Up Close with Hippos

In Kenya, we have found ourselves getting closer than we have ever been before to some amazing wildlife: giraffes, elephant and now hippos! Over the Easter weekend, we had a couple of nights camping at Lake Naivasha. Our campsite was right on the shores of this vast, freshwater lake, with the lake and jetty on the left of the picture:

We were overwhelmed with the kindness of people here in Nairobi who lent us all the camping equipment we needed, including a wonderful 6-man tent with 2 bedrooms inside! A bit of a different design from the heavy, old canvas tents I used to sleep in on Girl Guide camps!

We were keen to get out onto the lake, to experience Lake Naivasha from a boat, with a local boat-man at the helm:

I was a bit nervous about getting too close to the many hippos who live in Lake Naivasha, but when I voiced my concern, our boat-man laughed heartily and did not seem at all concerned! We got rather close to this group of huge, heavy, hippos:

When living in Africa, one hears such frightening stories about how dangerous the hippopotamus can be. However, here we were in a campsite very close to the water where they reside, with just a short electric fence between our tent and the lake! There was a large, open gateway a few metres from our tent where the campsite opened up to the jetty, BUT there was no gate! It seems that the hippos are trusted not to come into the actual campsite! I may have had a moment of  trying to remember where I have put my Will (!!), but I did not want to upset the children by acting scared, so I put on my brave face and pretended that I like hippos very much!

 In the evenings, as we sat near the fantastic campfire carefully built by Andrew, we could hear the snorting and grunting of the hippos and even the sounds of their teeth pulling up grass. It was amazing to hear them grazing as they enjoyed their evening meal of lake-side greens! When we shone the torch from our camping chairs, we could see them clearly, lumbering slowly along on the other side of the rather tiny electric fence. I have never been so close to a hippo before. I approached the fence tentatively, just a few steps away from the hippos. I tried to take a photo- but the camera could not pick up their grey profile against the dark backdrop of the water at night. Besides, I was rather nervous about upsetting them by flashing camera lights at them in the dark! So we retreated to our chairs and enjoyed the experience of simply hearing and seeing these water-loving giants in their natural habitat, without having photos to remember how near they were.

Hippos were not the only wildlife we got close to: the children were delighted with these tall marabou storks:

There was also the cheeky monkey who sidled up to the rubbish bin after we had eaten our lunch. Climbing nimbly to the top of the bin, he reached in and triumphantly produced our apple-cores, munching happily before taking off up a tree with our plastic bags full of crumbs and egg-shells!

We discovered a few cray-fish who seemed to have lost their way and were crawling slowly through the grass. We rescued this one, throwing it back into the lake by the jetty!

All too soon, it was time to take the tent down and move on from our fabulous, first family camping experience ( I don't think camping in the garden really counts, which is all we had ventured up to this point!). It was lots of fun, although there's nothing like sleeping in a house again after a camping trip and it's nice to sleep without fear of a hippopotamus wandering too close to my bed!

Teddy Bear in Transition

We find ourselves in a strange state of transition- moving from one country (Tanzania) to another country (South Sudan) with the current country (Kenya) as a stepping-stone. Three countries. Three cultures. Three sets of people to meet, to greet and to farewell.

I have been looking into a helpful book, "Families on The Move" (by Marion Knell) as a reference guide for us as a family in this stage of moving. There are frequent references in the book to "TCKs"- a term used to describe "Third Culture kids": a rough description is a child who has lived/ is living in a culture other than their parents' culture, despite having passports for their parent's countries. However, the child does not have citizenship or ownership of any of the countries they actually live in. They may have little memory of their parents' culture/s.

This term, TCK, can be used to describe our children.  Our children have been born in either England or South Africa. They have an English mum and a South African dad. Although 2 of them have lived in South Africa, they were too young to remember it. They have very little knowledge of everyday life in England, as it is mainly a short-term or holiday destination for them. They have mostly lived in Tanzania and identify with this country most strongly as "home", but they are not Tanzanian citizens, nor are they very similar culturally to most Tanzanians that we know. Now they live in Kenya but are not Kenyan! When we move again, they will make a home in yet another country but not be fully part of its people or its customs. Home is where the family is currently living, yet the sense of loss in moving from one place to another and leaving one home, leaving their friends and leaving all that is familiar can be painful.

 I read in the above book that a TCK can find the experience of changing countries, "stressful", with typical feelings of "loss and grief". The book states, "losing home, friends... identity is like a bereavement, especially as it may involve (moving from) a place to which they never have the chance to return."

