So how was YOUR day?

Today is the day the opposition party says it will begin 3 days of “mass action”, what ever that suppose to means, around the country. So needless to say we are all a little jittery. The plan is for me to stay home and the kids can go to school, since it’s literally 40 meters from the house if there is trouble in the neighborhood I can go get them. Kayla has decided to go into the office, not the wisest choice in my view but whattya gonna do. The house staff has decided not to come in today either, can’t say I blame them.

The day was quiet; I walk down to school to bring lunch. I see that the embassy security guards have been hanging around which is a good sign. Then I start getting the SMS’s. ‘Tires are burning’ in the two slums (in opposite ends of town)… another one reads: ‘shots heard’… another SMS: ‘groups forming to try to move into town but dispersed’. So far nothing is threatening our neighborhood though.

After lunch Esther usually comes home and naps while Max stays til 4. This was still the plan until we were told a mob was headed down our street on its way to town. Then we heard them shouting, then the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Then we all went inside the classrooms and I sent an SMS to Kayla to tell her. The she send back a SMS that there is 'a mob near her office and she heard shots fired nearby' (probably the police).

Soon things quieted at the school, we never saw the mob, so Max and Esther and I walked (quickly) home. And the mob near Kayla’s office was dispersed as well.

Actually we feel pretty safe inside the compound and even throughout the neighborhood. There is really good security around us. We live near the residence of the opposition leader AND the Presidents statehouse so there is good guard coverage here.

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I have managed to connect to the internet through my mobile phone so I am getting some internet again. Nairobi office is sending down a box full of Blackberries (heaven help us now!) and they will start BB service here so we are always connected. And they are bring us one special VSAT that I will be able to hook up to our laptop so we’ll have independent internet (and satellite phone) connection that is not dependent on any infrastructure at all.