Hello from Pleasantville, Kenya

Hi everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve written. We have been busy setting up a household here in Nairobi. Starting from scratch…again, even working to locate a school for the kids. All very stressful. And even depressing as every step along the way seems to feel more and more like we are entrenching ourselves here in Nairobi.

We spent almost the whole day on Monday at the embassy filling out papers and learning about what level evacuation we are in, DefCon1? DefCon2? Whatever. Ok, this is actually complicated; I am not sure I even understand it all but we are ‘officially’ evacuated from Kisumu now and other outlying areas of Kenya as well. Oh, the kids are officially on Authorized Departure, We, are on Temporary Duty Assignments in Nairobi. Seems it’s unusual that the state department evacuates people to somewhere inside the same country. They evaluate the situation every 30 days so we may be here for 3 more weeks or…. Until they reverse these orders no one is allowed outside Nairobi without notifying the embassy and no one is allowed in Kisumu without the ambassador’s permission. We are hoping to start a rotation of the Americans to go in and out of Kisumu every few days, if things stay quiet around here. We have to manage the affairs of our house and the field station by remote control from Nairobi, which isn’t so easy, especially with work.

Also at the embassy we were all asked to be in a ‘meeting’ with the Regional Psychiatric Officer. Now THAT was interesting. You could have cut the tension in that room with a machete! What, ME stressed? No way, man! No, actually he seemed like a nice enough guy. And he had some interesting information about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome to share.

Do you remember the James Bond movie Goldfinger? The part where they drive into Fort Knox? I think of that scene every time I ride into the American compound which is where we are living right now. HUGE security. There are about 40 homes, they look exactly the same; it’s really Pleasantville! Very weird and not our style. ALL Americans live here. You’d hardly know you were in Kenya at all. Even the restaurant at the clubhouse only takes USD. The kids think we are on yet another vacation, they are doing really well so far. Kayla and I are frustrated; we are hoping our stay in Pleasantville is very, very short.