One of the coping strategies in this grieving period that our children adopted (independently of us) was to suddenly hold onto a familiar teddy. This teddy became an  inseparable object, providing a sense of security and consistency when all else around them was Change.
Two weeks before we left Tanzania, we noticed that Esther was suddenly becoming very attached to one of her teddies. She has never been one to especially play with teddies, so it was very noticeable to us. Of course, Ben followed his big sister's lead and chose his cuddly alien (called "Muzzy") as the one thing that he did not want to be parted from! Teddy and Muzzy now had to go everywhere with Esther and Ben, all through those difficult days of moving countries. And I mean everywhere!

Spot-the-teddy: on arrival in the airport in Kenya, after the sad Dodoma goodbyes:

 

Each day, Teddy was carefully dressed. She (Esther is insistent that Teddy is a girl) came out and about wherever we went, had her own seat in the car and was tucked up carefully in bed next to our daughter each night!

Imagine the stress when Teddy and Muzzy were not allowed into the classrooms at their new school! It was through my children's tears and with my best powers of persuasion that I had to extract Teddy and Muzzy from tightly closed, hugging arms! I promised, of course, to look after them well, even giving them lunch in our then-new Nairobi home. I had to present proof of this in photo-form at the end of the school day:

It was a very unhappy Esther who struggled through the move from Tanzania. And yet her teddy became a very special part of the healing process, as a familiar "face" from the life she had just left behind.
Over the past couple of months, we have gone from this sad, lost little girl...

...to a more recognisable, energetic Esther, but one who was still depending on Teddy as her faithful friend and companion (a very faithful Teddy indeed, to endure being thrown up in the air like Dad's aeroplane!):

 Now we have moved to a recent awareness that Teddy has become rather lonely:

Finally, I notice that Teddy and Muzzy are not with us on every car journey. They are no longer sitting at our meal tables. They do not come on every little outing to the shops, on the school run, to church, to a cafe visit.
It can only be a good sign! I'm so relieved -and happy- to say that our children now feel secure enough to manage without their cuddly friends from Dodoma. The worst of the grieving is over for their familiar life in Tanzania. The children are adapting well to Kenya. This gives us a good place to start looking forward to our move to Juba!
As the children go back to school next week for a final term at Braeburn, I will be busy starting the next stage of our preparations to pack up and move on again. And I will do so with a smile, knowing that my children are happier and have managed their first phase of transition through 3 countries, with the help of a soft, green alien and a large, cuddly Teddy!

Nightmare in Nairobi

It happened a couple of weeks ago: I had my first nightmare about moving to Juba! Although we are excited about joining the MAF team there, I have to be honest and admit that it is a little daunting when I think about the security issues.
My subconscious must be working overtime trying to process some of the potential risks; the outcome was a rather dramatic, horrible dream. In the nightmare, I was trying to shepherd my children away from drunken soldiers in dark army uniforms. They were shooting randomly and shouting incoherently. I was most relieved to wake up safely in my bed and to see that my family was safe!

We have heard from friends that there is very little on the British news about events within SS. However, this does not mean that the suffering and turmoil have gone away. On the contrary, unrest continues, but it has become "old news". It seems it is no longer sensational enough to make headlines in England, as with so many countries where problems persist but are no longer reported. Ongoing issues can lose their "novelty value" as international news stories.

As we wait in Nairobi for our move to our next MAF programme, we receive daily updates via a United Nations information forum based in SS. These updates can make unsettling reading! On the plus side, Juba itself has been calm and the MAF team there have been operating as normal. This is reassuring.

The issue of security is one which we are also very conscious of in Nairobi. When we arrived here, I felt overwhelmed by the security briefings I was given. There are so many threats to consider- a stark contrast to tranquil Dodoma! Recent events and current affairs in Kenya can make me feel disturbed. It is strange to live in a city where appealing shopping centres and tourist attractions become places to avoid at weekends and peak times, due to possible threats of large-scale violence.

In our Nairobi home, the burglar bars on our windows and heavy-duty security doors serve as visual reminders to be vigilant against all-too-frequent crime.

 The fact that we live in a street enclosed behind a large gate, complete with sharp spikes, is a further reminder of the risks in a potentially volatile city. Guards are on duty 24/7, opening the gates carefully to those they recognise. When friends visit or a taxi is ordered, we have to remember to alert the guards in advance, so that they let the visitors in to our street!

Hopefully, there will be no more nightmares, but I would rather have a bad dream than an actual real-life crisis! Recently, our attention has been drawn to Psalm 121- a great passage to reassure and to spur us on with our journey as we work with MAF, wherever that journey may take us.