Marathon Day

How (not) to prepare for the big race…

It’s 2am – four and a half hours to the start of the Kilimanjaro Marathon – and predictably, I am lying awake in bed with pre-race nerves. 42.2km is sounding like an awfully long way, and I’m wondering what on earth I’ve got myself into. This is not helped by the barking of a nearby dog every few minutes in the otherwise peaceful surroundings of Honey Badger Lodge, our home away from home in the town of Moshi, Tanzania, in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

3am, and just as I’m drifting off, suddenly – BOOM! – World War Three has started. Or that’s what it sounds like, as a huge thunderstorm starts with a big bang right over our heads, closely followed by the sound of torrential downpour. It seems the rains have come early. Oh dear. My nerves about the race start to get worse….

5.15am. We’re all at the breakfast table slugging multiple cups of coffee, munching bananas, and trying to transform ourselves into awake, alert, ready-for-action human beings. There’s about 20 of us – Eddie, Allys, Helen and I (“the Kenyans”), plus our comrades from VSO Tanzania, including Ishwar, the team captain, and Jéan, the VSO Tanzania Country Director, both also running the full marathon. The others are running the half marathon or 5km fun run.

5.45am, and Jéan informs us that, thanks to the torrential rain during the night, our specially-booked bus due to take us to the race start 5km away is in fact stuck in the mud halfway down the dirt track between the lodge and the main road. And so we find ourselves wading through the claggy mud in our running kit, in the pitch black, to find our bus and attempt to push it out of the mud. Our efforts are half-hearted, hampered by slippery mud, the angle of the bus, and our collective semi-consciousness.

6am, half an hour to race start, and it’s time for some VSO ‘flexibility and adaptability’. We leave the bus stuck in its rut and walk to the main road, and as the sun begins to rise, a group of ragged, mud-drenched mzungus in running kit manage to flag down an early morning dala dala (what we call matatus in Kenya) and, disturbing the sleepy quiet of the early commuters, pile in and set off towards Moshi town centre…

6.15am. It becomes clear that the dala dala driver has no idea where “Moshi stadium” is, and our chances of reaching the start of the race in time are starting to look seriously dubious. We’re all shouting at once: “Left! No it’s right! Wait, do we recognise this road? Just keep going!”. Thankfully, we begin to see mzungus in running kit emerging through the murky morning light, and we manage to follow them to the stadium. We arrive to find that, predictably, it’s fairly chaotic and the start of the race is pushed back to 7am anyway. Typical.

7am and we’re off!



Eddie and I try to ignore the macho-competitive taunts of the more experienced Jéan and Ishwar and try to follow the wise advice “go slower than you think you should for the first half”. Mixed success, as it’s all just quite exciting and distracting. Eddie reaches a new record for high-fiving innocent by-standers, rousing them from a strangely African, impassive, silent kind of support. It seems the whole town of Moshi is lining the roads, eager to enjoy the spectacle of high quality Tanzanian and Kenyan runners, mixed with crazy mzungus, as we circle the town centre. Local kids are constantly waving at us, running alongside, returning our greetings: “Poa”, they say in response to our “Mambo” (“cool” in response to “how’s things?”).

I’m feeling much better after a brief loo-stop down a dark back-alley (narrowly avoiding a ‘Paula’ moment), an energy gel and swigs of rehydration salts in water. We’re feeling good – it’s tough, but we’re nearing the half-marathon point and we’re pretty much bang on time for a 4 hour marathon. Not that we’re counting. We’re just trying to finish, but you know how it is. The weather’s also on our side – last night’s thunderstorm has brought down the temperature and humidity, and the burning hot sun is nicely covered by thick cloud.

It turns out the Kilimanjaro area is a bit…mountainous

And then we hit it. I hit “the wall” at the same time that we turn a corner and are faced with The Hill. We shouldn’t have been surprised. Eddie had found out about the course online, and we knew the third quarter of our race involved a steady uphill climb. But after running 22km, we’d convinced ourselves that the course had been changed to something much more sensible and flat. Alas, no. We looked up to see a seemingly-endless, winding hill up towards the mountainous slopes of Kilimanjaro, hidden entirely by cloud.

