Jon Yates

A kaleidescope revisited ...

2008-10-14T18:20:00.004-04:00

It is a funny feeling to live through historic times. I awoke today to more bank nationalisations on Radio 4 as our long-unquestioned economic rules are not just questioned but overthrown.

Our world feels in flux. Where have I heard those words?

In the aftermath of September 11th, Tony Blair addressed the Labour Party conference. In the midst of the chaos, he saw an opportunity: That opportunity died in the cold horror of Iraq. And yet, today the pieces are in flux again - what should we do before they settle?

What the world needs is a crisis

2008-10-03T15:08:00.004-04:00

There is a palpable sense of relief here in New York*, as news breaks that congress has finally passed the bailout bill which will provide a $700bn loan to US banks. But, how much is $700bn?

As Eddie Izzard noted, once you get past a million of anything our mind just flips; “You kill one man, you go to jail. You kill 10 men, they send you to Texas and shoot you. You kill 50 men and they put you in a round room with padded walls and give you a little round window to stare through. You kill a million people and … we just can’t handle it. We almost just say … ‘Well Done!’

Basically, it's a lot of money. It's what you get if you got a gun and stole $2000 from every single American man, woman and child.

It's also seven times larger than the total amount that the world spends on international aid every year. And that raises a question. Why were we able to find $700bn this week, but we could only find $100bn for the developing world? Why have we managed to find a bailout for the developed world's economy, but only words of goodwill for the developing's?

The answer the politicians will give is this; "This was a crisis. Something had to be done."

Which raises a more disturbing and personal question. How have we - who claim to care so much about the lives of those living in poverty - failed so completely to paint their plight as a crisis?

Time to call in the marketeers perhaps?

---

* Where I am completing my final days of debriefing with Acumen - an American non-profit.

You may have wondered what happened to me ...

2008-09-29T14:53:00.004-04:00

I was the guy who headed off to somewhere in Africa and started sending you emails about what I was doing. Remember, I was doing something faintly worthwhile which you suspect may have had something to do with business. I was the one with red hair. That's it, that's me. Well, that thing I was doing ... I've finished it.

In case you are expecting see me when I'm back and want to appear a bit more informed (!!), here's are some words you could drop:

Kenya: This the country I was living in for the last 9 months. It's a beautiful country, where you can get accidentally teargassed (http://jonyates.blogspot.com/2008/01/arrival-of-irresistable-force.html), climb massive mountains (or just look at the photos of others doing so) and make great friends (including the woman who begs on our street who I accidentally invited round for lunch).

Acumen Fund: The organisation crazy enough to employ me. They're a non-profit investment fund (there seem to be a lot of those at the mo!!) who invest in businesses that could change the world - like the one that I helped which employs low-income farmers to make anti-malaria drugs or the one that wanted to make energy from rubbish (http://jonyates.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-do-i-actually-do-all-day.html)

Lisa: This is my wife, who had the good will and good humour to travel with me, facing ludicrous shopping experiences (http://jonyates.blogspot.com/2007/11/we-win.html), amazing school songs (http://jonyates.blogspot.com/2008/05/5-things-that-happened-to-us-since-iast.html) and seeing her husband getting bullied by two little girls (http://jonyates.blogspot.com/2007/12/kenyan-wedding.html).

And so - my year of adventure over - it's time to return to the UK. So, have I changed? Well, the hair's still the same colour (though I sometimes wonder if it's slightly receding). Maybe in one way. I feel inspired. Inspired by the entrepreneurs I have met. People no different from you and me apart from they are prepared to take a risk. Prepared to invest their time, money and effort to set up businesses in East Africa. Businesses that provide jobs, income and change - three things the region desperately needs.

Looking forward to catching up soon,
Jon

PS I am vaguely planning to keep the blog going, with shareable news of the National Citizen Service and other entrepreneurial hopes. Hopefully see you there: www.jonyates.blogspot.com

What do I actually do all day?

