The Flame Tree

Life's Small Pieces

The library in the town where I grew up---where I am presently writing from---is quiet this summer afternoon but for the whir of a fan and the turning of pages. The cool stone walls, the arching windows, the formal reading room with its mahogany walls and leather chairs, and the musty smell of old books... Nothing has changed. It was here, I believe, that I acquired an appreciation for the sweetness of words. Every summer as children, the library kept a chart of the books we read. When we had read ten or so, we got a free ice cream at the pharmacy across the street. Reading was thus rewarded with heaven.

I hired a babysitter for the afternoon. I want my mind back. I'm so tired and worn out by the logistical thoughts I must think, and that ultimately amount to nothing except a new electric bill in a new city. I found the quietest corner in upstairs stacks. I brought a book and a pad of paper and a pen. There were more titles of excellent books within reach than there are on the whole continent of Africa (it seemed). Milosz poems, Joyce's Ulysses, Naipaul's Finding the Center... And ha, look, Isak Dinesen's Letters from Africa 1914-1931. I couldn't resist reaching.

On July 4, 1926, Dinesen wrote to a friend, "...Mother writes in her letter that she is considering whether it would not be better to use the money intended for her journey out here for a trip home to Europe for me.... in no possible way and under no circumstances will I go home before the spring of 1928. It is partly because I can see that things cannot go well and methodically here when I am away, and partly because I will not break up my life in such small pieces. Beside the considerable amount of time that goes in travel preparations and in the journey itself, which I consdier to be utterly without value, it takes one,---or anyway it has taken me this time,---three or four months before one gets used to affairs and conditions out here again..." [italics are hers]

We left Kenya on July 4th. Is that possible? 25 days ago only? The time in Norway---some days were so cold I wore a long coat and boots. The week in New York---some nights were so hot I could only lie next to the fan and drink cold beer. There has been birth and death and marriage since we left; over 10,000 miles of trains, planes, taxis and bicycles. There have been windows looking out on fields, windows looking out at sea, windows looking out on Columbus Ave. The children have grown at least three inches each since we left! Everything we own is scattered, literally, across the world.

And here is the piece that I want to write, about the night we left Nairobi, 25 days ago. We were very tired. I had cried that morning saying goodbye to my two best friends. I had cried later that morning at liv's school watching all the children and teachers dance in a parade around the yard. I had cried that afternoon saying goodbye to Evans and our staff. And I had cried an hour before we were to leave for the airport, when I realised that I had meticulously packed nine bags when were allotted only seven.

That inevitable hour of departure---no matter how insanely organzied you are, the chaos happens. The stress is through the roof. The day is over and the children are tired, yet the long trip is just beginning. The nanny is uncomfortable at our friend's house and doesn't help so well with the children, or is that because in one hour we are saying goodbye, and she is sad too? There are weird piles scattered about we don't know what to do with. I'm agonizing over how many magic markers to take carry-on. We get in a fight and aren't talking when Fredrique returns from her walk holding out a stick. She shows the children a firefly and says there are more.

Oh how beautiful that moment was! We dropped our animosities and walked out the door, it was dark, dark, dark. Carefully down the steps into the valley to the river---Liv and Papa went ahead, Hannah held out her hands to steady me and the babe as we descended. Everywhere----the fireflies flickering against the perfect darkness. Haakon laughed and tried to catch them, Hannah laughed too. We reached the banks and I sat on a stone wall and watched Hannah and Haakon spin and reach out and spin around again. The light was so spare that it was just a fold of clothing, an arm reaching out, a child's hair, the sound of laughter, Hannah's skirt twirling.

Last week, on the last evening of apartment hunting in New York, M. and I took a walk in Central Park and under the seven arches of the Arcade, there was a firefly. Is it a sign? he said.

We can only hope.

Good Night African Moon

Good night house. Good night gate. Good night papa's car. Good night shack. Good night Evans. Good night Hannah. Good night Liv's school. Good night playgroup. Good night dear friends. Good night flowers. Good night trees. Good night African sun, good-bye African moon. Good-bye Kenya. We love you.

moziac of this moment

I.
I hope you're not tired of Mary Oliver, but she is so perfect I can't stop. From her poem Sometimes:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

II.
The roof of the second house they're (still) building next door is silver steel on which tiles will be laid. The silver merges perfectly against the white grey sky of today, the Nairobi winter sky. We are in the 10th month of incessant, incessant, incessant hammering, drilling, poking sheering cutting slashing burning coiling scraping and screeching of the construction next door. Why are humans so un-subtle? Why are we so rough and course? Imagine a bird building a nest.

III.
I tried to carve out the perfect time. Three months left of East Africa, I wanted it sweet and lovely and relaxed and radiant. I've tried so hard that I've made myself mental with the effort. Life is what it wants to be, you can try, you can work for happiness, but that's all. And Africa---man, this place---it senses your intentions and does all it can to prove you have no control. In seven years I have learned this: the harder you fight, the more useless it is. When you stop trying so hard, it comes to you. The Africans know this, they have the patience of saints. They would never make it in New York.

IV.
Imagine a bird building a nest.

(photo: the babe paying attention to mountains)

Turn out the lights, again

The other night after dinner, the power went out. Ohhhh, the children and I sighed in unison. Before  letting the dread sink in, though, one waits. It sometimes comes back rather quickly and yes, five minutes later, it did. Ahhh! we all sang together. But then, two minutes later it went out again. Ohhhh....

The girl and I talked about 'disappointment'. We had made a special trip to the swarming side-of-the-road guys for a dvd earlier, and I had promised her after dinner after dinner after dinner and then, after dinner, the power went out. She felt awful and I felt awful too. Then I said, I know it's totally unfair and I'm sad too and you know what you're feeling? You're feeling 'disappointment'. She stopped complaining to think, and didn't say anything for a while and when we were on to other things, she said, "I think you're right." 

I said, About what?

She said, That thing about disappointment.

I felt disappointment too, because M. has been away for 45 days now, and I'm growing weary. I felt disappointment because I wanted something (bath, tv, ritual) and it wasn't to be. I felt disappointment because it was dark and there's wasn't much to do, so we all got into my bed. I told stories about my childhood---about the ocean and the beach and rotary phones that were attached to the wall. But that bored them, and the girl said, Tell about the turtle. So I told the Tortoise story I'm writing and when I told it wrong, she corrected me, which meant that she had really been listening the time I read it to her, and that pleased me. And then she said, I want to sleep and I said ok.

A minute later the babe, who had been quietly lying in the dark listening to us (I even wondered if had fallen asleep) said, "Tor-toe story."

But I said it was time for bed and clunk, he was asleep in seconds. That guy.

And then the children were asleep but there was still no power. And still no water (two weeks and many buckets), so I filled the toilets with the bath water after I flushed them. There was nothing to do. I spent 20 minutes sitting at the quiet dining room table alone, fixing the big wax candles to work better, and actually it was rather nice and soothing. I think stoned high school kids do that sort of thing and now I see why. And then I thought about how really amazing great things happen---like lying peacefully together in bed with the babes----when there is no technology or lights around, and I dreamed of having only candles every night in New York.