We trudge slowly upwards, passing kilometre markers which seem suddenly to have been placed twice as far apart. Eddie’s hip is protesting, my knees want nothing to do with me. We’re constantly passed in the opposite direction by triumphant half-marathon runners speeding downhill towards their finish line. We hate them. We hate the world. It’s never-ending. Every time the road flattens, it’s only briefly. We look up to see more uphill, more climbing, more pain.

We’re too tired even for the movie game. It takes us three kilometres to realise that Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett are in the same film (Indy 4). We’ve started swearing incessantly. We’re running out of water.

Finally, finally, we reach the highest point, the turn, and are welcomed by blaring music, a water station and the wonderful, beautiful view downhill…

The final 10 kilometres go on forever. Our legs no longer work. We struggle to keep going. Eddie saves us from complete despair by bringing out his ipod. We ignore strange looks from the locals as we sing loudly to the Rocky theme-tune (“Getting stronger”), Shaft (“No-one understands him but his woman – John Shaft!”), and even Star Wars.

Children from one of the villages decide to run with us the final few kilometres. We all run silently. They don’t grin at us, they don’t say anything. It’s a strange kind of solidarity. They’re running in flipflops or bare-foot.

We nearly cry when we finally reach the stadium. One final Herculean effort brings us through the gate, into the arena as my watch hits 5 hours, to meet our cheering, awesome supporters, Helen and Allys front and centre. We’ve done it. There’s hugs, tee-shirts, medals, photos, even cans of Kilimanjaro lager…

The marathon-runners - me, Eddie, Ishwar and Jean

It’s congratulations all round – Helen and Allys have successfully completed their 5km run, and still manage to look good (unlike us)…

Victory is ours (and Kenya’s)…

Recovering afterwards is blissful. There are afternoon snoozes. There’s quality time in the swimming pool (the obligatory silly jumping-in games only slightly curtailed by lack of functioning legs). There’s the best cold beer of my life.

All in all, a great weekend. It was lovely to be welcomed by VSO volunteers in another country and to compare the similarities and differences of our experiences. We got a brief taste of Tanzania and all agreed it felt strangely familiar yet very different from Kenya. We were amazed by the lack of hassle we got as white people, we loved the laid-back feel of Moshi, and of course we admired the epic Mount Kilimanjaro. Helen swiftly began plotting and planning a return trip….

The next day, as we headed back to Kenya on the bus, we met Kenyans who also ran the marathon, and who immediately began to persuade me to join their running club, and do another marathon in June. I must be crazy. A Tanzanian newspaper derided the lack of local success in the marathon, announcing that Kenyan runners had taken all the top places in both the men’s and women’s races, at both full and half marathon distance. We take some comfort from the fact that even the race-winner says "it is  one of the most difficult marathons I have ever participated in". We feel proudly Kenyan as we cross the border...

Massive thanks!

A brief final note of thanks to everyone who sponsored me for the marathon. We raised an awesome 60,000 Kenyan Shillings – 450 Great British Pounds – for Special Education Professionals! That’s a whole lot of money, and I’m really grateful. SEP will be able to reach more children with special needs in the slums of Nairobi, and ensure they can reach their fullest potential in life. If anyone hasn’t donated yet but would still like to, just email me and I’ll let you know how.

Asante sana!

And extra-special thanks to: Helen and Allys, for outstanding support; Ishwar, Jéan and the rest of ‘Team Tanzania’ for making us feel welcome and giving us an insight into volunteering Tanzania-style; The Honey Badger Lodge for supplying a swimming pool, beer and comfort; and Eddie Thomas, for getting me into this mess in the first place.

10 Marathon training tips (Kenya stylee)

In seven days time, on 26th February, I will be running my first ever marathon. And as I said to someone today, I will finish, one way or the other. Hopefully not on my hands and knees. I’ve learned a lot from the process of preparing for a marathon, especially preparing in Nairobi. Here are some top training tips I would like to share. Most will be recognisable to those of you who have been stupid enough to attempt similar feats. But they all have a unique Kenyan flavour… 

1. Have Bruce Springsteen on your side…
This one was perhaps inevitable when you’re as much of a fan of The Boss as I am. But still, worth noting that there are few things in this world more motivating for a runner than listening to “Born to Run”. This is especially true when it blares out of our portable speakers on the roof of our South B apartment block as the sun sets on the Nairobi skyline and Eddie, Allys, Helen and I find the energy for one more round of circuit training. Whether it’s been our skipping, our press-ups, our core exercises or our squats, The Boss is there for us.