2008-05-23T12:23:00.002-04:00

In writing my list of things not to write about on a blog (Your bank details, Your secret membership of the Klu Klux Klan, Your addiction to alcohol/drugs/tea/highjinks*, How you used to fancy Maggie Thatcher, How you still do fancy Maggie Thatcher, How you think you are Maggie Thatcher), I noticed that nowhere on that list was talking about what you actually do at work. But I actually never do. So ...

Rubbish in Nairobi is a problem. Well, rubbish anywhere is a problem - but there's a lot of it in Nairobi. Unlike trees which there are increasingly less of as people keep cutting them down to turn into charcoal. A couple of weeks ago I met a Kenyan who wants to set up a recycling plant which will turn rubbish into charcoal. Neat idea huh. So today, I tried to work out how he could do it profitably. And if so, we might be able to invest.

*Delete as appropriate

Five things since I Iast blogged

2008-05-22T13:45:00.003-04:00

(1) Jon invites a work colleague round for lunch. "Can I bring my sister?" "Course you can." Friend and sister arrives. Sister looks very familiar. "Hang on, aren't you the woman who sits and begs on our street?" "Yes." "Great. Tea of coffee?"

(2) Jon decides to cook a pancake. I wonder what happens if you accidentally drip hot oil in the blue flame. Oh look a massive fireball.

(3) Lisa visits school with NGO she is volunteering with. Attends session on sex and relationships. Session starts with a rendition of 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes'. Turns out there's a second verse. "These are my private parts, private parts, private parts and no-one should touch them, no-one should see them, no-one should play with them." With actions.

(4) Lisa and Jon hire a 4*4 and Jon drives it round an almost deserted gamepark. Oh look a massive bit of mud. Oh well, how sticky can mud actually be. Apparently, very sticky. Car stuck. Fleeting idea of proceeding on foot abandoned due to wild - possibly man and woman eating - animals. Lisa half way through count of number of days food supply will last when spinning wheel suddenly gets traction. Huge sigh of relief as car launches forward. At least we're through it now and on our way. Five minutes later: "Crap. I've read the map wrong. This isn't the right road after all."

(5) Jon starts providing management assistance at a new firm. With company that grows artemisinin leaf and converts it into anti-malarial treatments. Not such a funny story - but feels kinda significant.

So, what have you been up to?

Nairobi Village

2008-03-16T06:47:00.005-04:00

Lisa is singing in a concert today (and yesterday actually - and yes, I am going to both). As you may have guessed from this, she's joined a choir - the Nairobi Music Society to give it its full name.

Watching the choir perform yesterday I had three revelations. Firstly, my wife has a great voice. Secondly, all you really see of a conductor during a performance is his butt. Thirdly, in some ways - as an expat or middle-class Kenyan - Nairobi is a bit like a village.

For at the concert not only did my friends manage to spot (in an audience of 300) 'that woman from the gym', 'a teacher at my school' and 'that dutch guy I met the other day'. To add to the village fete feeling, we also spotted the UK Ambassador to Kenya and the head of the ongoing Peace Talks. Not bad considering this is a choir which doesn't pay any of its singers or even hold auditions. Having said that, they probably all just came to hear my wife.

Tribalism, bad. Nationalism, good?

2008-03-15T06:00:00.006-04:00

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." [Albert Einstein]
"We need to put tribalism behind us and remember that we're all Kenyan" [The leader at my church, in the height of the troubles]

It's funny how allegiances can look very different in different circumstances. In 1918, after the loss of a generation of Europe's young men, an unquestioning allegiance to one's country - so praised in the years proceeding - began to look unmodern, dangerous and ignorant.

Following the crisis in Kenya, it is tribalism that is under attack, and nationalism suddenly seems the hero of the day.

In today's world where rationality rules, any allegiance is an easy target. For a rational allegiance isn't an allegiance at all - it's a contract. And yet, who wants their friendships reduced to contracts? I believe I am a richer person for feeling a debt of duty to my family, my friends, my university college, my church, my faith, my fellow red-heads, the first firm I ever worked for and - yes - even to my country. Preventing conflict by destroying my allegiances feels akin to creating equality by destroying wealth.

Perhaps who we ally with isn't what matters. