Cocktails and Volunteering

Or: Exposing the hidden challenges of being a VSO in Nairobi.

Welcome to a blog post that’s longer than normal, but I believe it’s worth the journey; grab a cup of tea and see if you agree.  I promise the very next post will at have more than one picture to look at...

It’s VSO-ing, but not as we expected

When Dan and I first hatched a plan to be VSO volunteers, we did a typically large amount of research on what it might be like, and listened carefully as returned volunteers and VSO staff set our expectations.  From all those sources, a picture began to emerge...

The two of us are living in a one-room accommodation, walking to our rural placements and home before nightfall, preparing simple meals on a stove in the corner, and having every evening free to read, learn a musical instrument or write home.The main challenges we face are filling our time, being stuck in one place, eating the local food every day, and coping without home comforts like hot water and TV.

Once we were successfully through the VSO selection process, we waited a year to be matched to placements somewhere in developing world; will it be Nepal?  Guyana?  Or Uganda?  And all the while we had this same picture in our heads of what our lives would be like when we ‘volunteered overseas’.

Flash forward to now and here we are placed in Nairobi.  Safe to say the reality has been enormously different from our initial picture.  Take your pick from –

ü  Nairobi is a large, busy city with restaurants, cinemas and traffic jams.

ü  We’ve a hot shower, a spare room and a spacious kitchen.

ü  We can find all the ingredients for our favourite home cooked meals with varying degrees of ease,

o   Red wine (expensive on our salaries but widely available)

o   Fresh basil (cheap but available only across town)

o   Good cheese (expensive on our salaries and available certain places)

o   Risotto rice (very hard to get hold of and very expensive even by UK standards, but anything’s obtainable...)

ü  Evenings are spent watching TV and films on our laptop, skyping friends or meeting people for drinks, meals out and house parties.

ü  The main challenges we face are long and unpredictable commutes, having a social life that’s too busy, and fitting in all the holidays we’d like to take.

So far, so comfortable.  Lots of the time we feel we’ve really fallen on our feet with a placement in Nairobi:

Having a bad day?  Let’s treat ourselves to cocktails at the posh hotel across the highway.  Shoes falling apart?  Let’s visit a shoe shop in a shopping mall as shiny as those in Dubai.  Feeling homesick for our favourite Italian cafe back home?  Let’s go a coffee shop that serves wonderful cappuccinos.

You get the idea.  But therein lies the hidden challenge of being a VSO in a place so different from the place we first imagined.  The karaoke bars, Italian restaurants and exclusive spas are catering for the western, mainly white, expatriate population, and the steady stream of tourists and business people who arrive every day. We are not them, and (most of the time) we do not live like them.  But we look like we should.

The trouble with my skin colour

We’ve already written about being easily mistaken for tourists (see, A Kenya Staycation), and 5 months in, being constantly ‘welcomed’ to Kenya by ‘friendly helpers’ on the street is starting to grate on me.  But the most entrenched mistake people make about Dan and I, is that we’re living an expat lifestyle.

Our skin colour aligns us to the people living lives here that we cannot hope to afford on our small VSO salary; to people with business interests here in Kenya, and working for international NGOs like the UN and Save the Children.  These are the people who have a beautiful house in the white suburbs, only shop in the malls and send their children to posh international schools.  We look like them, so people expect certain things from us:

We’re expected have a car and/or driver

Back in the image of a rural placement, I expected to be stared at, but I never expected the people staring to be white. Waiting for the bus on the side of the road in a posh neighbourhood, a white woman driving past in a huge SUV can’t take her eyes off me.  She’s so baffled by the sight of a westerner taking the bus by herself that she hits the roadside puddle hard with her enormous front wheel, showering me in muddy water.

We’re expected have a ‘mzungu’ job

By which I mean a job with a western-world-size salary.  We recently met a Kenyan friend of my brother’s who grew up in Nairobi but now lives and works in Dubai.  A chatty, beautiful, middle-class young woman, Jacqui was astonished to discover I was being forced to walk down the railway tracks on my journey to work, and speechless when hearing of the tin shack from where I buy my lunch. Recovering, she asked, ‘And how is your stomach feeling after your lunch?  I would NEVER buy from those places.  You know you could get a good job here in Nairobi, and wouldn’t have to walk.  You should get a Mzungu job.’  It was hard to explain how I was choosing to volunteer, to a lady who was rightly most interested in improving her economic situation for herself and wider family.  After comparing our very different lifestyles in Nairobi, she concluded: ‘I’m Kenyan, but I’m more Mzungu than you are!’

