Cave-like temperatures

If you look at the average winter weather in Kathmandu, you will find it quite reasonable. At the coldest time of year (now-ish), it gets into the low 30's at night and up to the 60's during the day. 


Despite this salient fact, if you take a vote of expat residents, you will find a majority say that they have never been so cold. Seriously! This is scientifically proven by people from Wisconsin, upstate New York, and Finland independently stating that they have never been so cold as in Kathmandu.

Why is it so cold if it doesn't even freeze? (I won't even mention the fact that it is often sunny). 
#1: Short days mean the cold, concrete brick-built walls of the house spend more time losing heat at night than gaining heat during the day.

#2: Draftiness of windows, particularly in the bathrooms, and exterior doors.

#3: No central heat. You can heat up a room with a space heater, or build a nest of blankets right next to one as my child and dog are wont to do, but the plan fact is that the STUFF in the room does not heat up. Chair - cold. Bedsheets - cold. Jeans -cold. Floor tiles - cold. Etc. 

#4: (Not applicable to those of us so lucky as to be in USG housing) The power goes out. A lot. In fact, at peak times of "load-shedding" a home might have power for 8 or 10 hours out of 24. "Load-shedding" is a term that means "there is not enough electricity to go around from our hydro power plant during the dry season so you have to take turns." Bye-bye electric space-heater, hello indoor parka.

It goes like this. One night, you notice a nip in the air when you go to bed, and turn the space heater on when you get up. A few nights later, the indoor temperature is a bit lower. A week later, even lower, as those concrete bricks start evening out with the nighttime air temp rather than the daytime air temp. Now, you turn on the heater when you get ready for bed, too, and be sure to get your clothes for the next morning out of the closet because it is REALLY cold in there (Andrew is using it for our wine stash). By morning, air temp in the bedroom is 55 F. Just try taking your tushy into that drafty bathroom that is noticeably colder than the bedroom, and you, too, will begin your day saying you have never been so cold. 

Stuff! And lack thereof.

I'm not kidding about the parade! Nine guys just
 in this picture, but they each had their job.

On Halloween day, five little trucks drew up to our house, each holding a shipping crate or two. In a symphony of belching trucks, hammers and crowbars, shoes slipping on and off, our boxes were paraded into the house.


After having gone through all our boxes, we have discovered an assortment of items that just did not make the trip from Nairobi. Pinched by the movers? Pilfered at the port? Misplaced in a cabinet, drawer or closet during the packing of boxes? I have my suspicions but just don't know. Here are some of the items that didn't make it:

• 2 brand-new in package pairs antibacterial kitchen shears
• Assorted pantry items, like powdered cheese and unopened 3-gallon bottles of olive oil
• A chenille rug that was down in the guest room (the matching pillow made it)
• One girls size 7 rain jacket
• All our salad forks (yes, all the other silverware made it)

Adjusting

I have to admit to having a bit of a hard time settling in to Kathmandu. One reason is that, from the moment you are cogent enough to remember in actually speaking to anyone after a jet-lagged arrival, everyone at this very friendly post asks, "So how are you settling in?" You don't really know these people, so you say what is expected. It's going well, of course.

But in truth, I feel like we are having difficulty finding the ending to the phrase "home is where the...".  Our household effects seem to be taking their sweet time getting here. We don't have our car, and won't for a while because somehow it didn't get put on the manufacturing list for August, and will be manufactured this month. Supposedly. And life at the French school has proven to be a real challenge for the little one. Just about every blessed thing is in French, unlike the 50/50 plan they had when we enrolled. Mixed in with dual culture shock (Nepali and French), my little type A is finding it very difficult to cope. The advantages of gaining a second language and having a short commute to school are starting to lose weight.

We are also in "Daishan" season in Nepal. This is a huge family holiday - the Nepali equivalent of Christmas. Everything closes and everyone goes back to their home, be it city or village. There is music, lights, lots of marigolds and people dressed in amazing fancy saris. It feels very festive. Which makes me a little sad. We haven't been here long enough to have "people", we can't get around to go anywhere, we quickly tire of the near-falling-apart taxis in the insane traffic, and the kiddo is terrified of walking, on account of the motorbikes buzzing and constant honking used as a form of traffic communication.

But today I saw 3 kites being flown from rooftops. Apparently kite flying also goes with the season. Made me smile. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Nelsons Roll

I have to admit that I am doing a little back-dating blogging. I started several posts and didn't get them finished - time to catch up!