2. Get up really early…
Kenya, as you may know, is a hot country. This is especially true right now – even as the UK vanishes under feet of snow, this is Kenya’s summer. So when you’re planning a 3 hour, 30km training run, you have to factor in your desire not to be burnt to a crispy, dehydrated shadow of your former self. Add to this the desire to avoid the worst of the Nairobi rush-hour traffic and the associated pollution and chaos and, unfortunately, this means getting up bloody early. It has brought back with terrifying clarity memories of rising before the dawn for rowing back at University – not least the morning when I managed to successfully snooze then switch off my alarm without reaching any kind of conscious level of functioning, only to be woken half an hour later by Eddie’s phonecall and the inevitability of realising I’d over-slept. It used to be me making that phonecall to lazy or hung-over members of the Uni rowing team. Now, it’s my turn. 

3. Treat running like an obstacle course…
Nairobi, as I’ve mentioned in the past, is not the ideal training ground for long-distance running. There are few pavements, muchos traffic, plenty of open sewers and potholes, and a whole lot of dust and pollution. There have been times when we have questioned whether running has been taking years off our lives, rather than making us fit and healthy. But you have to persevere, treat the whole thing as an obstacle course, and think to yourself: “Even as I leap over this dead dog, pull my foot out of this stream of effluent and dodge this large rat, this is all adding to my preparedness. I will be more prepared for the unexpected than any other competitor in this race. This means I will win.” (Ok, maybe not win, but finish at least).

4. Don’t be intimated by Kenyans…
If anyone is “born to run”, it’s Kenyans. Kenya has won an astonishing 63 medals at the Olympic Games in races of 800m and above, 21 of them gold, since 1968. Kenyans run like you’re supposed to run. As Eddie and I huff and puff our way along, trudging through the 2 hour mark, we’ll be passed by a few Kenyan runners with calves that seem never-ending, and with a light, gliding stride that is the epitome of ‘not really trying but going twice our speed’. But we’re not intimidated, no sir. We share comradely waves. We grin at each other through the sweat and tears. They say things like “keep going” and “go faster”. Occasionally, Eddie loses his temper and sprints after them, managing a few yards before they move from 1st to 2nd gear, leaving us far behind, breathless and seeking lung transplants.

And then there’s the non-running Kenyans. They just stand and stare, or laugh uproariously as these crazy mzungus pass by. But again, we are at peace with this. In fact, we’re so not intimidated that Eddie has begun the game of “how many Kenyans can I high-five?” just to pass the time on the longer training runs. This almost ended badly once when he tried to high-five an armed guard at the Army Barracks we pass – there was a moment when the AK-47 twitched as the guard tried to decide if this crazy-eyed, sweaty mzungu was a terrorist threat. But at the last moment they decided to give peace a chance and went with the high-five. Thank goodness.

5. Have a buddy…
And speaking of Eddie, this is a definite top tip – have a running buddy. It’s easier to handle the pain, it’s easier to ignore the laughing Kenyans, and it’s easier to keep going, if you’re not alone. Eddie and I have different strengths – I provide the determination, he provides the entertainment – but I’m confident that once you pass the half marathon mark, it would be pretty near-impossible to stay motivated without someone to bug you every time you thought about stopping. 

6. Have the movie game on stand-by…
3 hours is a really long time to go running. There’s no two ways about it. It’s not something you would do unless you were (a) running away from something trying to eat you, or (b) running a marathon. So boredom is a big issue. Even with the obstacle course of Nairobi’s roads, we’ve become so familiar with them that seeing the long, straight, flat road ahead of us can be quite soul-destroying. And would test the conversational abilities of even the oldest of friendships. Thankfully, Eddie and I have the movie game to keep us going. It’s amazing how far you can run whilst trying to figure out how to get from Kevin Bacon to Patrick Stewart, or from Cate Blanchett to Harrison Ford. 

