Waiting in Nairobi...

"What kind of people climb off a flight from London, late on a dark night, with 3 small children and 8 suitcases, to move into a flat in Nairobi that they have never seen- and never even heard about until 5 days previously?"
I asked myself this question as we did exactly that last Saturday!

I guess the answer is: people like us, who are still in post-evacuation mode from Juba!

We find ourselves back in Nairobi as we wait to see what happens next. We must begin to work through decisions to decide the best way forward for us as a family.
While we wait, we are grateful to our MAF friends based in Nairobi who found us an appartment to live in for this period.

We heard a few days before we left England that a 3-bedroom flat had just become available. It is only a few minutes walk from the Nairobi MAF compound, where most of the Kenya and South Sudan team are now based. The MAF compound itself is too full to accommodate our family, but happily, two other MAF families from our South Sudan team are based in the same block of flats where we are currently living.
It is such good timing that this flat became available. It is the only 3-bedroom flat in the entire block! All the others are 1 or 2 bedrooms, which would feel very cramped for both living and home-schooling.

It was a strange sensation to usher our 3 children into an unknown, dark flat, at nearly midnight, attempting to find light-switches, then scrambling through a muddle of suitcases trying to discover everyone's pyjamas and toothbrushes so that we could all get some sleep.

Thankfully, the beds were made up and clean towels were laid out. Kind MAF friends had stocked our fridge with the essentials like milk, bread, butter and jam. It was a relief to fall into bed and rest. knowing we had everything we needed for the next day.

In the morning, we began to acquaint ourselves with our new, temporary home. It is fully furnished, which is great. We discovered a TV, which is exciting for the children- and we found out that the flat is quite orange in its decor!

I am super-pleased that this flat has a washing-machine, as most of the other flats in this block do not. This does well for me on the popularity front, as I have offered to share the machine with the other MAF ladies living here :-)

There were no mosquito nets, so that has been Andrew's project this week, in between his flights for MAF here in Kenya.  On Thursday, Andrew bought and fitted nets for all the beds, after Esther revealed 30 mosquito bites on her skin one morning! Andrew and I were also fed up with the mosquitoes. We had had enough after enduring a few nights of being woken by that ever-so-annoying-drone of tiny blood-suckers diving at us in the dark!!

The boy's room: now fully protected against mosquitoes!

It has been a little tricky to adapt to the idea of buying all our water for drinking and cooking after a few weeks in England, where clean water miraculously comes out of taps in every household :-) In our previous African homes, we have relied on a water-filter to clean water from our taps. Our water filter is still in Juba, so for now I am trying to remember to buy 20-litre water cans when I shop. Obliging shop-workers have been helping me lift these huge containers into the trolley!

Andrew managed to find a tap this week which can be screwed into the lid of these giant water bottles, so that a bottle can be laid down and the tap used. Genius!
It is now much easier to access our water, rather than trying to tip these weighty bottles every time we need a drink or want to fill the kettle for tea!

The other aspect of our new flat which has needed some consideration is the sparse nature of  kitchen resources. We only managed to unearth 4 knives and just one cooking implement- a wooden spoon! I have realised too that the 5 dinner plates and 6 bowls provided in the flat mean that I can never leave the washing up- because if I don't wash up straight after a meal, we literally have nothing to eat off at the next meal!
I deliberated and then eventually decided that it was worth buying a few kitchen items. On the one hand it seems absurd to buy new kitchen-ware when we already own a full complement of kitchen equipment- but the problem is that it is all in Juba! Since we cannot access our things in Juba immediately, I decided it was worth buying a few essentials. 2 knives, a few tea-spoons, a potato peeler, a serving spoon and a spatula later, I was ready to cook family meals in our new flat!

So after these little adaptations, we are all set to get on with life in Nairobi for the temporary future. We have already started home-school (that is a whole new blog post!) and Andrew is fully immersed in work again. On Monday, Andrew will fly up to Juba and be based there for the whole week, flying within South Sudan, while the children and I continue in Nairobi.

Welcome to our new Nairobi flat: