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 ...

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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!

Giraffes and mangoes (not a bizarre Kenyan recipe)

Today we had our first encounter with the famed Kenyan wildlife by visiting the Giraffe centre just outside Nairobi. The centre was created by do-gooder Americans to protect the dwindling number of Rothschild giraffes in the wild and now serves as a way of raising funds to keep introducing these giraffes back into the wild. Gareth was up at 7.30 this morning very excited but had to wait about three hours for our friends from across the city to join us (Nairobi traffic doesn’t let up much at weekends). We then took a matatu out to one of the posher parts of the city, where people live in gated communities within gated communities and all drive very big cars. Consequently we only had a cheese sandwich for lunch.Once in the centre the highlight is the feeding tower where you can go up to a giraffe’s head height and offer them some small brown pellets serving as food, which they greedily gobble up from your hand. They are beautiful, graceful animals and being able to get that close, the closest we will ever get to such wildlife, was fantastic. They have very long tongues and slobber quite a lot. Apparently you can feed them from mouth to mouth which Gareth says he might go back and do next time (it is very cheap for Kenyan residents which we handily qualify as). The giraffe safari walk that followed was a bit disappointing as the most exciting thing we saw was some giraffe footprints and some unidentifiable poo.

We ended our day scoffing down some gorgeous mangoes bought from a local market stall, the fruit and veg out here is so much more tasty than back home. I have asked Gareth if he will prepare some for me every morning for my breakfast as I am not a morning person. I think he is thinking about it……

Back into the work commute tomorrow and so looking forward to seeing what surprises the week will bring.

Riding Mariah Carey to work

Ah the matatu; Isuzu's gift to Kenya. Before coming here this was one of my major concerns as I knew that they were the primary mode of transport around the city. After one week's commuting however both Gareth and I are finding ourselves amongst the impatient passengers thinking 'why don't you mount the pavement and get out of this queue?'. Traveling on one is not for the claustrophobic, those faint of heart or anyone with a desire to maintain dignity. 14 passenger seats (and sometimes more passengers than seats) are squeezed in along with one for the driver and the conductor, who sits by the sliding door via which passengers board or alight the vehicle, which doesn't always come to complete halt at the stops. Boarding and alighting can be an intimate experience. It is such a tight squeeze that arses are in faces, shopping, luggage, tvs and much more can be passed around. Everyone has a say in how they are driven and will tell the driver so, plus they will stop wherever you want them to, communal taxis if you will.

The matatu has evolved out of Nairobi's dire traffic situation, jams here make the Headingley run look mild. Regular buses are not so common and most people can't afford a car. So matatus are in fact the most convenient form of moving around the city. In the mornings we get one just outside of our flat and in the evening we get dropped off about 10 mins walk away next to a small shopping centre for our groceries. Routes seem to vary slightly every day so you just have to state where you want to alight else you'll get lost.

Matatus don't really stop at roundabouts, create extra lanes and often just go down the pavement or grass verges down the middle of dual carriageways if its too busy on the actual lanes, beeping at pedestrians who dare to be in their way. Apparently mirror, signal, manoeuvre is replaced by manoeuvre, beep horn, manouvre some more, laugh. There is a great camaraderie amongst the crews, who have their own uniform and a union. You will find that their impatience on the roads occasionally gives way to letting another matatu through and having a good chat at 40mph on the way by.

The matatu is where our pigeon swahili learning really benefits us as we try not to pay mazungo prices and ask confidently 'pesa ngapi?' (how much?). Rain makes the fares go up however and it is hard to predict what you will pay then, or how long it will take you to get to work. Journeys can take three times as long.

The owners and crews originally competed for business by 'pimping' their vehicles, fitting loud stereo systems, themed colour schemes and all manner of livery and signage. Apparently they would follow fashions very quickly in the earlier days, so if madonna was number one there would be her name and pictures plastered all over it, only to be exchanged two weeks later when Beyonce or whoever replaced her. Music is still a common feature, with some sticking to the radio but others playing music of certain themes. Reggae is very popular, as is hip-hop, 80s and early 90s pop and house feature strongly, and there's always some surprises. We were 'treated' to country and western on our way out yesterday.

Yesterday I experienced the notorious 'vehicles on cables' variety, whilst traveling to town with a Kenyan colleague. Identifiable by their numberplates these matatus will cost you more but guarantee that they will do anything possible to get you there as fast as they can. This often includes driving on grass verges, taking different roads at a breakneck speed and, occasionally, getting stuck in ditches, taking about 6 men to push one out.

By far the most entertaining aspect of the matatu fleet are the names, which range from predictable ('Theatre of Dreams' 'In God we trust' 'Yes we Can') the street ('Daddi's, 'Get Clunkd', 'We Out Against Da Grain', 'I Love This Game') which Gareth often cruises into the Kibera in, the ones to avoid ('Slaughter Hauz', 'Spills', 'Ganja Head') to the outright bizarre- ('Mariah Carey', 'Only on the Facebook', 'Working Class').