7. Don’t listen to your buddy…
Buddies are great and all, but sometimes, it’s best not to listen to them. Especially when they’re the kind of person that creates a google map of your route, and points out that the distance you thought was surely 30km was actually only 24km. Or the kind of person that finds a website that highlights the altitude and height gain of your chosen marathon race, and points out that the entire third quarter of the Kilimanjaro Marathon is a steady up-hill climb designed to break your spirit.

8. Get tips from a world class athlete…
By coincidence, a week before we run our marathon, we were at a VSO Workshop in Nakuru which we had helped to organise. And our guest of honour, after-dinner speaker turns out to be Henry Wanyoike, Kenya’s top paralympian and gold medallist. Wanyoike, who is blind, has won gold or silver medals in the marathon, half-marathon, 10 km road race, the 10,000 meters, 5,000 meters and the 1,500 meters. He’s charming, funny and inspiring. He talks about only finding out about water stations when he ran his second marathon i.e. he ran his first marathon in 2 hours 40 minutes without drinking any water. Apparently the water in the second race “helped”. He talks about a conflict in scheduling which caused him to run the London and Hamburg marathons a week apart – “Imagine”, he says, “I was very happy when I ran the first in a new record time. So I was also pleased when I broke that new record a week later in the second marathon” (his time of 2:31:31 at the Hamburg Marathon in 2005 still stands as the world record for blind runners). There’s few things more inspiring than that, is there? I sought him out after his speech to get his top tips: “Ah yes, I ran the Kilimanjaro last year, it was very hard. But you will be fine. Just take it very steady. Drink lots of water. Oh, and don’t forget to eat lots of ugali beforehand”. I struggled to convince Eddie that ugali, Kenya’s favourite food, a tasteless, stiff maize porridge (looks like mash, tastes of almost nothing) should be the key to our carbo-loading strategy…

9. Have a Support Team…
Undoubtedly key to this whole process has been the patience of Helen, and Eddie’s fiancé Allys, in being our ‘Support Team’. This has included cooking breakfasts and dinners, and coping with the shadows lacking in social skills that we become after an early morning three hour run. 

But I also mean ‘Support Team’ in the wider sense – it’s been absolutely awesome to receive so many supportive emails, phone calls and, crucially, sponsorships. Between family, friends, ex-colleagues, ex-VSOs, current workmates and fellow volunteers, I’ve raised over 40,000 Kenyan Shillings for my partner organisation Special Education Professionals. That’s about £300. And in Kenya, that’s a huge amount that will make a real difference to SEP, allowing them to deliver great services to children with special needs and their families that they otherwise simply could not find or afford. So a massive thank you. You’re all legends.

10. Set a realistic target…
And so we have: Finishing. Our target is to finish the whole marathon, and still be alive. And drink a cold beer. Fingers crossed we can succeed….. Watch this space to find out.

Buffet for the Blind

Posted by: Helen

I feel like the glaring omission in this blog is my work.  It's tricky to write about something that has been such a puzzle, such a challenge and a source of frustration; especially when you're writing for an open, online audience.  Plus because I've been so office-bound, I didn't yet have stories of interest to share with our loyal readership (hello Mum and Dad!), beyond the tales from my colleagues' lives, which I've written about several times.  But recent events have got me out of the office, and opened my eyes, so here we go, a blog about my work....



Stuck in the office

My VSO volunteer placement is at the head office of Kenya Union of the Blind (KUB).  Five days a week I work alongside the people who are employed to run the CEO's office, and all the donor-funded programmes that KUB calls it's 'outreach' work (empowering women, or training peer educators on HIV/AIDS). My role is to advise on how best to attract more resources to the organisaton, for the benefit of the Union's members. That's not always practical, so in reality, I help out where I can, and to date I'm most proud of the work I've done to build up the IT and other professional skills of my lovely colleagues (many of whom are blind and partially sighted themselves), encourage more forward planning at the secretariat level, and to coach my boss Jackson as he learns his new role as CEO of KUB.