Starting with our home-leave: "Home-leave" is an official term meaning "minimum four weeks of extra paid vacation for the foreign service member so that you remember what it's like in America and also so you still think this job is cool after a few years' hard labor."

We Nelsons have been trained not to count on where we expect to be living or working in the future. For now, we can absolutely assured that we have a whole month to be on vacation in the US. Seize the day! Believe it or not, many foreign service members decry their enforced home leave... Why you ask? Because they have forgotten what it's like to have only 10 days' annual vacation? Probably, yes, but also because it is expensive. The majority of people would have trouble spending more than a reasonable one or so weeks at their in-laws, and  other places to stay generally cost money.

Our solution to this was to stay the one or so weeks at the respective in-laws', to travel between said in-laws' homes by our car which is wisely cared for by my parents while we are out of country, car-camping on our way from one to the other and back again. Thus, our schedule looked like this:

1. A week in Europe on the way, where we immersed ourselves in wine, bread, cheese, art, Parisian charm, and Disneyland

2. A few days in NM doing crazy-mad shopping that is hard for those not living in 3rd world countries to comprehend, as well as dentist and doc visits

3. Driving, camping, driving, etc, to include the following stops:

• Rock climbing in the Jemez, NM
• National forest near Pagosa Springs, CO
• Mesa Verde National Park, CO
• Arches NP, UT
• Zion NP, UT
• A'le'inn cafe along the Extra Terrestrial Highway in Rachel, NV (a quick stop so we could get out of NV before the tires melted)
• Mammoth Lakes, CA (in a BED)
• Yosemite NP, CA



The accomplished Junior Ranger in her favorite milieu.

• San Francisco, baby!

4. 10 days' worth of playing, 7-yr-old birthday celebrating, and avoiding forest-fire smoke inhalation at my in-laws' in OR

5. Driving, camping, driving, to include:

• Boise, ID, and a visit to an old college buddy of Andrew's
• Yellowstone NP, WY
• Grand Tetons NP, WY
• An night with a hotel shower and laundromat in lovely Laramie
• A few nights at one of our favorite haunts, my grandfather's house in CO

6. Back to NM for the last of the crazy shopping, packing, eating, and telling everyone we see how awesome our trip was.

Now, my dears, now, I sit in a lovely home in a cloudy city on the other side of the world. A city crammed with people, motorbikes, and houses that go UP; with rooftops where people gather, work, eat, and stare at us; where the dogs, roosters, and the locally-made horn blowing keep waking us up at night; where prayer flags flutter from buildings, marigolds decorate doors and gates, and people, dogs, and cows walk around with the red tikka on their foreheads. We can see the hills surrounding much of the Kathmandu valley from our own rooftop. I look around, think back to just 2 or 3 weeks ago, and wonder which experience is the dream. 

T minus 23 and counting...

23 hours from now, a plane will take us away from Kenya, probably forever. There have been a lot of mixed feelings in our house this week. For the little one in particular, it's been tough balancing her excitement to travel to the States soon with her sense of loss. End result: child's behavior is alternately enthusiastic and downright awful.

For me, I have realized that this is the first move we've made where we may never set foot in this city - or country - again. We'd be crazy to pay for a trip to come here, when we've already seen and done so much (and there are so many other new places to visit!). But this sense of finality is really putting a damper on my own excitement to leave.

On the bright side, we have pulled off one of our lowest stress moves of all time (thus far). Our stuff was pretty much organized / sorted / tossed / sold before the movers came. We seem to have everything now we planned on having, and all that we have fits in our suitcases - or in strategically timed care packages to family.  The house is clean, the laundry is done well before midnight, and we have time to host a goodbye cookie-party at the playground before we leave tomorrow.

Tomorrow's journey starts with a week around Europe, then a 4-week trek across the Western US. This is one of those times...home is where the family is.

Cute-isms

This one's for you, Mom.

Amidst the overwhelming number of details to take care of in getting ready for the international move, a few weeks of life without "stuff", and a vacation in Paris on the way to home leave, the kiddo has come up with a few questions. Most of them revolve around the schedule, which is complicated at best. But some of them reflect how truly she is a third culture kid.

For example, when on the phone with her grandparents, who have talked about taking her fishing or panning for gold in the lakes and rivers, she asks,
"Are there any hippos there? What about crocodiles?"

A wise question from her usual milieu.