Alas times are hard for the matatu as the government cracks down on these private enterprises. Already there are rules which ban music, insist on seatbelts and sticking to the correct number of passengers. If you find yourself on one of the many not obeying these rules you may find you get turfed off inexplicably before a roundabout, where the police hang out, and then have to walk. We have been told that matatus are going to be phased out of use completely come January next year. At that point we may find ourselves out in protest with the matatu unions!

JMH

New digs, and introducing 'shorter, fatter' Gareth

We moved into our new home on Saturday. It is a lot better than I was expecting; a three-bedroomed flat, one of which is en suite, on the top floor of a desirable new government housing scheme, Langata Court . We’re on the top floor of one of the green-roofed buildings you can see in the pictures on the Langata Court website. It’s about five floors up, and despite this being just a couple of years old this government scheme has no obvious disabled access.

Another volunteering couple, Allys and Eddie, are living with us as they wait for VSO to sort them a flat on the right side of town for Allys’ placement. After that, we imagine someone else will move in because it’s a big space. That means there’s at least one spare double room in a secure flat about two miles away from safari at Nairobi National Park. Beyond the busy dual carriageway at the end of our road lie giraffes, leopards and many other beasts currently participating in the world’s second largest mass migration. Visitors are welcome and encouraged, but perhaps not until after Christmas when we’ll know the place a bit better and can do it justice as tour guides.

Moving in was an incredibly stressful day, unexpectedly providing the biggest challenge of the week. VSO has so many people to move that they simply picked us up on Saturday, took us and our things to the flat, then gave us a soft furnishings allowance, a shopping list and about three hours to buy everything we need so they could transport it back to the flat. This means making decisions on everything from big purchases like mattresses, gas cookers and bedding through to cutlery and your first week’s food shop. We were not aided by some unfamiliar purchasing systems. Everything electronic has to be tested in front of you in the shop, so at one point I was actually forced to watch a man boil a kettle. Still, slightly more entertaining than the premier league.

We were at that point losing the will to live, never mind shop, which means we inadvertently spent a substantial amount of money on a bed spread and have a mattress which is as hard as oak.

And ass the huge shop we were in covers four floors, anything bulky you choose is stored while you get the rest of your shopping in. The shopper is supplied with a handwritten number on a scrap of paper which denotes each purchase, to be given first to the till staff then to the customer care people who hold your gear. We bought so much stuff that, probably inevitably, confusion ensued. It took around seven members of staff at T–Mall’s Tuskys to scrutinise our receipt and scraps of paper before we were free to leave with the goods we had paid for.

It seemed a shame to be spending this amount of money in one big shop. Tuskys is clearly a very important employer but I will be asking VSO to consider how they/we might spend some of this money on products from the many projects they are in partnership with, which I am sure produce curtains, blankets and the like.

Despite the frustrations the whole day was made worthwhile when I received a call from the other Gareth, who you may remember as my ‘twin’ from the Indian Gareth blog. VSO took Gareth to the same shop about three hours after we’d left. Many of the staff asked why he had come back to buy all the same things he’d just bought. The VSO guide tired of this and decided to preempt the same query from the next assistant by explaining that this was a different person to the one he brought earlier in the afternoon. The assistant replied: ‘I know. This one is shorter and fatter than the other one’.

Kwaheri,

Indian Gareth

Settling in

Hamjambo. Habari za jioni?

You’ll be glad to know I have resisted the temptation to include an entry relaying every detail of life here, especially as the first couple of days of our orientation were a little slow. A warm room, no coffee at lunch, and successive powerpoint presentations meant my eyes were closing on several occasions. It would never happen at Education Leeds.

I think the long, formal presentations introduced me to what will be one of the toughest cultural differences. Everyone here seems to share an exceptional pride in their knowledge and status, and take what we would probably consider an old-fashioned attitude towards professionalism. The head of programmes even chastised a couple of volunteers who were talking to each other during one presentation. Every opportunity to participate or hold court is seized with conviction; formal presentations, asking and answering questions, and even introductions can be very lengthy and considered. While I’ll also have to get used to the long meetings I’ve been trying to phase out of my life, it is also refreshing that everyone's contributions brim with passion and positivity, and are often rich in metaphor.

Both Jo and I have been mildly amused to have left local authority life in Leeds and flown half way around the world only to hear loud echoes of the debate and language we’ve left behind. Despite the welcome commitments of the British government to increase DfID funding, competition for development cash will be fiercer than ever and VSO are going through a rationalisation process all of their own. Cuts, evaluation, doing more of the things that work well and stopping doing those things that don’t, thinking impact: the song remains the same, only the logo on the presentation and the accent have changed. 

The content of the training and orientation has been very useful. Sessions on security advice (there are no ‘no-go’ areas in Nairobi, only places where you have to be a little more careful), the law (homosexuality is illegal, the age of consent is 18, smoking in public places is banned in Nairobi, on the spot fines are handed out for littering) cultural differences (men and women don’t touch one another in public while men often hold hands, meetings often start with a prayer and atheism is incomprehensible), health advice from a doctor who also appears to work for the Kenyan tourist board and even a guide to getting on public transport and bartering in Swahili (Jo will pick this up in shortly in her own entry) coupled with our own confidence-building jaunts out of our B&B grounds have helped largely replace my earlier anxiety over what the next twelve months may hold with an eagerness to get on with the job in hand.

