Curse of the chicken
Curse of the chicken
It’s funny what the heat can do to you. Dreams become more vivid, when they chance to visit…..
I had to run from marauding chickens last night! I think the source of that very strange and properly disconcerting dream-sequence was the cluck we bought on the way back from court on Thursday – stuffed unceremoniously, she was, into a basket full of her feathered sisters on the back of a bike – she then spent the rest of the journey trussed up in the back of our jeep, randomly struggling to get out and filling the cabin with feathers and dust. I don’t know what it is with me and chickens in Kenya. First there was Frank, the yellowing ageing cockerel tied up at our work compound (remember him?), then those chickens strapped alive to the back of that motorbike in Kisii, and now this. Perhaps I should become a vegetarian……
I also curse and jinx any attempt by my FIDA colleagues (or any native Kenyan) to buy anything from street-traders, cos’ as soon as they see a Mzungu sat in the car the traders triple their prices: pineapples, bananas, chickens, anything tasty and everything coveted gets hiked in price. So the tactic now is to speed past the hawker, park me in the car some 100 metres in front and go and do the deal as if I wasn’t there. I guess it’s preferable and less ‘eyebrow-raising’ to putting a bag over my head, which was my suggestion.
No chickens
Anyway, on with the non-poultry part of my life……I’ve been packing as much into my remaining few weeks here as I can! Work is going really well. I’m on track to complete final drafting of the strategy after a training and feedback session with my colleagues here in Kisumu this week. Problem is, just like my work in the UK, I can’t stop fiddling with what I’ve already written and the fact that I keep meeting people with new information and innovative ideas makes it that much harder to PUT THE DAMN THING DOWN! I’m planning a similar feedback session with the Nairobi staff on the 10th February, which means completing the guide in the UK: then there’s the editing, final printing and, I’m hoping, essential return trip(s) to Kenya for updated trainings….!
Docu-soaps
Jackie and I spent a very enjoyable morning this week being interviewed for a TV documentary, can you believe it? We couldn’t, although Jackie was the consummate professional and I had to do my best to stop bursting out into laughter all the time. The programme is (very seriously) investigating the use and abuse of informal justice systems in Kenya, so pretty much bang on topic for me. I’m putting it at the level of ‘Animals Do the Funniest Things’ or ‘Fred Dibnah’s Favourite Steam Engines of 1863, Revisited’ for general televisual viewing interest but, you gotta take what you’re given in this life, huh? It’s going to Vienna for showing anyway, so there’s no chance of the spectacle being seen by anyone who knows me. Thank God.
Jackie, on the other hand, is already negotiating for her flight to Austria!
Martha Mundi and Seth
You’ll see the gorgeous Martha Mundi and Seth in one of the photos posted here. They are 2 of Charlie’s children (from work) and they’re completely lush! I took them out for a Saturday afternoon trip full of dodgem cars, funfair rides and ice-cream. I don’t know who enjoyed it more…..!
Sarah Obama
I spent Thursday morning pretending to be a pupil barrister again, following Jackie around like some irritating puppy at a rural court in Syria. We were representing an old lady who was fighting to secure personal tenure over the land of her late Husband. Well, Jackie was, but I WAS there in more than just spirit. The court was a pretty amazing experience. Not like the city courts in Kisumu, but with low benches in a small shed building, a pretty horrendous holding cell for all the prisoners awaiting their fate at the hands of the resident magistrate and more guns than could ever be necessary, really, I mean, a cache of them!
It’s a strange system here, where the police also directly prosecute criminal cases in lower courts, without legal training or expertise. So the ‘prosecution’ shed is just full of coppers. Weird!!
After court, we decided to ‘drop in’ on Mamma Obama. Now, I was convinced that – as the only famous Kenyan ‘relative’ of Barrack – she would be holed up in some compound mobbed by American tourists and monitored and protected by countless AK47s, CID officers, helicopters, CCTV and killer electric fences (which are pretty common here). How wrong I was. One very friendly and distinctly casual police officer, who told us that we should be ready to give her ‘a little something’ for her trouble in meeting us and that we should take a seat under the tree and wait patiently for her. It was rude to see the homestead and leave.
We didn’t have anything in terms of presents, so we determined that a cash offering was best in the circumstances. We did the obligatory photos; she couldn’t remember me from our plane meeting on my first day in Kenya (I was miffed) and she secreted in her dress the 500-bob note we offered her with jaw-dropping speed and adroitness….which almost made me congratulate her dexterity, she is 89 after all! But I held it in. It was funny, though. God….. I’d want some cold hard cash too, if it was a choice between that and hundreds of well-meaning, hand-made, but non-exchangeable sentimental gifts!
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