This 'secretariat' where I work operates very separately from the Union's branches, which consist of blind and partially sighted people and their families, who form local groups in the hope that together, they might improve their lives under the KUB 'umbrella'.  Being blind in Kenya means you're much more likely to be uneducated, unemployed, very poor and with less access to vital information and services - all of which KUB tries to address with its limited resources.  But anyone who works for a charity will tell you that a big part of their motivation is meeting beneficiaries, the people you're actually there to help, so you can see the impact your organisation is making.


For a number of reasons, I hadn't experienced any gathering of the KUB community since I arrived in July.  This had been a frustrating situation, as I felt I hadn't experienced any of the 'work' we were aiming to fund.  Then finally, in November last year, I was given my first chance to learn about our members in person when I attended the KUB's Annual Delegates Conference in Kaserani, just north of Nairobi...




A Buffet for the Blind


The Annual Delegates Conference was a gathering of 50 KUB members who had been elected to positions of local authority, plus 10 of my head office colleagues.  We arrived on a Friday evening, and stayed overnight and to have an AGM-style meeting on Saturday.  The members came from rural branches all over Kenya, very excited to meet together and hear the chairman review the year; but also because this was a chance to travel to Nairobi, stay in a hotel and eat big meals with lots of meat; things they could never afford to do if the KUB weren't paying. 

I was kept very busy on the Friday night.  The hotel, in their wisdom, had decided that the best way to feed 60 people would be buffet style.  A buffet, for 60 blind people. Imagine.  It was complete chaos.  Those with limited sight were serving big plates of steaming food in a new environment to those with no sight at all.  Everyone was at all times trying to attract a waiter, by shouting loudly and gesticulating wildly; and my colleagues and I weaving about between them, trying to get everyone fed.  The starter was just soup, so easy enough, but when it came to the multiple options for main course, no one let me off easily with 'a bit of everything, please' but instead wanted to know in great detail what was there so I could gather the right portions of everything.  And on, and on, with hotel staff cleverly hiding away as we worked the tables like a shift of brand new serving staff.

After serving food, I was called on to guide the delegates to the toilet, back again, to their rooms, to a meeting room, to the bar, and back again.  In the office, my blind colleagues are so used to the layout they never need help but all of a sudden even they needed my help to get anywhere.  And poor them, because I'd never learned to guide properly.  Luckily, one of the board members, Rose, experienced in person what a poor guide I was and gave me a crash course - what to do at stairs, obstacles and in open spaces, and before long I was a pro.

Guiding gave me the chance to speak to lots of friendly members that evening, all of whom invited me to their rural homes to see their shambas (land with crops) and all (men and women) wanted my contact details.  They were delighted to meet this muzungu and shake my hand and (in some cases) feel my muzungu hair (just to check).  I was sharing a room with the Nairobi branch's Women's Representative, a very petite lady called Angela who lives in Kibera slum, (see Dan's post on this area). Shy and smiley, she only needed my help to guide her around the room initially. This was a real holiday for her: She was completely delighted to be laying on the bed beneath the covers, underneath the mosquito net, listening to the television next to the bed.  Kibera this wasn't.  When I spent time guiding her to and from the room she called me a Gift from God.



Hitting the dancefloor


That evening I stayed up late with the boys from head office at the hotel disco. They educated me in the tribal politics of a Kenyan dancefloor: more than two Kikuyu songs in a row and you start to lose your audience and the disco thins - you gotta mix it up, that's the key, throw in a Kamba song, or a Kalenjin vibe. They also bought me cold beer. No one who knows me will be surprised that I hit the dancefloor, much to my colleagues' delight.  They were impressed that despite being a muzungu, I have some rhythm. I'd forgotten my camera, so sadly I don't have evidence of the boys' energetic disco-ing. I can confirm though that all of them are great dancers, even if we did have to move the profoundly blind Johnson back onto the dancefloor from time to time (he and I found this most funny).  The trickiest part was stumbling around this large hotel compound in the dark trying to guide my colleague when we'd both had a few beers. How could I guide him back to his room if he couldn't remember which one it was? 'This is like the blind leading the blind!' he laughed.