No-one expects us to do things ‘Kenyan-style’

A compliment my colleagues often give me is that I’m flexible.  They simply love that I eat the same food they do, that I walk to the roundabout through the mud and that I learn more and more Swahili – and use it.  I explain that I am here to fit in, and that we are trained to be sensitive and adaptable to a local culture.  But still they regale me with stories of the many White People They Have Known who hated this or screamed at that – and how they proud they are of me.  It feels the way it feels when you are showered in compliments for just ‘doing your job,’ but again and again people are surprised at how differently I behave from others with my skin colour.  I am Helen, Who Just Gets On With Things.  I even gather shock and awe in the street; watched everyday by a street-seller at the roundabout (where I’ve never seen another white woman), his word-for-word comment shouted at me as I passed, was ‘Madam,I admire the way you walk on the mud without fear!’  There were maybe 20 other (Kenyan) women walking by at that time – but my journey, it seems, is a statement, an achievement.  Our behaviour here is sometimes seen as upsetting the Laws of Nature, so much so that we even find Kenyans encouraging us to behave as typical Mzungu so that the Order Of The Universe can be restored: on seeing three Mzungus boarding a matatu in town, the tout rushed over to stop Dan, Eddie and I, trying to lead us onto the larger, more comfortable bus.  He never thought for a moment that we might travel to work by matatu every day.

Although confounding expectations has been an unexpected part of the VSO experience, I’m assuming that we would have experienced similar reactions to our flexibility in the rural setting we first imagined.  But the difference, I am suggesting, is our proximity to the other foreigners living in ways that are ‘expected’ of them - my Kenyan colleagues are far more used to the habits of other westerners because there are so many of them here.  And I was simply unprepared for the sheer number of people continuing their western lifestyle here, or even improving on it; in the very same city where our standards of living are much lower than back home.

Angry thoughts – and why I’m wrong

Now, I’m about to share some thoughts I’m not proud of, but in the spirit of an honest blog, here goes... 

I feel occasional jealousy and anger, born of living so close to all the trappings of expat life, but not attaining it.  In our picture of rural VSO life, I was happy to do without all the luxuries I enjoy back home, because no-one else in the community would have them either.  But here, just to visit our doctor takes me into an area of town where British women younger than me have drivers and private gym membership.  I walk into the shopping mall with wet trainers having waded through the burst drain whilst getting off my second bus that morning; they spring out of their car into underground parking and tap-tap their way to the delicatessen in high heels that have never seen the mud.  Or so I imagine.  It’s the same feeling of injustice when I drag myself off a THREE HOUR bus journey across town after work, get drenched by the rain, and enter the shiny bar in my hiking boots (worn to cope with mud) that are now showering mud flakes across the floor; only to feel completely aggrieved when I hear laughter coming from the table of white, glossy-haired, expensively-dressed, chauffeur-driven 22-year-olds who DON’T KNOW THEY’RE BORN!!!   ARRRGHHHHH!!!!

<Deep breath> 

But once I’m calm, I’m embarrassed by the horrible materialism at the heart of this bitterness I’ve felt.  So, I’d like to conclude this blog post by reminding myself of the reasons why this ‘hidden challenge’ that we face by living as a VSO in Nairobi is silly at best, and disgusting at worst:

Silly.  As we’ve seen, the truth is that we really like having access to malls and bars and brie cheese that are available for the expat customers who live here.  That we feel homesick only occasionally is I’m sure in part due to the fact that red wine is just a short walk away!  In our initial picture of VSO life in a rural somewhere, I wonder how quickly I might have longed for the luxuries of home?  And we are truly lucky we can afford to sample all sides of Nairobi life, as described brilliantly by Dan in The Many-Sided Nairobi.