All this reminded me of the post I wrote last year, which reminded me of the re-posting thing I am doing, and so here is a post from last year on the same subject:

turn out the lights
July 15, 2007

Yesterday at about 3:30, dark clouds gathered. The sky grew heavy, purple, truly threatening. Kenyans who don't have cars---Kenyans who own just one pair of shoes---are very aware of imposing thunderstorms. Women carrying bundles of sticks on their head pick up their pace; men walking two hours home from work start jogging. The sky grows darker, and darker. Kenyans with cars leave work early (in the rain, the traffic becomes unbearable). A nervousness infiltrates the air. A scurrying. The staff rush around closing windows and pulling things inside. The sandbox is closed, the rabbits are secured, the laundry brought in from the line. You can almost feel the weight of the sky about to break.

When the rain starts, it is swift and relentless. Within moments there are moats around each bush in the yard, the gutters are overflowing, the planted pots too. One step to the car from the door and I am drenched. My heart suffers for those caught out in the rain, those who have another hour to walk home, to arrive drenched and chilled to a room without heat or a fireplace or hot water. I give Evans another 100 shillings and make him promise to take matatu home. He might. I doubt it. The fares triple in the rain, and he's voraciously saving every shilling to build a house upcountry.

Inevitably when the rains are like this, like last night, the power goes out. Inevitably it's when the three year old is tired and cranky and pulling out every trick she knows to make her mum insane. A Winnie the Pooh dvd would take the edge off, but that's not an option now. Inevitably, the babe hasn't had his bath, and the water heater hasn't been on long enough to assure hot water. Inevitably, M. has just called to say he'll be working late.

When the power goes, my first reactions are irritation, frustration and a little fear. Two tired children without the distraction of a warm bath or tv? Two tired children and no distractions, in the dark? Panic! Panic!

After the panic, I remember that I'm the mom. If I don't get the candles out, no one will. I think about Little House on the Prairie and get inspiration from that. I find the lanterns. I light a few candles. Lighting candles is a spiritual act! The fear ebbs a little. The candlelight in the living room is soft and calming. The kids don't try to leave our circle of light, there's nowhere to go beyond it. We sit together, they play with electric lanterns and little flashlights. I think, I want to read. But I can't so I put the desire aside. I think, I want to write an email! Make dinner! Start the bath! But I can't, so I put it all aside. I resign myself, and I have accepted a night of darkness. Now there are no distractions. There is no "I want I want I want...". The girl knows that when the power is out, there are no options. The babe responds to the peace around him, he plays with the blocks and the lantern. It's peaceful. Last night, the girl listened to me read two chapters of Alice in Wonderland, without pictures. My throat hurt from reading aloud that long.

There is a depth of silence that is remarkable when the power fails. The humming appliances---the refrigerator, the stereo, the water heater, the computer, even the lights---are like stones now. A peace settles in the brain, a resignation. The children grow naturally, peacefully, tired. After reading by candlelight, they go to bed with ease. There is no buzzing in the living room to distract them, there is no energy to excite them... not even the smallest energy of a burning light bulb.

Every night that the power fails, I want to write to my friends with children and beg them to try this at home. Turn off the main switch just after dinner---everything must go. Pretend it's real. It's scary----not because of monsters and ghosts, but because of ourselves. The first few minutes, maybe even half an hour, will be truly uncomfortable. It's scary to be together without sports or news buzzing in the background on tv, or music or telephones or email or cooking or movies. But after a few minutes, you'll find out how great you are. And everyone looks better by candlelight.

the glass elevator

We who live here in Nairobi pride ourselves on its cosmopolitan, international, cultural-mecca status of the world. It is one of the largest, or at least one of the coolest, cities in Africa! The headquarters of several UN agencies, it's also the media base for East Africa for journalists and writers. There is an airport in Nairobi---two airports!---and airplanes take off and land all day. They are going to exciting places, and bringing in fascinating complex people, and the people come from all over the place, and sometimes wind up at a dinner party that night and tell you about the World  Beyond----talking about shoe  fashion and technology and bicycle races in DC.

It leaves me breathless!

But there are some things that are still provincial, which is also why we appreciate Nairobi. Like malls. They exist---four come to mind---but they are sort of quirky, with long slow ramps connecting the floors, or little bridges over fake pools; there is always limited parking and many stairs. Sometimes it is a whole flight of stairs and sometimes three or four stairs and sometimes stairs that rise over fake ponds that you have to cross by stepping on fake rocks. (This is very annoying and even controversial when you've been a housewife pushing strollers for the last four years.)

This morning, all that changed.

Last year, they finished a new mall located about two miles from here. I am a bit stuck in my ways I guess, but we did---me, the girl and the babe---finally venture down there this morning. It was kind of scary, I admit. First, where do I park? Are there signs? Well, there is an underground car garage. I wondered if the Range Rover would fit, it did! The girl said, "Hey we went into one of these when I broke my arm at Yaya's house!" That was last August, good memory!

We were all very excited, it was so weird. The babe went HUUUUMMMMMMMMMM to imitate the giant underground parking garage hum, and the girl was laughing at that, and so was I. The girl took his hand in an uncharacteristic gesture of protection, and the three of us went to the mall.

There are tons of Nacumatts (one of those everything stores) all around Nairobi, and more built every day it seems, and sometimes I think they're going to rename Nairobi Nacumatt because it is probably taking over the government as I write. We have been to Nacumatt, yes, we're not that backward! But this, THIS Nacumatt has two escalators in the store! The babe, who has never seen snow, has never been on an escalator either. We held hands and the three of stepped on together. Forget Disney Land! We almost wiped out getting off at the end, but we didn't.

But then there were the bathtubs. Rows of bathtubs! Some were big and some were small and one was the shape of a triangle. This was too much for a two and four year old who know about guavas, chameleons, askaris, police, jambos, giraffes, birds of prey, tea, monkeys, flamingos, Mombasa, Sudan and Somalia... but have never seen Bed, Bath & Beyond. Those bathtubs killed about twenty minutes of an otherwise rainy, slightly lonely Saturday morning.

Once the sheer excitement of so many bathtubs began to ease, we crossed the floor to the bakery. It's an all new and shiny area, with bakers wearing those white hats and though it has the same products of any Indian duka, the setting reminded me of produce market in San Francisco. There were two Italian men arguing over pastries. They were gay I was pretty sure. There was something so familiar and comforting seeing those Italian arguing gay men. It was like suddenly being home (home? west?) in a way that I can't explain because you don't live as an American housewife in Nairobi, or if you do you'll know what I mean without me explaining it. It was like the air between us was thinner than the air elsewhere and I could have just walked up to them and started talking like we'd been friends for 14 years.

We bought croissants. They cost like a million dollars. But then it was time for the ride in the glass elevator (the kids were so easily swept from one amusement to the next! No whining! Disney Land!). The girl pushed the button and we waited and then we got in and stood there carefully, looking at each other like "I'm ok, are you ok?". The doors closed. I pushed the top button which the girl pointed out was FOUR because she is FOUR!

