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.