Agora, religion and tribal dwellings

I have been struggling with religion for my children. I do not want a doctrine without question for them, like I was given with Christianity (thank the good Lord it was tempered with my mother’s probing Hindu mind). I just want a template for what my family considers right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable. Was watching on prime time TV, our President Uhuru Kenyatta being congratulated outside the Hague by no less than 100 supporters – that many adults going all the way to prop up the Dutch economy ( hotels, carbon footprints) for what? Unacceptable my moral compass suggests; very strongly. This then begs the statement: Religion cannot give you a total guideline as to right and wrong for my family – only I can do that through my example and my vociferous condemnation of something that seems to everyone acceptable, but to me, is unacceptable. This view was further cemented by a movie – AGORA – dramatizes the destruction of the library at Alexandria and the murder of Hypatia around AD 370. Why? Christians took the letter of St Paul to Timothy literally without thought … – “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over man, but to be in silence …… in full submission”. “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.” Hypatia An example of taking scripture literally is from our little fish pond of class 4, Deusche Schule Nairobi - Ilana completed some running math-a-thon thingy last term – you run a round, you get asked a question, you answer and run the next round. 3 times. She got all her answers wrong. She struggles so and gets disheartened (don’t we all) but, as I had asked her to, she tried to see the good or the lesson to be learnt from the experience. Ilana - speaking to friend - ' I am so proud of myself - I managed to run 3 rounds of the field without getting winded' Friend 'Pride is a sin, you are prideful, therefore you have sinned'. Great. So Ilana is in tears - her friend, who can do no wrong says she is wrong, nay, she is sinful ... a delicate balance. I explain, your friend is right; to a degree - too much pride, wrongful pride is useless and a waste of energy but pride in an achievement is excellent. There endeth the strife in my poor head about religion. I am a good human being. I know I can give my children a good moral compass (checking myself - ‘to heel, boy, to heel’). On a really hilarious note – Arno’s weekly project is different types of dwellings in class. Eskimoes live in igloos, Maasai live in manyatta’s and Red Indians – Indianer as opposed to Indish/der Inder as I keep getting corrected. He really got into it – obviously, as it is not maths or writing! Decimated my miniature bamboo, (sliced pricked his finger with the Panga and that caused some drama) covered it with bedspread (later replaced with dog blanket – poor Bongo keeps circling the teepee, trying to fit in and under his blanky) ‘borrowed’ my goshawk feather, put on sunscreen war paint and named his tribe – Hintern. http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_de.html#/search=hintern&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on Papa – The great chief stinkenahintern Ilana – Kleinepoops which she did not like so she is Ganzefliegen aka (deep breath)Goose-that-flies-across-the-lake-on-a-full-moon-just-skimming-the-water Arno – Sottlekopf (no idea how this fits into the poops/hintern tribe) Mummy is married into this tribe so can retain her maiden tribe. Mummy - shrieking cow/crow

How to attain the prize of Delamere hot hot bhajias.