K - U - B - HOOyah!

The next morning, the meeting kicked off around mid-morning with singing, clapping and a very energetic call and response:


My colleague Ken, tallest man in the room: KUB - HOOyah!
Everyone in the room apart from me: HOOyah!!


It makes sense for a group of people with visual impairment to keep things very vocal, and the out-loud introductions took the best part of an hour: province by province, lots of clapping and Karibu! (welcome) and many rounds of KUB-HOOyah!  The whole thing felt fun and informal, with everyone joyfully raising their voices to a large room of people, and hearing the response.  When the head office staff introduced themselves, I took the opportunity to practice my basic Swahili.  Everyone listened very carefully as the muzungu got up to speak. I said:


Hamjambo! (hello to all)  (everyone responds Hatujambo)
Ninaitwa Helen, Ninafanya kazi Kenya Union of the Blind.  Mimi ni mjitoleagi (I am a volunteer).

I ended with an afterthought: nimetoka uingereza (I come from England) which produced the most ENORMOUS cheer in the room.  They were all so delighted I was from England! 

(A note on England:  Far from feeling bitter towards their one-time colonial masters, Kenyans seem to love everything about England.  Luckily, devotion to the English Premier League isn't such a thing in the visually impaired community, so I was spared the usual question, 'which team are you?' followed by my apologetic attempts to explain that Yes, I'm English but No I don't follow football.  Almost as tricky as trying to explain that I don't attend church - baffling to Kenyans.)


Introductions over, housekeeping happened: who will guide people for their short calls?  (that's loo trips to you and me) and Who will sensitise the management at this hotel? (i.e. who will teach them about the needs of blind guests?  Despite probably being the only hotel they stayed in all year, EVERYONE complained loudly about the service, food and staff.  I think they take their roles as advocates for the visually impaired very seriously, or at least when the Chairman is present...)


The rest of the 5 hour meeting was a run-down of the year's activities, donors won (and lost) by head office, issues raised with various policy makers and burning questions from the branches in each province asked by the Provincial Representative.  It was mainly in Swahili, with some English so I definitely didn't catch it all, but grasped the gist. 


An interesting issue that delegates brought up was one of retirement age.  They wanted Kenya's government to raise the retirement age for blind people (and presumably for all those with a disability), and wanted the board to start lobbying for this to change.  I didn't understand - raise the retirement age?  Why?  My colleague explained the thinking by saying: 'Blind people take longer than others to find a job and find a wife, so they have less years to build up money for retirement.  They don't want to be forced from their government jobs into retirement at 60.'  With no pension in Kenya, and our members less likely to be setting up a small business in their twilight years (as is the norm), this does feel like an important issue to raise with Kenyan decision makers.


The main and best speaker was Dr Chomba, the KUB's Chairman. A warm, humble and highly educated man, Dr Chomba received his PhD in London and lectures in Special Education at Kenyatta University. He's also a lifelong advocate of the rights of those with visual impairment, and still recalls when he was the first disabled Kenyan to try and stand as an MP. He was told in the 1970s that he didn't qualify to be a candidate because he 'could not read English'. He reads in Braille. He's also great fun to be around, and someone at the event captured us sharing a giggle...

Dr Chomba and I

The meeting ended with an event even more exciting than dinner, or a muzungu speaking Swahili: the distribution of per diems.  Kenyans from all walks of life LOVE per diems.  Basically an allowance for being away from their homes/offices, per diems are petty cash given away just for showing up.  I have been very cynical about this system in the past, and lost of people seem to genuinely work the per diems 'circuit' to supplement their salary - but as I watched everyone queue up to receive their share, I wondered if giving a little money is just the best the KUB can do right now. 


Coming from the rural area, a 2000 shilling (£15) per diem is an enormous windfall.  It's certainly the least sustainable method of development, and is pretty much the reverse of the VSO philosophy of sharing skills and leaving a legacy... but it's...something.  When people talk about times being tough in Kenya, it's not like explaining how they'll have to downgrade to Pizza Express from Strada.  Tough times mean hunger, and having to wear the same shirt every day as the one you wore all of last year.  Even more so when your chances are employment are so low, because you can't compete against the people in your town with full sight.  Short term joy, but I know the problems remain the same.  The best explanation of the role of Kenya Union of the Blind I've heard comes from my boss Jackson: we are trying to change what it means to be blind in Kenya.  Right on, I thought, but that stuff takes time. In the meantime, why not share a little wealth with the members of our union who have none?