Ridiculous.  I’m not really trying to wage a class warfare against the nameless, faceless expat ‘enemy’.  Those with the fancy cars, and fancy jobs have troubles of their own, and raising children in a city plagued by insecurity would surely have me rushing for a car with the biggest wheels I could find.  Plus, quite a number of the people who have ‘more than me’ are not expatriates, they’re Kenyans who have achieved education and success.  These folks are simply enjoying the comforts of a city they can afford to take full advantage of – exactly what the rest of us do back home.  Finally, many of the people with such different lifestyles are now my friends.  Interesting, caring people from all over the western world, they have come to Kenya to help build it, just like us, whether through NGO work or through business.  Some of them have drivers, international work trips and an expense account.  But the grass is always greener; these are the friends who ask us to help them ‘break out’ of the ‘expat bubble’, whether by taking them on a matatu, for drinks in a ‘locals’ bar or hosting them in our vibrant neighbourhood.  NGO workers we’ve met have described a frustration that’s the very reverse of ours.  In their previous life they were volunteers and back-packers, but their new status as NGO workers brings a feeling of being cosseted by management, their movements restricted and travel dictated: they are not allowed to take a motorbike taxi, and barred from taking the bus anywhere, because it’s ‘too dangerous’.

Disgusting.  The ‘inequality’ I’m feeling is grossly inappropriate when I compare my life to those who have genuine complaints about the unfairness of Nairobi life.  The reality is that our living standards are hugely, massively, extraordinarily higher than the vast majority of Nairobians.  I find that I earn much more than my colleagues, even though I’m called a ‘volunteer’.  With my rent paid by VSO, and private medical insurance thrown in for free, my benefits package is well above those with whom I share an office.  Our apartment building wouldn’t meet any health and safety standards back home, but to live there, you need to be earning way above the average salary, and if I start to compare my life to the 60% of Nairobi residents who live in slums, I find we are not even in the same world.  I find it truly disgusting that I would dare complain about how we can’t afford cocktails every night of the week.

So while we do find it exhausting to constantly challenge the expectations of our skin colour, and we feel a little jealous of our car-driving countrymen and women when we trudge through a rain storm; the challenges of VSO life here in Nairobi are swamped by the benefits of experiencing Kenyan life from within.  I’m proud of that ‘achievement’ the street-seller congratulated me for in the mud, real or imagined.  We love knowing the back streets, moving freely around the city and sharing a few Swahili words with the roasted-maize guy in South B.  And I promise to check myself when having a moan about what others can ‘do’, ‘buy’ and ‘have.’  We’re happy here because our life is rich in so many other ways, not least because of the awesome VSO friends we’ve made in Nairobi, people who know exactly how it feels to rage about cheese, cocktails, and loud upstairs neighbours in a city where the main challenges are providing your family with clean water and a safe place to live.

.........

Further reading:  for a more accurate window on how ‘the other half live', I’ve been reading the Africa Expat Wives Club blog written by an (anonymous) British expat of 20 years, now living in Nairobi. A full-time Mum, she’s been blogging for the last 6 years about what life is really like when you make Africa your permanent home (unlike us visitors!).  It’s a very honest blog as she seems to not be scared of criticism.  Notable for being mentioned in the Telegraph (I know...) as she blogged during the post-election violence in Kenya in 2008.

Death in Embakasi

Comparing my muddy commute in Nairobi to the Somme has caused some friends to call me pretentious (moi?); after all the mud experienced by soldiers in 1914 was truly life-threatening.  I was once employed to guide school groups around the battlefields of Northern France, and I remember the testimony of Great War soldiers who stood helpless as whole carriages disappeared into the deep mud.  Unable to help, they watched the men and horses drown.

It’s been very rainy over the last week here in Nairobi, and the mud where I work in Embakasi has become even worse.  But, even I admit to being something of a drama queen when I compare it to trench warfare in the last century.  Until today.

Last night here in Embakasi, someone drove their car into one of the rain-clogged construction ditches on the side of the road, and completely disappeared.  The traffic backed up this morning, as hundreds of people gathered to watch the car being dragged from beneath the muddy water.  My colleagues were talking about the driver, was he drunk?  ‘It doesn’t matter’, says my colleague Ken, ‘that one will be dead.’

The Chinese contractors here see no need to put barriers around every ditch; the foreman I saw who was assisting the dredging process looked uncomfortable being the centre of attention, and pretty annoyed that the road building would be put behind schedule.

