Merry Christmas

Just a quick note to all our readers to wish you all a very Happy Christmas. We have had a fantastic day, although very busy. It started with a cooked breakfast followed by church. We then relaxed in the glorious sunshine on the compound eating all the food that Santa (aka Margo) provided.

Carine was invited to a Congolese party so we headed off to the Catholic Univeristy not realising that we were very limited for time. The party was short and sweet, they were very hospitable, but the excitement of the day was definately the journey home. It was the first time we had used the public transport. The trip to the party was uneventful, but on the way back we had to wait 20 minutes for a matatu and then they squeezed 26 people in. A matatu is only meant to carry 14 people!

Next was Christmas dinner, Finnish style, with a English twist. They provided a big ham and we provided the christmas crackers. The evening was finished off with a sauna and tusker beer. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Guest Entry 1

Dear readers of Edd and Jo's Blog,

Christmas greetings from Kenya!  I have the honour of being the first guest entry in the blog and will try to do this justice....

I am pleased to say that Edd and Jo have been looking after me very well in Kenya.  Right from my arrival, everything has run smoothly thanks to their network of friendly contacts.  I quickly located their faces amongst a sea of black people and got a warm welcome from their driver.  Like all of Edd and Jo's Kenyan friends, he greeted me with a big smile and 'welcome' (imagine this in a Kenyan accent and pronounced 'karibu'!). 

Edd and Jo do not have it badly in Kenya....  They are settled in the lovely grounds of the Lutheran Heritage Foundation - with a large garden of flowers of every colour.   The climate in Karen is cooler than in Nairobi, and its obvious why the British chose this as their base.   We have had blue skies and sunshine most days. 

It is lovely to see Edd and Jo so well established in their short time here. The American-Finnish family who live in the grounds and work for LHF obviously appreciate having Edd and Jo around - from the 5 cute kids who seem to view them as their favourite play-horses; to James the pastor, who frequently comes over to discuss business with Edd.   I have also enjoyed meeting Carine, our Congolese friend, who also stays in the guest house with us and enjoys eating our Christmas cooking - yes, Jo made us delicious German Christmas biscuits yesterday and we're having a roast dinner tonight with mulled wine with youtube carols in the background. 

Over the time I have been here, we have had a lovely time chillaxing by Lake Baringo and around Karen.   I think that there has been another blog entry on this, but suffice to say it was great!   We stayed in a wonderfully luxurious hotel with a view over the sparkling Lake Baringo; we drove through spectacular scenary in the Rift Valley passing the equator, roadside commerce and many animals (giraffe, zebra etc) even by the road side; and have met many friendly Kenyans. 

So I am leaving tonight, back to the snow in the UK...   I would like to thank Edd and Jo for treating me so well and giving me a lovely time.  A visit here is recommended!

Oh I wish it could be Christmas...

We're dreaming of a white Christmas, one like we've never seen before.  The reason being that this is the least Christmassy we have ever, ever felt. The why and wherefores of this are many and varied.  But let me start local. Just around the corner from us, attached to Joanna's ballet school is the 'Choices' supermarket (a misnomer). Today, the 20th December, they decided it was time to put up Christmas decorations. These consisted solely of one of those 'Happy Christmas' banners over the door, and a Christmas tree (tiny, it took some finding), with the most cacophonously discordant singing Christmas lights I have ever come across. The amazing thing is that they were still playing 10 hours later.  Think of this as Christmas turn off number one. The second turn off being that for the till girl to put up with that music for so may hours shows a complete lack of Christmas rage that one associates with English shops (ie, 'why does everyone bloody shop on Christmas eve, this queue is ridiculous').

Obviously, there are less obvious reasons for not feeling Christmassy. One is that the days have stayed a uniform 12 hours. We are missing the joy of not having to think about what to do during the day, on account of night time not coming just after dawn, like in England. It is also hot and sunny here, not cold and dank...

Reason number five, we are missing that pre-Christmas vehicle log jam that develops as panick shoppers (and parents wanting only the best for their little Johnny) converge on the last Wii (or must have equivelent) in the country. One might have thought that Kenyan roads might be so bad that they are impassable anyway, but this is not the case (and I can assure you Colin that driving over the bumps at 60 mph doesn't smooth them out, it just makes it more bumpy).  The vehicle situation is actually easing in Nairobi, as everyone disappears home ('up country'). I understand that you suckers at home are struggling with the snow as well. Ha ha ha ha ha. Bizarrely, there is no snow here. Perhaps the sunshine has something to do with it...