We started to lift in our little glass box. The fake ferns fell away, the water feature too. We slipped past the first floor, the atrium below seemed to grow. The second floor. The kids were bewildered, brave, accepting. I was getting a little sick though. By the third floor, I was questioning who built this thing. You always question who built this thing when you're in Africa because, well, will it work? The roads don't work. The steetlights don't work. The electricity is sporadic. The water too. Getting passports renewed as well as ordering a cup of coffee---none of that stuff works. So why should the glass elevator work? What if they cut corners on installing the cable, and took the cash meant for the good cable and bought some shitty rope cable? I know that's the kind of thing the plumber is doing on my kitchen sink, because he's fixed it twice and it still drips. So why shouldn't the elevator cable guy do it? Maybe his kids are sick, he probably lives in Kibera. I probably would take the money if my kids were sick too.

Then, we passed the fourth floor and the fucking elevator kept going. The glass elevator passed into a wall---we were inside some elevator tunnel, no longer overlooking the atrium. We were ascending, and we shouldn't be I didn't think, and my knees were giving out. There were no controls. I started to panic, honestly I did though I hid it so the kids wouldn't panic too.

When we reached the roof and we were fine, but I wanted to throw up. When, in the last seven years of limited elevator experience, did I become scared of elevators? Or is this some sort of new fear of heights? Bravely---as an example to my fine children---I said, Fun! I pushed the basement button, and down we went.

So that was our trip to the mall. We are going to do so well in New York!

little blog break

Due to life impeding on art, I'm taking an official blog break until the week of April 7th... see you then.

welcome to my head today

It is 2pm on Sunday and I am working. I can hear the girl singing outside, behind my office shack. She's happy because she is soon about to go with her father to his office, to get some things for his trip to Madagascar. He leaves tonight. Do you remember how wonderful it was to go to your father's office? Or to accompany your father to whatever his working environment? M. grew up in Madagascar (he's going for work this week). I have sensed from his stories that his fondest childhood memories are of accompanying his father to attend to cows, way back when, when his dad was a veterinarian there.

It hasn't rained in weeks here, and everything is dry and brittle. Nairobi has started water rationing, a bit late I'm told because of distractions around the  political emergency in January and February. It was as if someone woke up after the peace deal was signed and said, Whoa! We forgot about the water! We should have started rationing weeks ago! Is anyone dealing with that? Oh shit! And he ran down to the office and called the guy sitting in the shack out by the reservoir and sure enough, the guy said, the reservoir was practically dry. Too late! Now we go days without water. Ah, there are worse fates.

There is peace, after all, in Kenya and for that everyone is optimistic, happy and grateful. The day after the guys finally agreed, the ayahs came to playgroup and greeted each other with Happy New Yeah! Happy New Yeah! (It was Feb. 27th, but on Jan 1 the country was in turmoil) Now we are a new Kenya! There is nothing like overjoyed nannies slapping hands and laughing to make you want to weep with love for the world.

It is Sunday and I should be working but I have such a headache from last night's pink champagne. Why? Why pink champagne, Emilie? How did that seem a good idea at the time? We had a dinner party and I think everyone had a good time, but no one has called to say thank you today and I'm pretty sure it's because they are resenting the pink champagne too.

We only have so many remaining weekends here together, and I will cherish them. This weekend  on Friday evening, returning home from a neighbor's new baby visit, I passed a friend who was coming out of our gate (you missed a walk! he said) (I was visiting Z's new babe! I said). Then J. called worried about her new babe and so I got our fancy ear thermometer and drove down to her, and tried to reassure her that everything would be fine (though really I had no idea). I begged her to call if anything felt wrong because her husband is away and I know how the imagination works at 3am with a new baby who might be sick and no husband to balance perspective. When I returned home, it was bath/books/bed---sleep.

Saturday was a day of marketing and preparing for the party----the meat shop, fine olives from France, aged cheese too, baguettes and berries and tea lights and white lilies. Every time I crossed something off the list, three more things were added. The party grew because to everyone M. ran into he said, Come! And so all the friends and family came, and we had a fire and torches lit around the back yard, and candles and flowers and all the dried trees with hardly any leaves looked ancient and breathy against the Africa sky, which was clear and starry.

All the friends came and we sat by the fire with the stupid pink champagne and Jonnie Cash on the stereo, and then we went to the table and sat there for hours with everyone we adore, and I made a toast to M. for his birthday and we talked about being here for seven years and maybe coming back seven years from now, and everyone made New York sound light and exciting for me, knowing that my heart is heavy to leave.

Sometimes the best part of a dinner party is when everyone has left and the fires are still burning and the glasses are all over the place and the candles have left piles of wax on the table cloth and it's just M. and I picking up the essential things to save (the half finished bottle of wine, the salsa, the chocolate cake), saying let's just leave the rest for tomorrow it's ok. And wondering Did people have a good time? Was it ok? Well I hope but we did have a good time, and I even had a fine time setting up all day, and that is an act of love in a way----to do it right, to attend to a million details with attention to each, to appreciate M. whose birthday it was as I attended to those details---and we turned off the lights and locked the gates as we've done so many times the years here, and we tucked in the babes, and felt so happy together.

hello goodbye

Years ago, my friend's mother was part of a local theater group. I think they were a group of friends or maybe they became friends through the troupe; maybe they met once a week to entertain themselves or maybe they put on shows for others, I don't know. One day, years ago, this friend called to tell me that her parents (her mother of the theater group) were getting divorced. This came as very shocking and sad and disorienting news, as any divorce is, but in this case particularly so because we all loved the couple and the family and had thought the family would go on together for ever and ever.

This theater group did something around that time that I think of often. I wasn't witness to it, my friend told me about it later. One evening during the time of the divorce, my friend's mother came to her theater group and they sat her down and said they were going to do a show just for her.

They silently came together and held hands in a circle and then they let go and together began to build a structure. They worked in silence, with care and attention to their gestures and movement. They piled chairs on top of a table, and maybe a shelf on top of the chairs, and perhaps a rug or a plant or some pots or keys on top of that. Actually, I'm not sure the objects that were used, but I remember my friend mentioning chairs certainly.

When it was finished they paused and appreciated what they had built. Maybe they stood there for a while, I don't know. And then slowly, they began to dismantle the structure. I'm going to assume that they dismantled it with sadness and a heavy heart, but working together meticulously and with care and attention. It's more dangerous, after all, dismantling a structure like that. It could all come crashing down and really hurt someone, and everyone is distracted by sadness and maybe not working together as well. it takes great concentration and certainly depletes one's emotions.

So yes, this small theater production that my friend described to me almost 20 years ago has remained with me and often explained life to me. Is life not always a process of building structures with the materials you have at hand, with the people around you? And then---like the moment an ocean's tide changes from full to retreating---it is time to shift, and begin to dismantle. It happens in a big way (building a new family together, and then, over tine, breaking apart); it's happening in little ways (a project at work starting, overwhelming, then coming to a close).

Last week, a great tide shifted in our life. Seven years of building a life here---first in Uganda, then in Nairobi---the constant moving forward, the constant moving in, the career building, the baby making, the wall painting and bill paying and the community we love---all the daily work and decisions we constantly make to contribute to all of this, suddenly peaked. The moment came when it was time to begin dismantling. In a few months, we're off to New York City to start a new contract, and to begin to build a new structure.