Life without seasons

Posted by: Helen

We arrived in Kenya in July, leaving behind the UK’s summer.  Flying across the equator, we arrived in Kenya’s winter, but the weather felt much the same. 

Now four months later, I sit at my desk in my office in Nairobi; looking out of the window and it still looks like July.  I have an odd sensational that time is standing still.  Where are my usual signs that the year is progressing?

?    the weather is not getting colder; in fact December and January are summer here, so it’s getting hotter

?    the days are not getting shorter; daylight on the equator is strictly 6am-6pm, all year round

?    where is Halloween, Bonfire night, Remembrance Sunday??

Then, suddenly, it appears that the year is nearly over.  The first recognisable symbol that time was passing came without warning: a string of coloured lights.  Christmas retail season has arrived in Kenya, targeting middle-class Kenyan cash in ways borrowed from the west: Christmas trees in glass-fronted shopping malls, and carol-themed jingles on the radio. I can’t believe it’s almost December. Christmas?!  Already?!  It just seems so wrong.

Back home I can be a bit of a scrooge, preferring long summer days spent outdoors, to cold ‘festive’ holidays stuck in the house.  But how can I grumble about Christmas this year, when the weather continues to heat up?  How can I complain when I’m free of pressured Christmas shopping and the usual decisions about where to be come Christmas day? 

So I won’t protest at all – I’ll embrace it.  Let’s have carols in the sunshine, and Christmas on the beach. And who wouldn’t thank their lucky stars for swimming outside in the sunshine in late November?  I think whining about this situation would prompt my friends and family back home to tell me ‘where to go’, whilst reminding me about drizzle, window condensation and cold fingers.

And yet still, the feeling remains: I miss the experience of seasons changing.  Autumn is Dan’s favourite time of year; never happier than when squelching through forest mud under clear blue skies, watching the leaves turning colour whilst we identify mushrooms.  OK, maybe it’s Mike Jones that knows all about the fungi (!), but in autumn, even I love an excuse to throw on an extra duvet and make soup.  As I embrace the mono-season here in Nairobi, I’m surprised to discover how much I miss the UK, just at the time of year when I normally start to grumble. 

I know it’s just new-ness, and in time the strange would become normal.  But our plan to spend just one year here, may mean that we have no time to get used to any strangeness we feel.  During her first few UK winters, my Brazilian friend Luana would often not leave her house between Friday night and Monday morning, seeing no need to expose her body to such extreme cold, if not for work.  She yearned for the warmth of ‘home’, but after almost 10 years in the UK, the cold no longer feels as harsh.  Now, she wraps up warm and heads out with a stoicism that matches her hard-won British citizenship; a sign of the long-term commitment she made to her adopted home.  (miss you, Lu!)

We have no plans to commit to Kenya in that way, although plenty of our follow volunteers want to – and do.  When he visited, my brother asked us what our plans were, whether we had become convinced of the benefits of an ex-pat lifestyle, as he has.  At the moment, all I can say is that my ‘Britishness’ is coming out here in the strangest of ways:  who would have believed I’d miss the sensation of summer ending, miss the cold weather, even miss a ‘proper’ English Christmas?  I find life here to be so very interesting, and every day is an adventure at the moment.  But, I’m clearly not ready to find new roots just yet, because right now, this life without seasons makes me feel very far from a place I still call home.

Why you shouldn't confuse our blog with reality

Posted by: Dan (with moral support and editing by Helen)
 

A word on this blog: we're loving writing it. But, it’s a lot like Facebook – which is always filled with witty comment, shiny, happy faces and extraordinary experiences. Rather than “I went to work today”. And aren’t we all glad of that? It would certainly be duller if it were more true. We're aiming for a blog full of carefully crafted, articulate, witty, well-rounded nuggets of cultural observations (ha!). And, yes, also close-ups of lions in the Maasai Mara just to make you all jealous. Don’t get me wrong, we are doing those wonderful things, we are incredibly lucky to visit once-in-a-lifetime places of a weekend here in Kenya. But that, of course, is much less than half the story......

Welcome to a blog post answering the question: "Why don't you talk about work?"

During our "In-Country Training", we were fresh volunteers, all sitting beside our new Kenyan employers. A member of the training team stood up and said, "Do not expect your volunteer to do much in the first three months". What?! We all looked at each other slightly incredulously...