This past weekend we were doing one of our "why didn't we buy this stuff before" shopping trips, and we went right through a big fancy new Nairobi interchange, which happened to have a cell tower  in the middle (a REAL one, not a pole with guide wires). The child asks,
"Wait, are we in Paris already?"

When we expressed confusion, she points out the cell tower and says it looks like the Eiffel Tower (it does, a bit), and notes, "It must have been that this road was so smooth I forgot we were still in Kenya!"

Type A's Plan

More than two months without a blog post! My two avid readers have been making occasional queries bugging me incessantly.

Many, many families at our post will be leaving this summer. Today marks the first in a round of "leavings" of families that we will noticeably miss. Lovely people with kids, one of whom is an occasional buddy of our daughter, they are most prominently remembered as the owners of the swingset our daughter fell off of to fracture both her wrists last year.

It's nice, actually, that we'll leave at peak leaving season. Enough friends will be gone that we'll all realize it won't be the same here without them, yet enough will still be here that someone will care enough to say goodbye.

As I think we've made it clear by now, we are anxious to go, with the clear exception of having to pull our daughter out of a wonderfully positive experience and education at Rosslyn Academy. The hubby has been unflagging in his scheduling efforts - between the many logistics of getting our stuff packed up and shipped out, and likewise getting consumables purchased, packed, and shipped from the States on to the next post; as well as our one-week mini-Euro tour; and finally our extensive cross-America 5-week trek, it has been quite busy. Though not nearly as busy as it'll get once the packers start coming.

What have I been doing during all this? Sitting back and simply watching him plan, nodding and smiling at the appropriate times? Mostly yeah.

We have our last and very much anticipated guests arriving tomorrow. Tomorrow! I have been scheduling their local excursions, as well as tying up end-of-year room-mom, Girl Scout leader, and regular mom stuff scheduling playdates, practicing for the first-ever piano recital, and cooking for the many events that keep popping up.

But on the whole, I have a very sluggish feeling. I'm excited about getting to leave - getting out of Africa for a few years, going on vacation and visiting family and friends, as well as settling into our new post. I'm also sad or even discouraged about leaving -- it's very hard on the wee girl, there is so much to do and organize, and without really knowing what we are getting ourselves into at the next post, I can't help but reserve judgement.

Last night we spent time with the family that is leaving today. This morning, at least I have the perspective that it's not supposed to be easy. It sounds silly - of course moving countries is not easy - but I kind of thought after a while you'd just shrug and go on. Despite the strong face and the really awesome next post for our friends, however, they are definitely feeling the weightiness of goodbyes. It's one of those times when you realize that home is what you are leaving.

I guess we do just shrug and go on, but not without feeling a few butterflies in the tummy and pulls on the heart.

The Social Network

It's not a gripping box-office-busting movie about people using technology to waste time make innovative connections (much like blogging...).

It's a Mode of Survival. I can't believe I haven't mentioned it before now.

It is the second most important reason that you are always nice and smiley with your neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances. (The first most important being that, despite being scattered literally from wherever you are to Timbuktu, the foreign service community is eensy weensy and it's just nicer if everyone is nice).

Here is an excerpt from the classified section of this week's school newsletter:

Anisa Flowers, under the green umbrella, (next to the clay pots and garden chimneys), on the side of the Limuru Road, between Redhill Rd and the Shell petrol station before Village Market, is one of the most reliable, and reasonable suppliers of excellent quality flowers in Kenya!

Yes, that is how you find a run-of the-mill business. Without The Social Network, how would you know the lady under the green umbrella is so much better than the guy with the wooden awning on the corner of Redhill and Thigiri at the sign for the turn to New Muthaiga? Just try looking it up on the yellow pages.

Yet another benefit of sending your kid to the missionary school: Missionaries actually spend time living here, and in addition to providing hilarious or horrifying tales of the crazy things they have endured because "the government" does not see to their comfort, the Missionary School Social Network has a memory that is easily 10 or even 20 years old.

From barber to ballet instructors, if you ask around you will find someone who knows someone who can give you a phone number, and soon enough you and your family are set. Just be prepared for the phone calls, because word gets around. Soon enough someone will give your number to someone else so they can find that ballet instructor too.

The "stay bag"

Everyone in Kenya is joyous this week because of the post-election peace. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the final votes were tallied, revealing a Kenyatta victory by a margin of 0.07%.

A little later in the wee hours, we became aware that a victor had been declared.