I guess that reason number six might have something to do with our recent trip to the Baringo Island camp.  For those of you who do not know (these are facts that we have been told by many Kenyans), the Great Rift Valley runs from the Holy land through to Malawi (a bit bigger than Chedder Gorge for those Bristolians out there), and has 7 lakes all of which are in Kenya. These are:

• Nakuru, a famous breeding ground of flamingos and a national park costing $60 a day to enter! 
• Magedi, a soda lake and described as hell on earth for those that work there. 
• Bogoria, where the flamingos build practice nests. 
• Elmenteita, no idea, probably more beautiful birds with long legs (no dad - flamingos).
• Turkana, the northernmost lake, not the most visitable by tourists at the moment due to general nastiness between tribes.
• Naivasha and Baringo, both fresh water, so crocs and hippos.

Those of you who know any geography may be wondering about the Red sea, Dead Sea, Lake Natron, Lake Malawi et al. This is Africa, and I beg you not to worry about it.

Well, on Wednesday Margarita Passmore arrived here in Nairobi (guest blog to come), and so we found that we had to come up with something to do, at short notice, and preferably without too much effort (we are disorganised and lazy, a bad combination).  Fortunately, Jo bumped into a ballet friend who put us in contact with Netta who operates a tour company, and she suggested the Baringo Island Camp, at residents rates (boy are the tourists ripped off). Two days later, our driver Napthali turned up, and whisked us North to Baringo, via Crescent Island on Naivasha for an all inclusive luxury weekend.

I must admit that there was a brief panic when we turned up at Naivasha, and they suggested that we get a boat to the island for $100. Anyway, a misunderstanding, this is for the tourists. Crescent Island has not been an island for quite a long time, so after a brief phone call back to base, we drove across. On the 'island' we went for a walk with a guide who showed us a python, which had just snacked on a Dik Dik and so couldn't really move. There were also the usual characters one learns to expect from Africa, giraffes, antelope, gazelle, zebra etc, with the addition of pelicans and flamingos. It was a lot of fun, and we would strongly recommend it to anyone with a few hours to spare...

Then it was time to move onto Baringo. This is the stomping ground of the second smallest tribe in Kenya, the Njemps, who are related to the Masaii, but who have lost the taboo against eating fish.  Our lodging for the next few days was a 'luxury campsite' on an island in the middle of the lake.  Now this may suprise you for an island just north of the equator, but it was seriously hot (although it did mean that both sunsets and sunrises were beautiful). This meant that day time activities centered around the swimming pool (and gradually worsening sun burn), and anything that required serious exersise, or indeed just movement, started very early in the morning (6 am, and yes Jo did manage to get out of bed). We were also woken before dawn with a cup of tea to the tent, which we had to grab before the birds arrived. The activities were as follows:

On day one, we went for a bird walk. There are over 400 different species at Lake Baringo, it was quite staggering. 4 Different species of kingfisher seen in under 48 hours, owls sitting around in the trees, herons, waders and darters standing motionless in the water, probably hoping that the crocs will not see them. Then we played a game of scrabble, which I lost again.

The next day, we walked to the other side of the island to see some hot springs (you could here the steam roaring just under the feet!) To get there we had to pass through some Njemps villages. A local tribe, the Polkot, have stolen their land and their cattle, and so around 100 are living as refugees on the island. They are extremely poor, and survive by fishing and handouts. They have still found the time however to decorate their houses for Christmas with the mineral rich mud from the springs.  As a charitable action we purchased some guords which we did not want, and which have not yet grown on us. Happy Christmas Tom. Well, would you look at that, seems we are starting to get Christmassy after all.

We left the village feeling slightly uneasy, maybe it was the contrast in wealth between where we were living on the island and what they had, or maybe it was just that they had asked us for lots of money, even though we had purchased their arts and crafts and tipped the unoffical guide and the children of the village. But we had a great boat trip back to the island where we eat yet another fantastic meal.

The drive home was also interesting, as Jo turned out not to be too well, which meant making several emergency stops. But we got to see some random university, it provided a chance for Margo to do some more shopping in Nakuru, and we saw the sunset over the great rift valley. 

Art and music in Nairobi

One of the things you learn from years of dealing with orchestra people, is that you can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on an orchestra, especially when it's waving a well tuned violin in your eye.