It's four months on, and last weekend I found myself standing in front of a new intake of volunteers, fresh off the plane, jet-lagged and eager, and repeating this same advice. Presentation title: "Practicalities of Working in Kenya". I urged them to spend the first months learning about their organisation, and crucially, building relationships. "Do not", I said, "try to hit the ground running".

.......................................

"But you don't talk about work!", said a UK friend the other day, referring to our blog. And this got me worried. I don't want my friends and family in the UK thinking this blog says it all, that it's an accurate picture of our full experience here. We also have to go to work.

We find it hard to articulate "work" here. Firstly, VSO urges volunteers to be cautious about blogging about their placements. Sage advice - after all, this is a very public space. I've never written a blog before, and it's certainly strange to think that I'm writing for my Mum, my UK friends, fellow volunteers here, and of course, our Kenyan colleagues sometimes read it too. I have no intention of offending anyone with off-hand remarks. It helps that I like my colleagues, and have no real cause for complaint. But I've heard stories of volunteers who have totally screwed things up for themselves by writing insensitively about work.

Secondly, it needs to be couched in terms. “Work” is the absolute obsession of the Western world. We’re all trained to be Type A, workaholic, deliver deliver deliver productivity monkeys. What’s the first question people ask when they meet? “So, what do you do?” Our work is at the heart of our identity, going far deeper than, probably, it should.

It’s not the same here. And I apologise for any grand generalisations here, particularly to any Kenyans who are reading this. I certainly mean no offense, and I don't mean that Kenyans are lazy.

But still, in my experience I think it's true to say that Kenyans are not about work. Mornings and meetings start with a long and lovely round of greetings: Habari? How are you? What news? How is your family? How is your home? Kenyan life much more frequently revolves around (1) family, and (2) Church. I’m starting to think they have a lot more perspective than the British do, and an understanding of Work:Life balance that I envy.

It’s worth remembering that office work is a comparatively new thing here. We’re working with colleagues who are often the first generation to go to university or work in an office rather than in a field or at a road-side stall. They don’t yet have the highly evolved middle class angst and social rituals that British offices do. And sometimes I’m loath to be the representative that suggests that offices are the way to go. I’d sometimes much prefer to be ploughing, hunting or cooking than vexing over office politics. I’m proudly better at making fires and cooking meat than I am at writing project documents or “managing stakeholders”.

And work here can be frustrating. Volunteers can be idealists, recruited to "change the world". But what does that mean? I know even some of our UK acquaintances have struggled with the concept that we're doing office work here. We're not digging wells or handing out food aid. I write emails here, I use flipcharts.

But despite this, things can be very different for a lot of volunteers here. Imagine yourself in an office in the UK:

• you often have no internet, no power, no running water
• the working day is flexible, no-one is watching you, managing you
• your work sometimes has little structure, often no team, and frequently no clear objectives
• 'a productive day at work' can mean chatting with your colleagues, and drinking chai all day.

It sounds wonderful, yes? Frustrating maybe, but a very easy year. But it's difficult. And we've flown a long way to share skills, create change, improve things. You start to even miss bureaucracy...

Bureaucracy is what happens when relationships break down

For many Kenyans, talking and relationships are far more important than producing a document to deadline, sending an email or perfecting a powerpoint presentation. Speed is not of the essence, and Kenyans enjoy reminding us that they have their own sense of time.

Our new work-mates act very differently from our previous colleagues. Often they'll agree with everything you say, even when they disagree fundamentally and have no intention of following through. Our Swahili teacher says "Kenyans are not honest", which doesn't mean they're liars, but in Swahili, there's almost no way of articulating negativity. The answer to any question is "nzuri" or "sawa sawa" (variations on "good" and "fine"). Our Kenyan acquaintances will say "nzuri" even when the truth is that they haven't slept, a family member is in hospital, or they're in a foul mood. Translated into a work setting, and it becomes a real struggle to get honest, constructive feedback and criticism. My training sessions are "brilliant", "very good" and "excellent". Which is nice, but it's hard to tell how true...