It's a pretty tricky time. I'll be writing about it I'm sure.

David Hockney, Garrowby Hill (1998)

Parenting in Nanny-land

Last night, I went in to check on the babe (who is almost 2 years old) sleeping in his crib. I detected a peculiar smell in the room, sort of musty, shoe-y. I wondered if it was a pair of M's boots, perhaps, tucked away somewhere after maybe a sweaty hike through a waste management site. I made a mental note to discuss it with him, and to return to the room and check again, and I left the door open for ventilation.

Later, when M. returned to the living room from packing for this week's trip, I asked, Do you smell something funny in the babe's room?

In fact, yes, he said. Like wet towels.

Or maybe something died in the wall? I wondered aloud. Like a mouse or something.

I decided to take the babe to bed with us, in case the smell was, like, toxic or could lead to poisoning or respiratory distress.

When I went in to get the babe from his crib, however, a weird feeling came over me, slightly familiar---but distant. Wait, I thought. And I leaned over the crib to smell his diaper. Glory! At that moment, hundreds of thousands of dollars of higher education, combined with four hearty years of parenting two babes---that's over 1,200 days of continual diapers---came sweeping in to assist me. Yes, I determined the smell. And even changed the diaper.

It was a proud parenting moment for M. and me.

Pure Joy!

My dear friend J, who is American like me, and married to a Norwegian like me, and has a 4 year old daughter who is the best friend of my 4 year old daughter, and lives a 7 minute walk down the street and is sometimes sort of annoyed by her dogs, like I am sometimes sort of annoyed by my dog---my dear friend J, who has kept me sane and cohesive this month---we have laughed and we have cried and we have laughed and we have cried---has been quite pregnant, her babe due on my birthday. Her Norwegian husband is based in Sudan and has been away all month, and---though she is stronger than a steel rail and more peaceful than a Zen Buddha----I have been a whirlwind of anxiety about everything.

When her husband pulled in the driveway last night, having finagled to arrive a day earlier than expected due to this week's political events, I wept with relief.

When her husband called me at 3am this morning, seven hours after he pulled in the driveway, and said, "We're dropping off Issy, it's time," I wept with joy.

You can't believe how beautiful the world is today.

Congratulations my dear friends, and welcome you lovely baby boy. May you grow up to be a man who works for peace, keeping with your parents' fine example.

Back to Normal?

Friends who went down to the Naivasha Boat Club for the weekend, only to become trapped there by mobs and gunfire outside the boat house gate, are home now, and we are relieved. Because they are English---not Luo or Kalenjin, the original perpetrators of violence who are now the targets of the Kikuyu retaliation---they had a much better chance of escape than others. But that didn't make it un-stressful. My friend is a humanitarian worker who has worked in Afghanistan, Cambodia and Somalia---she knows her way around the block. But on Sunday morning she was boating with her husband and two toddlers, and by Sunday night she was laying awake listening to wails of grief echo across the Lake Naivasha.

With what happened this weekend---retaliation, resurgence of violence and looting, 100 dead, roadblocks, police, burning villages and wailing through the night, it seems I can't return to normal writing about normal life, because----having woken up from my few happy weeks of denial----life is not normal here after all.

When I brought the girl to school this morning, three mums stood in the car park, chatting. "Our evac plan is to drive the Magadi route to Tanzania," I overheard one say as I passed. The teacher whose family owns a farm in Naivasha was talking on her mobile outside the classroom, her body was clenched as she nodded her head to the phone. We were late to arrive, the children were already lined up along the edge of the playground waving their arms and jumping up and down, doing some sort of morning jump-for-joy thing. The girl ran over and joined the fray and as I left her, though I'm not sure why, I decided to fill both cars with petrol and stock up on extra groceries.

In case you couldn't hear Kofi Annan's words over the roar of machete-wielding youths burned villages news reports... this "post-election violence" has morphed into its own slightly ruthless creature. What is happening in Kenya is no longer a fist fight over who actually won the election, it's an explosion of pent-up frustrations, animosities, ambitions and neglect. It is gangs of "unemployed youths" with not much to lose. It's poor people attacking poor people. It's what happens when populations grow to the point where land and resources become so stressed you're willing to kill your neighbor for a water source.

Makes turning 40 seem like a day in the park.

   

The Blue Afternoon

The international correspondents are starting to return to the neighborhood, bleary eyed. "I haven't slept in four days," said a friend I ran into on the road yesterday. "I was skiing in Vermont, then suddenly..." Friends are returning on flights that were booked, but are now wide open, from holidays with family in the UK. Some of them have staff who are trapped in western Kenya. "If I leave my house, they will kill me," a friend's ayah said on the phone. Arrangements are made. On Friday morning, M. left for Eldoret, where the worst violence has been carried out, to start UN assessments. He's only had a moment to call, and that was to say that he'll be five days late returning. Things have calmed down, he reports, but there's a lot of displacement and ruin.

This sounds a little like a news piece, which I'm deliberately avoiding to write. But I just spent the last hour reading the latest internet stories, and the rhythm is in my head. "Kabaki Backs Formation of Unity Government," writes Bloomberg. "Kenya Opposition Rejects Unity Call," writes Al Jazeera. "Kikuyus Still Shelter in Church Despite Massacre" writes Reuters. Kenya carries on stolen tradition, in the LA Times. How this will affect the US place in the region, how this will affect tourism, how this will affect tribalism, and how this is not Rwanda... all covered... What more can I say?

I confess, I just paused here.. for an hour. Writing a blog is supposed to be easy. Writing a blog is just supposed to happen. But I'm stuck, what more can I say? Anything I write is trite compared to the news.

Up until last week, I lived in a stable and peaceful country surrounded by a community---aid workers, journalists---whose livelihoods depend on emergency, strife, and suffering. Husbands work in Sudan and Congo. Pregnant wives fly into Somalia for a week of assessments. And so, this community kind of clicks into action when cities start to burn. Your war, my job... as the saying goes. As the violence ebbs, the journalists are returning, pretty exhausted; the aid workers are leaving, to assess and deliver services. And I'm trapped in a little personal whirlwind, trying to figure out what an expat housewife, writing about AIDS in India, should do. So, naturally, I take down the Christmas tree.

I will do this: I will write about the New Year---which I had almost forgot happened---and about maintaining perspective in 2008. I hope there is something to be gained by starting the new year off in a place of sudden chaos and horror.  It reminds me how precarious life is, how uncertain, how nothing should be taken for granted. On Monday, in the panic the day after the election results were announced, there was a general feeling that supplies would not get into the country. Lines to get into stores were an hour long; lines to the cashier were so long that, as one friend describes it, "the frozen chicken was thawed by the time we paid." By the end of the day, what stores had opened their doors were pretty much cleaned out. 

It was a bit unsettling, and I vowed to not feel irritated waiting in a grocery line, under normal circumstances, again.

