run up to Christmas
on Kenya VSO (Kenya), 14/Dec/2009 09:04, 34 days ago
(from www.teachersclubhouse.com/socialstudies.htm)Christmas is approaching but there are few visible signs of it in Nairobi. The large shopping malls which cater for the ex-pat community have had some Christmas displays and decorations since the end of November, a few adverts mentioning Christmas have started to appear in town but the coverage is fairly thin. The radio stations are pumping out their usual fare, no recycling of past attempts to hit the number one Christmas single spot. At the KSB Christmas party the meat at the restaurant was goat and 'festive' accessories like crackers, balloons and santa hats were missing. This is very different from the orgy of consumption in the UK that shops do their best to stoke up from October onwards.Last we had a matatu strike in Nairobi, the regular buses were running but the many minibuses that usually fill most of the streets were largely missing. Operators were unhappy about harassment by the traffic police. Looking at both sides the standards of driving, road worthinessand safety of matatu are not great but some traffic police are not above using the laws to encourage the payment of bribes either. Coming into work in the morning after a bus into town I shared a taxi for the last leg. In the afternoon on the way home I left early and walked into town before catching a bus home. The traffic jams on my way home usually attract a variety of hawkers selling snacks, fruit or pretty much anything else that they can carry one of whom tries to sell kites With no matatu there were not so many customers around but the kite man was still looking for business, I know this as the string from his low flying kite nearly garroted me, not one of the commonest hazards for a Nairobi pedestrian.One of the aims of most VSO volunteers is to see the world and have new experiences, on this front I chalked up another first at the weekend attending my first Catholic Mass. A Philipino volunteer was having a leaving party before returning home. A celebration of Mass preceded the party, held in the house where we were to party the event may have lost some drama and theatre with the domestic setting but felt good to me. The party provided a memorable send off and it let me catch up with VSO friends that I had not seen for a long time, lots of food, drink and karaoke to the background of a thunder storm outside. In Nairobi I am lucky to have VSO colleagues close by, but across Kenya the sense of community is strong.