This was the lesson we momentarily forgot a few weeks ago, and how we came to be 'roped' into playing for the Nairobi Orchestra. Three weeks, and three rehearsals later, here we were, in the Oshwal auditorium (an incredibly big Hindu type temple with dead birds inside, built without planning permission, and facing the bulldozers...), nervously awaiting the raising of the baton, and also our first full run through of the pieces whilst the audience swelled to epidemic proportions (they seemed to be everywhere, just like the bats). Soon, bad waves of paranoia, madness, fear and loathing.

Edd was on first, with the Magnificat, by Jonathan Wilcox, a fiendishly difficult piece, which deserved far more respect than two and a bit rehearsals. The first 6 notes were fine, but then we found our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? Is there no communication in this orchestra? (What does one expect from a piece of music with time signatures that change every bar - six-eight, seven-eight, four-four, three-four, etc). Fortunately, Bill, a stonkingly good first trumpet came to the rescue and pulled the brass section together.  The second half we were both playing in 'The Many Moods of Christmas' (oh my goodness, there were many). Once again, some bits of this were strangely unfamiliar to everyone, but it was rocking none the less, with strategic silent points to build suspense! Well done strings. Jo has learnt that she never wants to sit in the leaders seat again (she was there by virtue of attending the most rehearsals). Fortunately, the audience was great, and we retired to rapturous applause and a standing ovation (as well as an impromptu encore - 'which bit are we playing?')

The first violin section - Cynthia, Joanna and James

After the orchestra, we went out for a drink on Saturday, and curry on Sunday with a few of the players. They turn out to be a fun bunch of people who made us feel very welcome, but it was the change in diet that really made the evening.

Check out www.myspace.com/kachumbariseven. The bassoon and the bass player were both in the orchestra and very enthusiastic musicians.

You may by now by wondering where the art comes in. Well, in the morning Joanna had a ballet show. She is unsure how she ended up performing when she had that her show in London was to be her last. Unfortunately Ed couldn't attend (he was devastated), he was looking after 5 children, but Carine went and told her that it was beautiful. Sadly no photos so you can't giggle at Jo in a tutu.

Talking about food, we realise that we have been incredibly remiss in not talking about thanksgiving. This (for those of you are unaware) is an American custom where they have Christmas dinner early, probably can't wait... Anyway, we were invited to the May residence for what turned out to be a delicious and lavish affair, with more food than you can imagine (considerably more than the 10 of us could eat anyway). A special treat was the sweet potato casserole.  Not sweet potatoes you understand, but yams covered in marshmallows. Yum. Tomorrow, to reciprocate, we are cooking up a classic Ed British fried breakfast. We have even managed to source some bacon.  Ed is unreasonably excited. Ed also maintains that this fits in to this blog as a good fry up is 'art'.

Last Sunday we attended a church in a small town called Ongata Rongai.  Ongata Rongai is a suburb of Nairobi, just of the main road beside the Nairobi National Park. We arrived at 11.00, superbly confident that we would be able to get to our concert at 3.00, especially when we saw that the service had already started. How wrong we were, but 'this is Africa'. The church was made out of corrugated iron (convenient for speedy removal) and had a mud floor. About 70 people were seated on low wooden benches and all eyes were on us as we entered the church. Rather wonderfully the church had a Casio keyboard hooked up to a massive speaker which was booming out the pop demo track whilst being accompanied by the choir and a guitar. During the hymns the keyboard player was a whole band in himself. He played chords along with the music, but unfortunately, as he had no music, he had to guess. He turned out to be not very lucky. The congregation also didn't have hymn books, and baring the choir, who stood swaying at the front, no one could sing unless you happened to know the words. However it didn't matter, everyone was having a good time.

James baptised a child and lead the service with the aid so Samwel Atunga acting as translator, but managed to confuse him and us by switching at random between English and Swahili. Another amusing thing was where Atunga wasn't sure of a word, and the whole congregation would call out the translation in unison...  The children of the Sunday school got involved and said a prayer (or something, remember the service was in Swahili), and we, the muzungus, had to introduce ourselves. After the service, and desperate to get away, we were invited to two tiny rooms at the back of the church and fussed over and made comfortable.  These turned out to be the house of 'the evangelist' and his family, he had bought us sodas, and cooked us dinner. He gave Joanna a white bead cross, and as it was placed around her neck the words 'Always remember that there is a Maasai evangelist in Ongata Rongai' were said.  Sadly, we did dash off fairly quickly (Atunga disappeared on a motor bike and reappeared with a taxi). All in all, they were an incredibly kind, friendly and welcoming bunch who we hope to see again soon.