I usually don't adhere to the "eat your peas because there are children starving in Africa" policy. People's problems are real and legitimate, even if they are not starving, even if they have a secure house and an well stocked organic market down the street. But what I hope to practice in 2008---ultimately not for altruistic reasons, but because it will actually make me a happier person----is keeping things in perspective. To be grateful for an income, for work, for a home. To be grateful for a secure society, to be able to walk down the street, have a conversation without fear of imprisonment. To be grateful for each other as a family. To be grateful for each meal... There is so much to be grateful for.  And it seems so simple. So, why do we make it so complicated?

The Kenya...

Every evening I clear my head. I tell myself, Ok, tomorrow, I'm going to be normal, no matter what the situation. I will go for a walk in the morning, get some work done after that. My anxiety and fatigue contributes nothing to the situation...

And then every morning I wake up. Text messages and calls from friends start coming in as I make coffee. One friend is returning from Wilson airport saying, "No no no, things are not fine today. We're heading back." The kids are picking up the stress and are impatient and prone to tantrums. The Italian journalist friend, who flew in this morning, needs to get a driver lined up immediately so she can join the UN convey about to head out to Eldoret. Her phone isn't working. We can't find a new SIM card for her, and three little girls have arrived to play and heated discussions are underway about the princess dresses.

                                                                           *

But we are safe and fine and actually, today (it's 4pm now, I wrote the above at 10am), the friends and journalists and neighbors coming through are more of a hindrance to returning to normal life than the riots and threats and insecurity.

There is a short story by Ursula LeGuin that I haven't read in about 20 years. My recollection of it is vague, and I don't remember its title, but basically the story is about a perfect village---the residents all have work, food and prosperity. There are cafes and sunny days and white picket fences. Everyone is happy. But there is one catch: a starving, neglected child lives in a basement somewhere in the village. There is a basic understanding among the residents that the village will prosper only if this child continues to be ignored or, as they say in the UN, "denied his basic rights".

It's a weird story, but it haunts me, especially at times like this. Life in Spring Valley is returning to normal. The shops are opening, people are driving around. The panic has subsided. We are tired, and sad, and feel a little helpless, but... "It's weird," a friend called to say. "The t-shirt shop is open at Village Market." Meanwhile, police in riot gear, army trucks with guns bristling out of them, are hovering by the slum areas, where a million people who make less than a dollar a day have been forced back from protest.

And of course, I'm oversimplifying (and I admit I'm prone to sentimentality today----it's not pleasant to watch poor people who live down the road being threatened by riot police and pushed back with water hoses.) As with so much in Africa, the situation in Kenya this week is intricate, and things are not what they seem.

And, as with so much in Africa, Kenya is a peaceful place: people just want to do their lives. They want to send their children to school. They want business, and they want justice to assure all that. M. is on his way out to western Kenya today with the UN. So far, he reports, he has passed only abandoned road blocks. The vigilantes have dispersed. The government and the opposition are closer to a temporary agreement. And the rabbit is looking a lot less nervous.

The Kenya Elections, continued

There are scenes on tv of the road I take to the vegetable market. Under the pedestrian bridge, where there is always some broken down truck disrupting traffic, today young men with sticks are confronting police in riot gear. You want to cry for the young men, because they are wearing just t-shirts and pants and not riot gear, and they are so vulnerable. They are lighting fires and one man, who is crippled, is hugging an election poster of Raila and crying.

Opposition supporters are trying to make their way to Uhuru Park, where a rally was scheduled to begin at 10am to protest against the government who took the elections on Sunday. It's 11:50 and skirmishes are breaking out in pockets across the city. The sky is so blue and perfect, we have filled the baby pool again for the children; the nannies are on their mobiles assuring evacuation of relatives from western Kenya where the violence is bordering on ethnic cleansing. It's not recommended to leave the neighborhood. M. found cooking gas yesterday, after two days of waiting in lines.

Things are very normal. "You girls need to go back outside..." says Issy's mom as I write. Two girls in bathing suits skip by me and out the door. And things are very weird and scary and sad. "The media houses have taken the initiative today to help save our country today... Please call and share how to end the anarchy. There have been 75,000 displaced, 300 dead, and the anarchy continues," the newscaster is saying as I write. 

The Kenya Elections, continued

Kenya Elections, Sunday, December 30
It reminded me of pregnancy, a little. Well, not really, but looking back, last week was like waiting for the babe to arrive... waiting, waiting, waiting. Getting bored. Husband getting restless. Days of meandering around waiting for something to happen, because you know it's going to happen and you can't really do much until it does, and then, it happens (the baby is coming! the results are being announced!) and, in the sudden mayhem and chaos, you yearn a little for that blissful time of waiting. Wow, that's a really lame analogy...

Sunday afternoon, insiders texted that the results would be announced at 3pm and to stay in the house. Everyone was already in the house, things were getting stressful. We inferred from the message that the announcement would not be pleasant. We rounded up the 2 to 4 year old set, the ayahs, the cigarettes, the cell phones, and the pie platter I had been meaning to return and went down the street to a friend's to watch the press conference. We waited some more. We filled the plastic pool with water for the kids. They played with a ball, and got in fights and cried, and were appeased. And then, the things started to get weird.

The ECK commissioner was reading the results, district by district. We left the kids with the pool and the ayahs and went inside to watch. But this was boring and, to me, too much information: by the time he read out the numbers for Raila, I had forgotten the numbers for Kabaki. Was I supposed to add up the figures myself to determine the results? (And, by the way, do you see why this is not a political blog?)

Then something very odd happened. When something very odd is happening, I tend to think it's not really that odd. My mind un-odds it. I think, OK so odd things are happening all the time, and I've just been too distracted with emails and grocery shopping and playgroups to look up and see how the world works. This is what I was thinking as, in the drone of announcing numbers, the commissioner said, "Molo:..." Am I adding dramatic effect to say he paused? Do I remember a smirk? He started to read the numbers and then there was shouting, like a heckler. There was no commentary (a refreshing way to watch live tv, by the way) and the camera starting doing that swingy thing, catching the back of bald men's heads and the profiles of other cameramen. They were trying to show us something, but what? There was shouting and weirdness and it felt sort of Kennedy-esque. One had the very unsettling feeling a shot was about to ring out.

Then Riala was walking out, with a bunch of his guys in suits surrounding him. Some of the suits were nice, I was thinking, and some that were not so nice. They were walking up stairs, and looking back in disgust and anger, kind of like a guy leaving a bar after having a fight with his girlfriend.

Then, we were watching a separate press conference with Raila, and an ECK member then spoke, publicly accusing the commission of rigging. There was nothing polished in his speech. He was sort of pleading to the press. He was explaining a certain form, and trying to explain how this form was doctored. Raila was sitting next to the ECK member, and took out a handkerchief and wiped his eye. "Is he sweating or crying?" I asked. Someone in the room mumbled that Raila had a problem with his right eye, but later I learned he was wiping away a tear. I believe that it was not done for dramatic or sentimental effect.

Then, police in military gear were walking down corridors on the tv, and the kids came in, hungry, tired, whining. My girl wanted the blue princess dress that Issy was wearing. Issy offered my girl every other princess dress on the planet, but none would do: she had to have the blue one. Tears, breakdowns... We looked at our watches, it was an hour past dinnertime.