Here's how we found out. Imagine it's 4AM, and our sleeping household is, well, sleeping.

Then, some kind of noise starts niggling on our subconscious. Now I have the mom-radar, so it doesn't take much for me to wake in the night, but the noise that resolved into masses of people yelling, shouting, singing, and honking in the street.... that even got Andrew's attention. Experience has taught me that when there are even a few people yelling passionately, it is not good, and if it's masses of people, it has potential to be Really Not Good. However, coming out of the grogginess, I realized that these voices sounded happy. Who is happy when they are awake at 4AM?

     Me (looking outside to make sure people aren't in our yard): They must've decided on a president.
     Andrew (face in pillow): Unh.
     Child (yelling much louder than necessary from her room across the hall): Mama! Can you close the window? I can't sleep with all that noise out there.

In the jittery pre-election period we were strongly advised to keep a "go bag". This would be the bag you can grab so that you can run out of the house in your curlers and robe and go catch a plane in the case of a Really Bad Event. It should contain travel essentials like passports and money, important documents, a change of clothes, and your great grandmother's lace tablecloth or whatever other small but vital items you would absolutely want. (Which is funny, because people in the foreign service don't keep anything...).

Since the weekend passed without a violent hitch, the only jitters really left this week are the early afternoon caffeine jitters. So I guess it's time to unpack the go bag (which we never finished packing in the first place).

However, now we actually have approved dates for departure from Kenya this summer. The go-bag still seems like a good spot to keep those important documents and great grandma's lace. So maybe we will just keep it there, under the chair. It can be the "stay bag".... or at least a "get ready" bag. A constant reminder that, while my kid is homesick but can't really tell me where she's homesick for, we are going to go on a really rockin' vacation soon.

Waiting

Two days ago, Kenyans exercised their right to vote in overwhelming numbers. Over 14 million voters (+70%) cast ballots in national and provincial elections on Monday. The patriotism involved in standing up in such masses is moving. With the violence of the last election fresh and traumatizing in everyone's minds, poll lines were quiet, and long. Our housekeeper waited in line 11 hours to vote and, like many others, arrived to queue hours before the sun even rose. Now... everyone is waiting.

Waiting to see what will happen with more than 300,000 "invalid" votes.
Waiting for the official result to be called.
Waiting to see if schools will reopen.
Waiting to go back to work, just in case.
Waiting for their neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens to nod acceptance.
Waiting in case the result can't be accepted.

Extra guards patrol the grounds of most places that can afford them. Extra soldiers patrol the streets. Public transportation moves quickly but infrequently through quiet streets. "How are things there?" people keep asking me over email and Facebook. They seem calm - for Nairobi - but I just can't tell.

The whole country is holding its breath.

Reflections of a first tour

A couple weeks ago marked 18 months of living in Kenya. Since we are here for one (2-year) tour, we are now beginning the practicalities of getting to the next post, including figuring out the best school options without having visited, scheduling home leave, and closely related to both of these, putting through curtailment paperwork such that we may get home leave completed before the new school year starts. In addition, we need to get through medical clearance; figure out how much and which stuff here to give away, sell, burn or otherwise get rid of; identify what is in storage that should be sent on to next post; and start mentally detaching ourselves from Kenya.

This detachment is perhaps the most complicated; and is also irritatingly predicted in books on third culture kids or global nomads. In some ways, we cannot wait to leave. The robberies, hijacking, and police hijinx are commonplace and it is only by grace that we personally have not had more problems. Larger safety concerns about terrorism and national elections loom over all our activities, such that there is a travel lockdown enacted and school is already canceled during most of election week. On the other hand, we have an idyllic situation. We have friendly neighborhood cookouts; the kids chase each other on the playground and set up secret forts in each others' yards; I know all the kids in my daughter's class personally and chat with their parents on the playground after school.

Between going to the States over Christmas and a recent spate of visitors that included both friends and a visiting prison ministry team, I feel we have done an excess of putting either a rosy blush on things or emphasizing a dour outlook, depending on the situation. I suppose there is no true objective view of one's personal and situational circumstances, and, as I was telling a vendor at the Masai Market last week, the truth is that no matter where you are there is good and there is bad. Being in the foreign service, the question you always come back to is, "Is this a better life for our family than we could provide if we had stayed in America?" That is the true rubbing point.

