, including a man showing off his bike, a group of women arguing, colleagues who had not read the sign on the door walking in and chatting away, and just to add an extra test the men who compete with the animals for the pick of the litter occasionally set fire to areas to clear it, prompting the lovely smell of burning plastic to waft through broken windows and fill our interview room.

Be grateful that computers can't process smells

Not discounting the fact that the fumes could have caused us to be high as kites for the whole thing, the interviews went very well and none of the candidates were horrified or walked out. More to the point, they got a realistic view of what life could be like in the office: a bit hectic, baffling and unpredictable, but always worth being there and never far away from the lives and experiences of the people we work with and for.

My old colleague back in the UK may never have reached the interview, but judging this book by its cover would be a huge mistake.

On the right track

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a capacity-building exercise I'd introduced at work, and how I was unable to work out how it had been received.  I concluded that only time would tell, and while one swallow does not make a spring, the follow-up meeting this week contained plenty of encouraging signs.

We'd spent the last meeting considering how to form the right partnerships to help our programmes benefit as many Kenyan persons with disabilities as possible. We're initially looking for organisations which can distribute our simplified introductions to the rights of persons with disabilities, and how to make them a reality, as well as provide fora for the outreach workers we are training to deliver the same messages.  

Geoffrey (l) sits a lap ahead of Max (c) and Rafa in joint 2nd

It's all part of Action Network for the Disabled's (ANDY) strategy to have a national impact while retaining its key strength; a close relationship with the people we're developing programmes with and for. We introduced a couple of visual elements to the programme – an Olympic running track that we’re ‘racing’ round, with team members moving further along as we produce active partnerships, and maps on the wall where we’ll be marking the growing influence and reach of ANDY. 

So a lot rested with the follow-up meeting this week, which was basically a feedback session on the work each member of the team has been doing; a chance for them to report back on their experiences and the partners they'd secured. Thankfully, they've thrown themselves into it with great gusto. We have secured around 40 relevant new partners to work with, with successes ranging from arranging outreach workers to attend small self-help groups through to international NGOs incorporating our work into their national programmes.

Geoffrey in action, meeting a local kids and youth club

This is massively extending the originally defined reach of the programme, supporting our desire to consistently provide value for money and to maximise impact.
The star of the show so far is Geoffrey, who used all the contacts he has made over the last couple of years as a field worker and running our sports programme to firm up a partnership approach with 10 organisations. It shows that while we're not coming here as volunteers with any magic formulas, we do have the time, the brief and the external perspective to help develop colleagues' natural instincts and talents into work focused on realising an organisation's programmatic and strategic aims.

We're having another follow-up in a month, which i will not be running, so I'll have an idea if this is going to sustain itself after my departure. But I am not going to worry about that now - I am going to go away for my easter holidays on Thursday happy that the signs are there that something is sticking.

How not to get a white girlfriend

 

One question I am often asked here in Kenya is ‘how can I get a white girlfriend’?

Coupled with the amount of times I have heard female volunteers complain about persistent and bizarre advances by young Kenyan men, I feel there is clearly a need to for somebody to fill cupid’s role.

I know that anyone who has seen pictures of me or been spellbound by my Clinton-esque charm will find it hard to believe, but I am no expert in the matter. I’ve had long and incomprehensible spells during which I’ve been unable to secure a girlfriend of any shape, age or race.  

So I decided to consult with a cross-section of the Kenyan man’s target audience in order to provide a selection of hints and tips to aid them in pursuit of their date. This is what they report:

1)      Even if it does not mean a lot to you, the fact you have a wife or girlfriend – or they have a husband or boyfriend – will most probably mean an awful lot to them.

2)      White women, like all human beings, want to feel special and that your attraction to them is something personal. Telling them that you really want 'a white girlfriend' is a mistake – this reduces them to one of about ¾billion women who share their skin colour, rather than making them feel like one in a million.

3)      There are undoubtedly many white women happy to be reduced to the role of fashion accessory, but you’ll have to travel to the nightclubs of Britain to find them and compete with professional footballers for their attention.

4)      If they tell you they have a boyfriend or husband, they mean leave them alone.

5)      If they tell you they have a boyfriend or husband and your response is ‘do you know any other white women I can go out with?’, I refer you to item 1).

6)      It is not a cultural norm in Europe to look for love on your commute to work. Very few romances emanate from this situation, and even fewer from the relationship between passenger and bus driver/conductor.

7)      Under no circumstances call the girl you want to impress ‘Sister Rooney’.

A compliment, honestly?

 8)      Finally - and I suspect that this might horrify many of those who seek a ‘white girlfriend’ rather than an individual -  if you are successful in securing a date there is still an age-old tradition in Europe where MEN PAY FOR THE DATE. At the very least, modern European women would expect to pay no more than half of any bill.

To redress the balance, I feel duty bound to point out that there are a lot of very old, very ugly white men here with impossibly beautiful young Kenyan women, and an increasing trend for more mature white ladies romancing young, athletic Kenyan men. Perhaps a young, good-looking Kenyan man or woman can provide a guide for the older white man or woman looking to join them?