On the tv, banter in newsrooms. Then, along the bottom of the screen, as if it had been announced but it had not: "Kabaki wins election". Five minutes later we're watching a refined and formal occasion on the State House lawn. The lawn is manicured, the tent is white. There are dashes of red---red carpet, a red coat. The ECK commissioner makes a little joke to start the ceremony, "We better do this before others get the idea they can." Or something of that nature. We are watching Kabaki being sworn in. Or something of that nature. The judge in the powdered wig and red coat who hands Kabaki papers to sign looks like Santa Claus and we try to distract the hungry irritable and tired children, Look it's Santa!

Why not, everything else that's happening seems make-believe.

Two hours later, all live broadcasting is shut down.

Kenya Elections, Monday, December 31
Due to The Violence and the looting and the burning and the strife and the anger and the frustration and the sadness, we are restricted to our neighborhood. Monday morning neighbors begin to arrive. Coffee is made. Children are given cardboard toilet paper rolls to make animals with, the ayahs gossip in low tones in Swahili.  Rumors are flying that Riala has been arrested, that the phone networks will be cut off soon, a state of emergency declared. More coffee is made and, though I haven't done this since 1999, I smoke a cigarette in the morning, and it sort of hits the spot.

The lines to get into the few open stores are an hour long; the lines for the cashier are over two hours. I keep making coffee and trying to organize things around the house, it gives me a sense of control, while the husbands make calls and gather what little information is out there. The EU husband is still negotiating the hostage situation in Somalia. He's beginning to look a bit drained.

I get a little annoyed when the ayah feeds a carrot to the rabbit, there are no vegetables left in the stores and no word for how long this will be. I try to be patient and keep things in perspective, and yet, as I pass the rabbit's cage a while later, I wonder if we'll be making rabbit soup next week at this time, and think perhaps it's best he got the carrot.

You see what can happen, so quickly. This is what is most amazing to me, this is what is blowing my mind. On Saturday evening I was making lists for the New Year's Eve dinner and planning menus on Epicurus.com. On Monday morning, I was wondering what it would be like to eat our pets.

We do not live in the slums here, we do not having nothing to lose. We are really sad---this has huge implications for Kenya and for the region---but we are not out looting to express our frustration. We are not being burned out of our houses either, we are not being held back with tear gas. We are restricted to our neighborhood, yes, which (aside from the markets) shows no tragic signs of disruption. But one wonders how long the anger and violence will go on. One wonders what the opposition will do now, and what the effect will be. So, suddenly, one wonders what the next day holds. And, despite boarding school and university and blond hair and poise, how vaguely but seriously I sense my innermost instincts---the ability to shift into survival mode---hovering on the edge of my day now.

The Kenya Elections, Tuesday, January 1, 2008
It is quiet today. I've calmed down with the pet rabbit-eating thoughts. We are all, like you, praying for peace and harmony and perspective, for 2008.

(For more accurate information on what's happening in Kenya, please read this.)

The Kenya Elections

Kenya Elections, Friday December 28th
We await the results
The Kenyan elections, from my point of view, are this: the husbands are home from work for the entire week. The husbands are home all week because of Christmas Day (25th), naturally, when they are allowed and even welcome to be home. They are also home the day before the elections (26th) for some reason I can't determine; the day of the elections (27th); and the day after the elections because The Post-Election Violence is scheduled to begin at noon (28th). Even the shops will close by 12 today, and remain so until Monday, when The Violence is scheduled to have petered out (31st). (It's 1:00, by the way, and though they're still counting, it seems that Raila will be Kenya's next President, thus limiting the threat of violence this weekend because.. well, as this is certainly not a political blog, so in a nutshell, the Raila supporters, mainly Luo, will be very suspicious of fraud, and irritated, and likely to show it, if the incumbent Kibaki, who is mainly supported by the Kikuyu, wins.)

So, Kenya's elections, the second free elections, with the highest turnout ever, etc. etc. are very exciting, No one is talking of anything else, and the husbands are home for the whole week. And they're starting to get bored. They are even starting, it seems, to arrange little playgroups. One husband (EU/Somalia) is actually making coffee for another husband (UNICEF/Emergency) as I write. The UNICEF husband has brought the children to EU house, as well as the leftover Christmas cake, to "get rid of it", and I imagine the husbands are sitting in the kitchen right now, as I write, bitching about how their wives just do not understand the amount of work involved in running a household. They are probably saying ("Could you break off another tiny, little piece of that cake... it's too good!") that yes, they have nannies and yes, it's much easier than if they were back in Europe, but there's still so much to do.. I mean, sometimes you have almost more work with a staff to deal with as well as a family!

Kenya Elections, Saturday December 29th
We continue to await the results, and things begin to get tingly
Overcome with curiosity as I finished the last paragraph above, I meandered over to the EU household to determine just what those husbands were saying. To be fair, despite his holiday, the EU husband was on the phone negotiating the situation of the MSF hostages in Somalia. To be fair, the UNICEF husband was on the internet fielding emails. No, the husbands were not eating the cake, but on the veranda was a half-finished bottle of red wine, two empty plates and an ashtray full of butts. The girls were watching cartoons downstairs. "Is this what you think Stay-at-home-Mom means?" I asked. They looked at me vaguely and returned to their negotiations and emails, interspersed with arguments about democracy in Kenya.

This morning, Saturday, I walked for a half hour without passing a car. The street was silent. Certain glimpses over hedges of the tops of cottages reminded me of rural France, the depth of silence was remarkable----no distant traffic, no hum of industry. I thought of Collette, I thought of Proust. I thought of life before cars. But no, it was just the third day of the Kenyan Elections, and The Violence was starting to flicker, and people were not going out.

M., on his fifth day home, has begun to cook. Tomato soup for dinner; the tomatoes peeled by the little hands of a three year old daughter. We stockpile cheap champagne bought at the UN commissary for New Year's Eve, because we totally have our priorities straight. M., a Norwegian who grew up in Madagascar in the 80s when the shelves were often sparse, did stockpile about 40 jars of pasta sauce the other day. It's his instinct to hoard, like your grandmother who survived the depression. Every 20 minutes we check the internet for news. Cars are being tossed and burned over by The Junction, riots in the west, residents of Kibera slum (mainly Luo) are being held back by tear gas. Their shanties are being burned. When I tuck the baby in before I turn out the lights, I think of mothers in Kibera tucking their babies in, and, feeling the helplessness and frustration that I so often feel here, I want to leave Kenya forever.

Kenya Elections, Sunday December 30th
We continue to wait, and things get sort of boring... for us.
M. makes breakfast! Eggs, any way I want them! Well, he says, this might be our last meal before it's just pasta sauce and champagne...

The girls are dressed like princesses. The EU husband is at our house now, and between phone conversations in Spanish and French and English, still dealing with the hostages in Somalia, he smokes another cigarette and spins ideas on taking another vacation, this time out of his mobile phone range. M. went down to the petrol station to fill up the cars this morning, and met the Washington Post correspondent, but we were interrupted before he reported to me what she knew. The Economist journalist last night knew a lot. It's one of the weird perks of living here that we get our news so fresh and unedited.