In deference to my dear friend who recently told me, "I just don't want to mess up my kids!" I have been thinking about the "Kenya impact" on our daughter, who has now officially lived longer in our government housing in Nairobi than in any other location in her life.

• In the US, I would have walked her to the bus stop or driven her to the neighborhood school. Here, I walk her to school. Our school district in Virginia was a good one, but by its very nature and size would not have been as nurturing, individually-oriented, or parent-involved as our nearby Christian school here.

• In the US, Andrew's commute would have meant that our daughter almost didn't see him during the week, and here he is usually home at least 2 hours before her bedtime.

• In the US, having guards and soldiers would not be so commonplace that my daughter would express uncertainty if there wasn't one around.

• In the US, we would not have to rearrange our route home from lunch because students were protesting and burning tires in the middle of the main road, nor explain away why we are showing obvious concern at the number of people on foot rushing toward that site while we are trying to rush away in a locked car.

• In the US, our daughter would not have developed an ingrained sense of the need to visit and help orphans.

School  near Rift Valley / Western province borders so
rural the kids hadn't seen white people before.

• In the US, our daughter would not realize that the vast majority of people in rural areas of Kenya live in mud and dung huts, where they grow their food, herd cows and goats for a living, and collect water from puddles or muddy streams in jerry cans.  

• In the US, I would not feel the wrenching mama-bear need to protect my daughter from viewing the culture and non-urban attitude against women and girls that I have seen here with my own eyes and mourned in my own heart.

• In the US, I would not have looked into the faces of desperation, defeat, and hope which I have seen far more of in prisons here than I ever intended, and realized but for the grace of God it would be my husband in this place, the father of my child, and realize how much greater is the faith of others who can survive the intermittently applied justice in this country.

Prisoners in Migori, near Tanzanian border, enjoying our
ministry (and enjoying being photographed).

Honestly? If I'm really, truly honest: I'm tired of it. I'm tired of seeing how much need there is. In a country with bountiful natural resources, a thriving tourist trade, a huge port, and a populace that possesses ingenuity and understands hard work, why isn't it better here? (Reasons too numerous to count, we know). How are concerned Westerners supposed to deal with this? More specifically, how is our family supposed to deal with it? To our daughter, we are very matter-of-fact: it's just the way it is. Even for a 6-year-old, it's not a satisfactory explanation. On the one hand is my kid strapped into her safety seat in the diplomatic-plated vehicle with her coloring book in hand, and on the other is the dirty, barefoot kid on the side of the road carrying water on her head and her baby sister on her back. The difference between them comes down to which continent their DNA happened to be formed on. I am a woman of faith, and at some point I can hear my God saying to me, it's just the way it is.

I appreciate what we have been able to experience and learn in beautiful Kenya, but I think we'll be ready for a change of scenery.

The joys of the season

What a lovely escapade we had traveling to the US for Christmas. Aside from the 30 to 35 hour gruel of the journey --during which I learned that Kenyans are much kinder to a mother traveling alone with a kid than Europeans or, especially, Americans-- it was fun delving back into the land of smooth, wide roads, shopping galore, and wide blue cloudless New Mexico skies.

Well, yes, the skies are like that in Nairobi too. The difference being: when you are looking at the sky in New Mexico in December you are bundled from nose to toes and still shivering. Or at least you are when you've gotten used to thinking that 60 degrees F is cold.

Highlights of the trip (excluding the food factor, because those are too many to list) include:

• Seeing my mom direct the children's choir at church with my daughter timidly singing in it
• Working at home, and overhearing:
• My daughter: Grandpa, would you like me to do your hair first or buff your nails?
• My father: Let's to my nails first, I haven't had them buffed in much too long.
• Watching my daughter play in the snow with her friends, her dad, and my dad (I enjoyed this much more than when I played in the snow with her myself)
• Having my daughter and her two visiting friends, whom were a highlight all on their own, tromp inside with red noses and bright eyes, gushing about the fort they made out where I used to play 
• Going out to a new movie, at night, with my husband, while grandparents babysat
• Visiting with "my people" - friends whom I have known for way, way longer than 18 months, by this time we have affirmed that we can pick right back up from when we last met
• Visiting with my aunt, whom I haven't seen except on Skype in a few years, and now that she is, ah, up there in age, seeing how much her spirit and manner remind me of my grandmother

Then, there was the coming home to Kenya. What really blew me away was that I really felt I was coming home after a month way. This thought is quickly followed by, "Oh crap! We're moving in 6 months!"

C'est la vive.