What else? It's common for volunteers to complain "my colleagues share all their gossip in Swahili", "they agree to meet you but never turn up", or "I've produced the work they've asked for, but it's shelved, seemingly forgotten". Again there are many reasons behind these behaviours and none of them is spite or insult, but it can be hard not to take it personally. It takes time for all us VSO volunteers to learn what its all about, some things were never covered in our training, and we'll never understand the way everything works.

We Westerners struggle with that, particularly in the emotional bubble of a year's volunteering. It can lead some volunteers to question the whole concept of “development work”, as it feels dysfunctional against our UK benchmark. Although I can think of one or two UK organisations I’ve worked at who were just as dysfunctional as any we see here. And I guess if our placements here were perfectly functioning and ordered, then we wouldn’t be in the developing world, a nation in progress - and these organizations wouldn’t need us?

These are not yet fully-formed thoughts, so apologies if they are crude, unclear or touch a nerve with anyone. But I wanted to try to explain, to some extent, why we don't "talk about work" that much on our blog. At least you can take away from this long, rambly philosophizing that this experience is weird. And hard to explain. And confusing.

Sure, it was always going to be weird because of the matatus, the weather, the language – the Kenyan-ness of it all. But I didn’t quite expect our emotional reactions and wild mood swings because of these work challenges. Working in Kenya has slowly, slowly, unraveled and taken apart our work ethics; questioned why we work the way we do, how we live our lives, and how we see ourselves. So how do we put this all back together again? And how will we have changed?


It certainly bakes the noodle, so to speak.

Our first visitor

Posted by: Helen

My big brother Matt lives and works in Dubai, so we’re much closer to him now we’ve moved to Kenya.  During the recent national holidays in the UAE celebrating the muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, he visited us for a 6-day holiday.  As our first visitor, we’ve given him the honour of his own blog post.  

Disclaimer: the same courtesy may be extended to other visitors but cannot be guaranteed...

We thought it might be interesting for people back home to hear his thoughts on Kenya and on our lives here in Nairobi.  How was his trip?  What has surprised him? Does he think we’ve changed?  Read on to find out...

So, Matt, how has your trip been?

Fantastic, thank you!

You’d actually been to Nairobi once before, yes?

Yes but only briefly.  On the way back from Tanzania, we were supposed to change planes but Kenya Airways was on strike so we stayed overnight.  I only really saw the inside of the airport – and my hotel room.

So how does Kenya compare to other African countries you’ve visited?

In terms of development, I’d say it’s about halfway on the index.  Egypt and South Africa are much more developed but Kenya seems more developed than Zambia.  Certainly Nairobi has more infrastructure than Lusaka (Zambia’s capital).

How did you find Nairobi this time around?

I like it much more than my first one-night visit!  My impressions are of a diverse city – in culture and economics; I saw a man pulling a cart down the road laden with old tires, using his own strength, and behind him, a guy driving a shiny BMW.  It’s clear that different areas of city are inhabited by different types of people; places for ex-pats, places for wealthy Kenyans, and slums for those who have much less.  My impression was that the city seems quite safe, and that crime is there not because of hate but because many residents simply need the money.  I think you need to be streetwise here, but I found no problems.

So where did we take you? (testing him here..)

We went to Embakasi, where you work at the KUB, and saw your building and had lunch in the tin shack opposite.  We went to Bus Station several times!  Erm... Gracehouse Hotel where you were involved in training new volunteers and I came along.  Then on our trip - Lake Naivasha, Hell’s Gate National Park and we climbed a mountain.  Mlangu?  No, Mount Longanot.

And who did you meet?

Many people!  All your colleagues including your office-mate Irene and your boss, Jackson. Plus Johnson who tapped me for Dubai-related business ideas.  Your askaris (security guards) at your building, your VSO neighbours Allys and Eddie when we had beers in South B dinner at yours.  Erm...  your friends Marc and Veronica, and Amol who came with us to Carnivore restaurant, and I saw my Kenyan friends from Dubai who were also home for Eid!  I met VSO staff at the training whose names I can’t remember, also the new volunteers including a nice British guy called Simon.  Joel, your taxi driver.  Oh, and John the boat captain who took us out on the lake.

What are the biggest differences you see between Kenya and the UK?

The reaction to foreigners is different – they shout: Mzungu! at white people which feels strange.  But like the UK, they are very welcoming to foreigners, I also felt very welcome. The traffic is much more crazy, there is a feeling of everything being much less organised, a feeling of chaos. 