My children are turning out into helpful, good humans. Got last minute booking for self-catering cottage, Malu, Naivasha and took it in a heartbeat. • Packed car, in the pouring rain, both kids pitching in. • Start going down Escarpment and it (rain) stops ... dead. • Stop at Escarpment view point as I so love the Great Rift Valley view - Mt Suswa on the left, Mt Longonot ahead, the Aberdare mountain range to the right ... aaah. Arno and his sense of humour - sees a cloud and names it with great import in his voice ' I name that big spot (long pause) ahem ….. big spot. Ilana wants to be overly clever so does not come up with a name for the other spot, which I named, guess . go on ….yup; the other spot. Forgot to pack tapes – TEHPS as Russel Peters says - you know, those things that have a reel inside that lay music on a TAPE deck. Had only two tapes in car - Sting, ‘mercury falling’ and times tables. Guess which one Ilana insisted we play ... yup. We can all sing every song on ‘mercury falling’ now (Arno’s repetition of ‘Let your soul be your pilot ‘and ‘I hung my head’ are particularly grating after hearing the same line for a whole minute each time) We get to Mallu and cottage is being cleaned. (So glad is Ilana that it is raining. We cannot camp – what weird children, not wanting to camp indeed, and not wanting to camp, in the rain)Agreement arrived at that if they both walk for 2 hours without any complaints, they can have a fire lit in the grate and we can play kamili or scrabble that afternoon. So up towards the top of the ridge to get a view of Lake Naivasha. Two hours of walking to the ridge and back, with me taking a few side paths just to scare Ilana into walking more, with no effect, we were back with … no complaints. We had a good time, says Ilana in surprise. (I got surprised too - that those words came out of her mouth, voluntarily) She got almost scared to death by a grasshopper the size of a mini horse,(no exaggeration on our part at all) jumping at her (not away as in reality but at her as in the dream world she inhabits) and got irritated by Arno’s constant zig zagging like a mad wildebeest ( and his constant talking … no worries about us surprising any buffalo in any thickets with him along eh) but she saved him from a huge jumping spider intent on killing him ( the intent of these poor dudus is suspect). Nice to see them sharing, getting along, and helping their old ma along. It was really good. Got in just before rain and had a nice afternoon of playing scrabble and eating crisps and chocolate indoors while it pelted outside. Next morning was grey but no rain so went out to raft leaves and twigs and see which ones went over ‘waterfalls’ or got caught in ‘dams’. Arno’s leaves made it, through guiding assistance from a large pole that ‘forced’ the poor leaf through eddy’s without any 45 degree lines … just brute force and ignorance as is the way in Africa. Ilana’s ‘not fair’ finally got to me so we set off for a ‘kleine’ spatzieren, just an hour. Arno made us take a ‘short cut’ to the hippo pool where the hippos had, without informing us, moved some 3 weeks ago and are up the river somewhere. He entertained us with Arno rap – really atrocious and repetitive with lots of shuffle moves that look like a chicken-with-malaria and raise a lot of dust. He claims to be singing in Hindustani. The hand signals are most perplexing. He says you must wave the hand ludicrously with the middle fingers bent as if broken; no explanation given as to why. He got us a tad lost. Assume it was all that head bopping, rap meandering and foreignness. Ilana got really worked up, and why did we not just stick to the trodden path? He says, it would not have been adventury. ( a real word now for my family) Why is Ilana so very scared to get lost? We are 3 people, we have water .. and we will find a hill and re orient ourselves so?! Even driving – are you sure you know the way mummy is always her first question and should I stop – I hope you are not lost mummy. Hmmm. Anywho. Found a hill – backtracked, recognized least-adventury path and … yup, it started to rain, well, gently drizzle. The one thing Ilana feared; happened. She got rained on in Mallu in 2012 – badly rained on. She was 5 and she remembers it and said she would do anything BUT get wet on that ridge. So, we got wet, but not on that ridge, thankfully. Only Arno had his raincoat. You could see she was so mad at him. If we had not got lost, we would be home, dry now! But she said it in conversation, no accusation. So very proud of her. We saw a warthog tunnel in the ground. Told them how their dad had been chased by a warthog across the savannah while trying to find us a potholing cave in the Chyulu hills and who knew he could run so fast … all good. Arno even admitted he got us lost … just a bit lost but that he admitted that he could make a mistake … well well. Progress is being made. We HAD to stop at Delamere Farms to get hot bajias with some glow-in-the-dark-tomato-sauce-that-would-not-recognise-a-tomato-if-it-saw-one. Treat indeed. And to end on a funny note – thank you Norwin for introducing me to Wise Guys – they crack me up even if I only catch a quarter of what they say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlQI0mfJbCc

Missing

My housegirl talks to me with wringing hangs this morning of how she found out her son is missing. A month ago, he goes off to visit his dad in Kosovo, New Muthaiga, Nairobi and is playing outside and .... they reported him missing to the police, the chief and I ask you, what else is she to do and how? There is no proto to post in a newspaper. His name is Francis Nyakambi Omwomba, 9 years old and how does a 9 year old just go missing? I am informed that this is quite common in kijiji. Children get taken by barren women, people who would sell then and send them off to Ngambo, lock them up in a room ...

She is stumped as to what she can do to find him. I am stumped as to how this happens and why we are now helpless to do anything to help her.

And .... I ask what I would be like if this was to happen to me and then I am, maybe just human, in that I am thankful that this is not happening to me.

when is one more too many?

I went out on the town a couple of Friday's ago (thank you for Philo saying yes to looking after my two 'mkoras')to a swanky club (with such a standard name that it can only succeed as this could have been in any major city in the world) .... there must be money in this country, in a recession, with inflation rising because that bar was packed and the cost of a drink was amazingly incomprehensible.

I met some lovely people but one woman struck me ... we were having a lucid conversation, intelligent, interesting, funny ... and then she told me she had to leave to go home and feed her 4 month old baby. I was intrigued and impressed. Good for her. She needed her life and needed to get out but also knew that she had a window of about 2 hours (don't we all remember that breastfeeding window ....mine was one and a half hours ... exactly!)before she needed to be back for her child. I was in awe. Then I asked her how many children she had and she said this was child no.4.

How do we, supposedly intelligent beings, dare to have more than 2 children in this day and age when our resources are shrinking? When we are killing our planet? When we are poisoning our oceans, cutting out forests, depleting our food and water sources to such an extent that we are heading for an implosion or explosion, depending on which theories you would like to ascribe to?

