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.