The delegates left the meeting in the highest of spirits and those who hadn't already asked for my number made sure they did so before boarding their buses home.  While I'd met many members, and started to understand more clearly, the obvious hardship of their lives, I still felt like I was being kept at arm's length from our members' rural homes, from the people who can't or won't travel to Nairobi. What about the people who don't have enough education to speak English and stand as a branch official?  How can we help them?


Although my introduction to the KUB community at the Annual Delegates Conference had been great, this office-rat still needed an injection of motivation: I wanted to visit a branch.  Three months later, I got to do just that.  It started with an early morning phone call....

To be continued :o)

Monicah: sad, serious but healing

Back in October, I posted Monicah's story; my colleague was preparing to be a mum.  She really liked the post, although she insisted I replace the photograph I initially published (of her in the mud, grinning) for a more formal one.  A few days after I posted it, she confided in me that as she'd guessed, she was expecting twins.

Then, in November, I was shocked to hear from my colleagues that Monicah had been rushed to hospital.  I heard the whole story when I visited her at home the following week. 

She was told at the hospital that her body was rejecting her twin babies, that they would need to 'flushed away'. Monicah and her husband Daudi couldn't believe it, and fought hard against the doctors for the chance to try the difficult alternative: complete bed rest for up to two months while she tries to carry them to term. When I visited her, she'd been in bed for 2 weeks, bored, hot and uncomfortable but very determined. She was trying to maintain a calm environment and so was refusing to watch television or listen to music but instead reading her favourite christian guidance books.  Her younger sister had traveled to Nairobi and moved in, and was responsible for preparing meals and doing all the housework. 

A week after I visited, after lying still for three solid weeks, Monicah went into early labour and gave birth to a boy and a girl.  The baby boy died but the girl survived the birth, and Monicah and Daudi and all her family waited in intensive care feeling sad and glad and praying for the tiny daughter.

I wish I had happier news to share, but a week after her brother, the baby girl also died.  In that week, Monicah texted me, 'It's been a storm that has wiped off all my joy but in all I should give thanks to God. He knows why I should go through all this.'

She went to stay at her rural home before Christmas to heal and be with her extended family, and she came back to work in January after a 3 month break.  Sad, serious, but healing slowly, Monicah is now talking about what happened, so it felt like the right time to share this update.

Children are very, very important in Kenyan culture, and I'd go so far to say that a woman's fertility is fundamental to their identity.  Even for educated women like Monicah, children are everything and although it is a personal loss, she feels it more keenly for her husband and husband's family. 

But it seems to me that Monicah is also a modern Kenyan woman, because her and her husband are paying to see a counsellor once a week. I can't imagine that her mother's generation or her rural age-mates would have that option, but I'm pleased it's available to her.

She plays with the children who visit in the office, and listens to every detail of the recent KUB births - there's a lot of new Dads grinning madly as they show off pictures of their newborns - although it must be hard for her.  It's clear she wants a family, and won't give up.

Matatu puzzle

Like a freshman in Nairobi, I keep getting on the wrong matatu on my way to work! 

Matatu: a privately operated minibus taxi, ubiquitous in
Kenya.  There must be 10,000 in Nairobi alone. 
That's the tout, in the standard maroon waistcoat.

If I get on the wrong one it leaves me either stranded on the highway, or shaken to death as we crawl through The Suburb That Has Never Seen Tarmac, known as Imara.  I'm not just shaken by the way, but experience gripping-the-seat-back-danger as we drive along the 'path' which doubles as a sewer, at a 45 degree angle (I close my eyes to pretend the window isn't getting closer to the 'water').  Plus Imara provides extra delays due to an informal police checkpoint where all unlucky matatus are stopped for a full ten minutes while a cop walks round, checking if it's road-worthy (as if!) and the papers are in order.  Then, more faff as the inevitable 'taxation' occurs: the matatu driver or tout is forced to fork over 'something small' to bride their way back into steady stream of traffic.