I think in the UK people can isolate their families and are very private, whereas here children are raised by the whole community and people are much more in each other’s space.

Describe Kenya in 3 words.

Green.  Wild.  Can I have more than 3 words?  Energetic yet relaxed.

What was your highlight of Kenya?

Cycling through Hell’s Gate National Park, and getting really close to the zebras!

Is there anything you didn’t like so much?

Hmm, probably being holed up in the matatu on the way home from Naivasha.  I was stuck in a seat with no leg room.  And – I didn’t like that there wasn’t enough time with you guys, I only had 5 full days!

You stayed with us in South B, what do you think of our neighbourhood?

Vibrant!  For a residential area, it’s surprisingly commercial, there are businesses just everywhere – fruit sellers on the side of the road, a garage that becomes a bar at night... It’s a place where folks are just getting on with their lives.

Has anything here surprised you?

I would imagine that less shocks me these days, because I’ve travelled and live abroad, but the gross inequality here still hits me.  What else? It’s more physical here, Kenyan don’t seem to need as much personal space as we do!  It’s surprised me how Kenyans just get on with things without complaint: if the matatu is full, the lady just squeezes in backwards and perches between the seats.  And if the tout can’t reach to get money from all passengers, people just pass the coins forwards, and the change backwards.  In the UK, people would be outraged, but here they think, ‘This is how it is, I’m going with it.’

Also there were many more links to Arabic culture than I realised.  Living in the Middle East, I could guess correctly around language and customs, despite knowing nothing about Kenya before I came (the Swahili language and culture, was massively influenced by the Arab traders who first arrived on the Kenyan coast in the 7^th century, particularly from Oman).

How do you think this experience is changing us?

Well, for the better!  I’m her brother so I can say this: I can imagine Helen in the past complaining a lot more, squashed into a matatu or being made to wait around.  She handles those things with much better humour now.  Once you’ve done this year, you guys can go anywhere and do anything; something frustrating happens but you’ll no longer find it stressful , and you stop thinking ‘I can’t do this!’  It’s those qualities that VSO selected you on - flexibility, patience – but magnified: you are more accepting, more chilled; you can choose how to react.  I think it will help back in the UK too, you’ll be more effective because you’re more in control.  So really it’s less about Helen and Dan changing the world, and more about the world changing you.

You read this blog before you arrived.  How do you think the blog reflects the reality of life here?

Pretty accurate, I reckon the blog rings true.  I think at the start you may have overemphasised certain aspects because you were writing from emotional reactions – the colours you painted were so much brighter when it was all new.  And yes, some of what you write sounds naive to me, but the honesty makes it a really successful blog.

What aspect of life here should we blog about next?  What’s missing?

Maybe something to do with the war propaganda in the newspapers you were both talking about (how Kenya’s ‘war on terror’ in Somalia is reported here).  Or, more about the trips you take?  What about the struggle I’ve seen you both having this week with your work; the frustrations you feel when forced to work in a Kenyan way, which is very different to what you’re used to?  I know you’d have to change names to protect the real people involved!

Finally, what are your top tips for our other friends and family who are coming to see us?


Be flexible.  Drop your expectations of western-world things like organisation, cleanliness and punctuality.  But, raise your expectations of what you’ll experience, because you’ll have a great time.  Don’t come with a list of ‘musts’ and stress about it.  Things are unpredictable here but you won’t have failed because even a few cool things here will make for an awesome trip.

........

I can’t really describe the joy of having a visit from a familiar face after the past few months, but safe to say it was just.... awesome.  Big thanks to Matt for being our first visitor, and fitting so well into a week in our lives; it sounds like he had a lot of fun too.

It was great to see you bro – hoping to see you in 2012, somewhere in the world....

Obama, football and God

OR: My favourite Kenyan signs

'Signage' - not the sexiest subject for a blog post? Think again my friends. Signs in Kenya are AWESOME. Varying from the informative to the darn-right surreal, they are always entertaining during the many journeys I've spent stuck in traffic wishing I had something to read.

I hereby bequeath to you all my favourite signs so far. If you enjoy this, don't worry, there's plenty more to come...

NB/ If the slideshow's running too fast, just click pause. Or, click on the slideshow itself to get a bigger version.