I am really scared. She came from the same background as I, probably went to a similar school, works for the betterment of the poor and then .... this! And I am not over reacting and over thinking at all!!!

How do we help ourselves grow more responsible? I can only say that it starts with each one of us ... examine your own back yard, your own view of how you fit into your family, society, your world .... it cannot afford your freedom to procreate as you wish, weather you have the money to pay for those educations and food is not the question, it is can the world sustain those four extra mouths you have so easily added to our over populated world.

End of sermon.

women and loo's

A friend and I were pretending to power walk but were actually strolling and the topic of the power/stroll walk was .... I don't know how this happens and it does, so often .... the toilet.

Women's toilets and worse still, toilets at busy international airports have no place to put your hand bag. One would think that the centre of the door would be an ideal place for a hook or the left or the right side of the cubicle and what is with that space on the left and the right so you can see whose feet are peeing on either side of you? No, you have to strangle yourself with the strap of your hand bag while you perfect the not-quite-sitting-on-the-seat position which we, in a previous power/stroll walk, have called hovering. God forbid if you are an Indian woman and have to lift 6 yards/metres of saree or are wearing a catsuit .... you know, those things that abba used to wear or that your friend's mom bought from colpro or deacons in 3 different colours of beige, red and blue that you got as hand-me-downs and had to wear for most of the 70's .... what with you being the grunt of the pack ... and still being the same height as most 12 year olds in Europe or North America. Then you have to do a kung fu panda elbow 'chappa' to flush the loo as you naturally can't use your hand ... who knows how many other germy hands have been there before you and you do remind the 3 yr old. 'don't touch anything, i mean anything in this loo'. God help you if you were wearing a ball gown in Jeddah as you wait for a connection on Saudia ....one can't tell if the wet on the bottom of the gown is .... new picture, please .... hurry! Assam domestic airport ...... it gets worse, no?

I hear Zurich loos are fine ... the loo is, well, you sit and pee and then..... seriously, wait for this, a fine spray of disinfecting water sprays the seat and then dries it for the next bottom ..... and, here comes the piece de resistance, the flush is activated by your foot! BUT .... and there always is a but, even in Zurich, they do not have somewhere to hang your bag.

jacaranda's in bloom

The rains should be here and to herald that, the jacaranda trees have brought forth their abundance of lilac ... or is it purple? What a beautiful sight, jacaranda's in full bloom .... just makes me happy .... you get that silly smile on your face that speaks of joy.

at what price can you be bought?

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My son (who is almost two) and I were having a bit of a tussle of wills, to put it mildly, about tidying up. He, admittedly, by mistake, threw down a puzzle and I said “please pick it up or the pieces will get lost and Ilana loves that puzzle”. This led to a I-will-cry-till-your-head-explodes-from-the-noise episode that lasted probably 5 minutes but in my half-mad state, felt like an hour. I warned him, got annoyed, yelled, told him I would not let his sister play with him … and then whacked him one and that worked as he just stopped the crying like that, a switch turned off, and he put the stuff away! Uncanny. I consulted a fellow mom and teacher later on and her advice was to find his currency and then buy him off or take it away. I told her he has none, and she said, ‘everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. His currency is probably his sister and how do I take her away from him? Besides, I want for my kid to do it because it is the right thing to do, not because there will be no tv, or he will get chocolate!! Why must I buy him off? When will he have a currency and do I really want him to have one? When will it change and how much higher will it go? When he is 18 will I have to sell the family station wagon to buy him off with a new SUV? Is this what I would teach him as a value?

I tell you another story that makes me disappointed in the human race. A friend of mine’s work permit is being delayed. Turns out that her partner of x years threw her out of the joint business and has told immigration vicious lies about her so they investigate her and (the plan being) throw her out of the country! Just for greed, one ‘friend’ would get immigration to investigate someone? I wonder what the price was that ‘bought’ out friendship, that ‘sold’ this lie to some immigration officer in Nyayo house?

My toto and my friend’s story have a common thread. Tenuous thought it may seem.

I have a tendency to create a mountain out of a mole hill but do you not think that we are teaching our children the very ethos that we would have crushed? We are engendering it as a value, unconsciously or consciously. I just want to know where it ends and if it is true ’everyone has a currency, everyone can be bought’. And it need not necessarily be money. I personally can be bought with a box of ferrero kueschen … . Not something to be proud of but it IS that easy. My sister gets bought by a ‘friend’ with a sob story. I can see it is a scam but hey, I am the b@#$% of an older sister so no use me voicing my opinion! My husband is bought with a day of bungee jumping (and incidentally a day sans me …. Hmmm, light dawns on marble head). But think of it, what is your currency and can you be bought?