Either way, I get to work late or traumatised and generally both. 

But how does this happen? I hear you ask, surely you've worked everything out by now, Trenchard?  Can't you just -

Option A: Check the route numbers on the side of the matatu? Nope, the shaken-and-stirred route has the same number as the mostly-tarmacked way.

Option B: Listen to the loud sales pitch as the touts yell the route to the incoming passengers?  Not always, as with gig-volume music booming from every mat, it's not always clear what the touts are shouting.  Sometimes it's so loud they looks like they're miming, even close up.

Option C:  So what about, ask the touts?  Ha - I do!  And here we come to the puzzle.

The matatu touts shout the route, take the fares, and generally do everything to operate the business, except the driving.  They are the usual go-to guys for the 'I'm going here, do you?' questions.  After a month of commuting, every tout on the route knew that the muzungu goes to Roundabout, and I would just stroll up to Belle Vue stage at 8am, and be led onto a matatu going my way.  If I sat on a wrong one, they would drag me out and plonk me on the right one.  I quite liked it; made me feel like I'd arrived; like I was being looked after, looked-out-for.  They even knew I liked going via Cabanas to avoid shake-rattle-roll Imara.

Sorted, right?  Except I forgot the touts are all in competition for passengers.  So now a new pattern has emerged.  Or maybe I've only just figured out what's happening...

This particular morning I'm approached and surrounded by four touts but two give up quickly.  One guy is quick and confident, marching me off to his matatu with his hand on my back:

Tout: Roundabout, madam. This way! (This is my special treatment, madam)
Me: (checking, as always) Cabanas - then Rounda?
Tout: (knowing I want to hear this) Yes yes.
Other tout: No no, he is taking you to Imara, his goes through Imara!
Me: (to first tout) Does it?
Tout: No, no, Cabanas Rounda!
Other tout: He go Imara, come with me my dear we go Cabanas (a different hand on my back, now he's marching me off to a different matatu.
Me: (exasperated, feeling manhandled and confused)  Argh WHICH one goes Cabanas Rounda?

They book look shifty and smiley and claim they do, but the other, doesn't.  No wonder I've been ending up in the wrong place in recent weeks.  But which one is lying?

It reminds me of the old fork in the road puzzle.  Stopping to ask the way you find two people showing you the way.  You learn that one always lies, and one always tells the truth, but not which is which.  They both know the correct fork, but what one question do you ask them both, to find out which it is?

What to do?

In the puzzle you have to ask them both, what would the other one say?  The truth-sayer will then lie, and the liar should say the truth, but he's a liar, so he lies.  Anyway, they both give the same answer, and then you take the other fork.  That's the point.

Are you following this?

So back in Nairobi, I'm still stuck on the side of the road like a small white TARGET trying to decide what to do as the chaos rages around me.  It strikes me that they could both be kidding just to get my 20 bob (14p) fare, over the other.  What should I do?

Generally I use a combination of options A, B and C with a little guessing and my gut feel.  The worst that happens is that the journey through heavily-rutted Imara reminds me of the fragility of life, and I spend the day feeling glad I'm alive (which is no bad thing really), or - I tramp along the highway being stared at, and wait for another matatu at Cabanas whilst being stared at, so I can get to Roundabout, where I'm stared at.  But I just hate feeling like I'm fresh off the boat, you know?

In the end, on this particular morning, I ask a passenger, a woman, in the first matatu: where is this going?  She replies 'cabanas-rounda' and I get on.  And it does, in fact, take me that way so today I get to work not too late, or traumatised, but just covered with my usual layer of dirt from the swirling, dry season dust-devils that accompany me along the road.

But sometimes I miss commuting into London.

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A note to say that Matatu touts are not bad folk; they work long, unsociable hours trying to scrape a living here and provide for their family like everyone else.  Plus I found a matatu driver who writes a blog and quotes Machiavelli, so I'm looking at them all a-fresh...  http://wambururu.wordpress.com/