The results were supposed to be tallied and announced by noon on Friday. It's Sunday morning and there is something tricky going on, and the Kenyan folks suspect it. They are holding off on announcing the results until things quiet down. As long as they hold off, things will not quiet down. And the Kenya folks will continue to burn down their own villages. "Yes, it's a paradox," M. says smiling. "Paradox" is the word his father and he have been using lately, to explain everything having to do with Africa. The meaning of the word is so elusive, it appeals to me; and it seems to do the job for Africa as well. It settles the arguments, it calms the confusion. M.'s father has been a diplomat in six African countries over the last 30 years, he is one of the most respected ambassadors in the region, and that's the word he left Angola with the other day, leaving his last African post, returning to Norway to retire.

Finding myself in India

The sun in southern India, on this very moment last week, was pouring in the window of the third floor apartment that the hijras, transgenders, eunuchs and gay sex workers rent as an office. I was there to get some background on HIV prevention, but mostly we talked about Krishna being sort of  male/female, just like (as they pointed out) themselves. Fourteen men, who prefer to be called women, so fourteen "women"---some in saris with charcoal eyes, others in t-shirts and jeans adorned in 'ornaments' (as one referred to his faux-gold jewels), others who could have just as easily been gay rights workers in New York's West Village (articulate, witty, with teeth a bit brown from too many cigarettes)---sat around the periphery of the room, studying me and no doubt passing judgment on my totally lame fashion. I could almost hear their thoughts, She could be so glamorous, so Lady-Di, with a few ornaments and a little attention to her hair...

India was beautiful (I had never been)---delicate and slender, were the words that kept coming to mind. Not only the people, but every gesture, every pause. Even the traffic felt delicate and slender, the flurries of 'beep beep beeps' of the rickshaws, compared to the attacks of 18 wheelers bearing down and the drugged out matutus we negotiate at great speed on the roads here. In India, it was the delicate gesture of the man, sitting one evening in front of his shop, pulling a thread from a rug; the rural woman taking her mobile phone from the cleavage of her sari; the pile of rose petals discarded on a residential sidewalk. On the way to airport, where the road is dusty and the side of the road is packed hard dirt, a dead tree's bare branches were adorned with giant, blow-up pink elephants and airplanes and beach balls---for sale for children's birthday parties maybe? The way they were hung so buoyant and red and yellow and blue, placed just so against the dust and ragged plastic of people's makeshift homes---was like a post-modern art installation.

I had expected (I was there for work) desperate, deformed beggars tapping constantly on the car window; I had expected swarms of frenzied crowds pushing through markets and lines; I had expected people grabbing me, and misery and hoards and pity and horridness. And naturally, there was that. But it was not all that. In my week of India, the desperation and misery was everywhere accompanied by pride and beauty. Beauty in a cart of bananas, a discarded flower petal, or a neglected, ancient ruin. It's not manicured, it's a not clean place. It's not orderly or efficient. It's not that, but it is something. I sometimes sensed beauty in what was not there as well, which is harder to describe. Beauty in absence---but absence of what? Maybe by 'beauty in absence', I just mean (despite the bombs in Delhi and state of emergency in Calcutta) peace.

Wait, this is crazy----who can explain India in a blog post? Certainly not me. And of course my India was imbued with a delicate beauty and a sense of peace: it was the first time in four years that I spent more than 24 hours without changing a diaper, negotiating a toddler's temper tantrum, or snapping up a car seat belt. It was the first time I had left the babes, and though it was agonizing and the longing was sometimes physical, it was also (God, please don't strike me down for this) kind of nice.

I look out my window now---here, back in my Nairobi shack---and the sun is sort of making its way out. The agapantha are blooming like mad, like dusty clouds of purple floating just above the babe's head. The jacaranda trees leave purple flowers carpeting the ground, the poinsettia's bushes are blooming too. The clouds are huge and dramatic. Bougainvillea spills out all over the place, and the white blooms of moonflower trees nod over the streams and marshes---this month in Nairobi is the most beautiful one of the year. But, because I live here, I don't stop to describe it as beautiful.

So perhaps our experience of a place---or a day or a moment---is totally informed by what we bring to that place, or day, or moment. Maybe I'm understanding that now, that our experience is truly shaped by how we wish it to be, how we chose to see it. The first sip of coffee each morning, the sun breaking through the afternoon clouds, the good friend dropping in unexpectedly----that's all we need beyond the essentials. That's all there is to desire,; that's where it ends, there's nothing more. Appreciate it, and you will see the peace, the delicacy, and the beauty that surrounds you, even now.

Lucky you.

Just back from India

South of Bangalore,
Thanksgiving Day 2007

Blog Action Day

Today, I just serendipitously learned, is Blog Action Day---a day when bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind. This year bloggers are coordinating to tackle the issue of the environment.

At the risk of sounding a little arrogant, just a bit coy---a tinge I'm so smarty smart smart---I'm going to venture to suggest that of the 15,861 participants (so far), no one will write about the droughts and floods of Garissa, Mandera, Wasir and Turkana districts. I bet no one has agonized over this issue this weekend---and how it has affected the children of Garissa, Mandera, Wasir and Turkana (including the Dadaab Refugee Camp!)---as much as I have. For I am editing a UNICEF report on the above, and spent the weekend (including Monday, a UN holiday here), hunched over the Multiple Cluster Indicator Survey 3, lamenting over the suffering due to the environmental devastation that is, no doubt, related to our recent global woes. And so, it's time to stop whining about the construction happening next door, and present the larger issue of how much of life is lived in Kenya.

I often edit these reports with a little bird of distress fluttering in the back of my mind. The bird is singing, Whooo is going to read this? Who is really going to read this! Honestly, when was the last time you read a UN report? Don't lie.

There's another little bird who replies: But these reports are not meant for your friend, your mother, your brother---they go to the donors who will rally funds for the crisis at hand; or to other UN agencies who will then act upon the information (the World Food Programme, for example, will distribute more food); or the media who then disperse the information in more colorful ways. They have a purpose! People read them!

Well, now you will read them too. (As the editor, I'm still wrestling with one problem of this report. The survey covers four districts, one of which is not like the others. I will not go into details here, but for those of you in the know, I'm ignoring Turkana for now. The following focuses mainly on the North-Eastern District). Alas, from the report:

The districts surveyed, characterized by Arid and Semi-Arid Areas, are Kenya's most vulnerable to socio-economic hardship. Among the world's most inhospitable regions, and traditionally marginalized since Kenya's independence, these districts significantly lag behind the rest of Kenya and the world in terms of social indicators.

Inhabited by pastoral communities, many live in a chronic state of emergency, having suffered extreme reversals between drought and flooding. The vast majority of those affected is the 16 million nomadic pastoralists who straddle the borderlands between Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Around half of those have been seriously affected and are in need of assistance, including 1.6 million children under five. (read more here)  

The drought has caused various groups and clans to move with their animals away from traditional grazing land in search of water and pasture, and such movement has yielded numerous violent inter-communal conflicts and subsequent displacement. Malnutrition is severe in the drought-stricken North-Eastern province. Almost 80 per cent of the populations in this region are nomadic pastoralists who rely on cattle for survival. However, as most of the animals have died of starvation, they now depend on relief food. (And read even more here.)