Things gathered pace yesterday when our employers joined us and I met one of my new colleagues, Joshua. By tradition Kenyans adopt a British name when they are Baptised, so we’re being introduced to Kenya by people called Charles, Eric, Susan, Maureen, Fred and Geeff. While most of them stick with it VSO’s programme director - a very engaging and formidable woman – informed us that she is one of a growing number who have opted not to conform and, while she still took a British name at Baptism, she uses her African name Makena.

Both Jo and I were very nervous about meeting our new colleagues. I imagine it’s a bit like waiting for an internet date to turn up, only we have flown thousands of miles, given up our jobs and committed to 12 months without salaries based on the hunch of a matchmaker sat in an office in Canada who had only our CVs to go on.

So it was a relief that, despite Jo getting her first ‘date’ a little earlier than expected (we inadvertently sat with her new boss at breakfast) the meetings have served to calm our fears and enthuse us further the task in hand. Joshua is a funny, articulate and highly-motivated character and I’m really looking forward to working with him. He’s from western Kenya, which sounds like a fascinating place. I hope I am able to take him up on his offer of visiting his home town a few miles from Lake Victoria.

One of the reasons I joined the VSO programme was to gain a broader perspective, and something Joshua told me challenged one of my perceptions of the world immediately. It wasn’t about the way he has overcome all the obstacles faced by a child with a disability - who often cannot afford an education because they can’t join other children earning their fees doing jobs like chopping wood - to gain a masters in law from a UK university, or that polygamy is practiced in the region he comes from. It was that he described Luton, where he has just finished his studies, as a ‘nice place’ full of ‘very friendly people’. It didn’t feel like it inside Kenilworth Road a couple of years ago, but I’ll bow to his greater experience of the town.

We have a final day of training tomorrow, in which we also negotiate the finer details of the jobs we’re going to do. Then we move to our new home on Saturday, although we still don’t know where that is. We’re hoping to get this done in enough time to cross Nairobi to see the finale of the Kenya Premier League at Nairobi’s City stadium, providing we can find a local to take us.

Asante sana

GW

Indian Gareth

Further to yesterday's post, the other Gareth here with VSO - also of Welsh heritage and sporting a gingerish beard and glasses - and I have been asked if we are twins.I was told today by a local that I am 'Indian Gareth' because I have dark hair, apparently ignoring the freckles. Let me know if you think the below appears to be a mirror image.

  

24 hours in the Green City in the Sun

Hamjambo mabwana na mabibi.

We landed less than 24 hours ago in Nairobi, and the anticipated culture shock has definitely been post-poned. I'm sure this all part of VSO's plan. Our first week is a sheltered one of 'in-country training', essentially an opportunity to soften our landing and build our confidence starting with two days of Swahili lessons followed by an introduction to Kenyan culture. Later in the week we have meetings and orientation with the people we'll be working with for the next 12 months. There appears to be an emphasis on negotiating exactly how the placements will work, which is a little concerning as I've signed up to do a specific job but we have been told to expect the unexpected. I only hope they aren't expecting a doctor.

We've arrived with 15 other volunteers, eight from the UK and the rest from the US, Canada, the Phillipines and one from Holland. The presence of another Gareth, sporting a similar 'beard' and glasses has tickled our Kenyan hosts. We're twins, apparently. I'll get a picture tomorrow and post it so you can let me know who should be most offended.

We've been taught the basic structure of KiSwahili and a few verbs to conjugate. We've been split into two groups, ostensibly to have more manageable groups but we were divided according to our prior knowledge of KiSwahili or confidence with languages. Jo is in the group which shared those characteristics.I am not. She seems to be way ahead of me after just four hours. Still, we've got until Tuesday when we head 'downtown' to practise.And she's just fallen asleep so I'm gong to spend an hour or so swatting.

The area we're in at the moment could be anywhere in the world; a well-appointed B&B next to a large hotel (complete with floodlit tennis court) and the YaYa, a shopping centre which attracts the disposable income of the more affluent people in the city. There are lots; this is the financial centre of the whole of east Africa. Its also a very international city, and no-one batted an eyelid at us when we went on our group excursion to the YaYa and a couple of surrounding streets. 

We tried to buy local sim cards but I neglected to get any of our phones unlocked (one of the only jobs which was specifically left to me). This practice is illegal in Kenya so we might have to buy some actual phones rather than try to engage any elements of this city's notorious underworld or risk arrest, especially as the process itself is called 'flashing', and a conviction for that is hardly the type of cv-enhancement I had in mind when I signed up for this.

So at the end of our first full day we're simply anxious to get going, to learn some more Swahili and find out more about the next 12 months. I'll make sure future posts are shorter, and that half are written by Jo.

Asante sana na kwaheri

GW