With the worsening drought and flood situations, men are taking what's left of their cattle to other grazing regions, leaving many women and children alone and with limited or no recourse. Some of the surveys indicators:

• One in every 12 children who are born in the surveyed areas will die before reaching his or her fifth birthday: 35 percent of children are moderately stunted (19 percent severely stunted); 16 percent are moderately wasted (3 percent severely wasted); and 35 percent are moderately underweight (11 percent severely underweight).

• The sudden rains that followed drought had a particularly adverse effect on the surveyed regions: water quality is often compromised as muddy ground water fills wells, and there's an increased risk of the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera. In the two weeks preceding the survey, 25 percent of children under five years had experienced diarrhoea.

• Pneumonia is the leading killer of children worldwide, causing more than 2 million child deaths each year. It kills more children than any other disease, more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. In the surveyed areas, 19 percent of children under five were reported to have had symptoms of pneumonia within the two weeks preceding the survey. Of these, 50 percent were taken to an appropriate health service provider. The rates is highest in Turkana, where 40 percent of children had acute respiratory infections two weeks preceding the survey.

• Cooking and heating with solid fuels (biomass coal, charcoal) create high levels of indoor air pollution that increase the risk of acute lower respiratory infections (especially among children), pneumonia, chronic obstructive lung disease, and cancer; and probably also agitates risk of tuberculosis, low birth weight, cataracts and asthma. Solid fuels are used for cooking by over 98 percent of the households surveyed, without significant variation between rural and urban areas.

How does this relate to the environment? Drought, flooding... all this suffering. Etc. The greater picture of why is not part of UNICEF's mandate. But the rumor on the street is that these problems are not going away. I even hear the phrase 'global warming' come up, quite a bit.

I worry for the world. With two children, I worry more so now than ever. But this is a remote part of an African country! Surely, no matter how long I live here, I will never become a nomadic pastorialist herding my cattle. What's it really got to do with me?

When the babe was a year old, we spent five days in the hospital battling his bronchial pneumonia. It was terrifying (though I paused every five minutes with gratitude that we had a hospital to go to, a doctor and antibiotics to rely on). The girl, asleep in her room, is coughing, brutally at times, as I write these words. Throughout the day, she's fine. At night, it's hell. Are these the normal ailments of children? Some say yes. Some say it's all part of growing up and tackling viruses and growing stronger.

I hope so. And I hope they grow very strong.

How to Move a Shack in Kenya

The blog series that I recently set out to write---13 pieces on Displacement, after the poem by Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (a most random and disparate assignment, if ever there was one)---has forced me to think about my life, and the world, and love and eternity, which has put me in a most awkward position.

No,wait. That's not exactly right. It's not the thinking about my life that frustrates me (who doesn't think about their life, blog or not?). It's the required conclusions that fluster me---though fluster is too gentle a word. And I should say it's the lack of conclusions---about living abroad; about poverty; about my Norwegian-speaking American children in an English preschool in a Kenyan suburb; about love and marriage and family all unfolding in the sort of detached bubble that is our transient life. Yes, it's the lack of conclusions that paralyze me. The joy of writing is that it forces one to reflect, to harness fleeting thoughts, to devise patterns and make sense of anarchy. It's a privilege, as my mother would say, and it's also why so many writers end up killing themselves.

Here's a question: Is it possible to draw conclusions about one's present life? Or is life not so elusive, so mercurial---and so fraught with secrets, self-deception, hypocrisies and fear---that trying to trap it into any sort of conclusion is as futile as trying to shape a tennis ball out of pond water?

It was in the midst of all this inner turmoil yesterday morning when a carpenter arrived with his guys to move the shack. For I had decided, in response to the construction next door, to move my office across the lawn, away from the ordeal. This, I felt with conviction, was the only solution to a year ahead of the cement mixer's incessant churning and grinding. This would give me back my peace, my acre, my space to write. This would show them.

When I proposed the idea to the carpenter who had built the shack, he replied with confidence. He would roll it on poles, naturally. He could get the poles in Karen. Shack-rolling poles, I thought vaguely, imaging people all over Nairobi rolling their shacks from here to there. I wondered, also vaguely, how we would bring these massive poles across town from Karen. I offered the old Range Rover. I wasn't reprimanded for my suggestion as much as dismissed and, having hardly pounded a nail in my life, I knew when it was time to be demure from the project.

A few days later, there were mumblings about the poles. Something, something... I don't know what. As the carpenter tried to explain, I wondered, vaguely, where old telephone poles go to die in Nairobi. They could work, maybe. I thought of train yards steeped in a blue morning haze. There must be some perfect debris around there; perfect shack-rolling debris. Meanwhile, I was growing anxious about the shack move. I loved the window's view; I had worn a path to its door from the main house. It was nestled in a deep corner of the garden, bordered by anthapanthia. What if it's new location was too close to the road? Too vulnerable to interruption? What if I hated it? Maybe the shack should stay. I could simply avoid looking toward the chain-link fence, wrapped in black tarp and festered with new security lights, that separated our plot from the construction. I could simply invest in earphones to block the rugged noise.

But, ignoring my hesitation, a new plan was proposed. Steel rods, slipped under the shack, and lifted by strong men. I sighed. I agreed. And for days I was amused by the thought of me, working in my shack, while being transported across our yard like Cleopatra.

It went on like this (poles, boards, many men, no men, this many shillings, that many shillings) as I grew more indifferent and distracted---focused, as I was, on trying to make conclusions about my life in Africa and what it all means. I had forgotten his final plan when the carpenter and his guys showed up yesterday with a few wooden boards and some rocks. I delivered them my faith and retreated to the house. It was not my place to judge.

The boards were abandoned almost immediately, and soon 15 men were engaged in discussion all at once, in Swahili. There was much to deliberate. The arguments, the encouragements and recourse, the considerations and earnest shaking of heads. Then there was the heaving together, and the letting go, the laughter and tongue clicking and ahh'ing and counting one! two! three! (why in English? I vaguely wondered) to heave together again. This continued, interspersed with deliberations and argument, well through the morning. The shack made its way incrementally across the yard, across the driveway, over a now ruined hedge, and into the furthest corner away from the construction, nestled among the anthapanthia.

We were all quite elated when it finally landed in its new spot. I delivered a case of Cokes and a pack of cigarettes to the men, and left to pick up the girl at school. Returning, we passed one of the men on the road, on his bicycle. A cigarette was dangling from his mouth as his bike glided along. His head was lifted up. He seemed to me to be singing. The morning drizzle had burned off, it was a perfect sunny day, the sun glittered on the road's wet rocks. He peddled a few times with the enthusiasm of someone who has just experienced his first kiss, or aced a test. He looked as euphoric as I felt.

Later, I read these lines in a poem:

"Instead I prayed, oh Lord, let me be something
     useful and unpretentious."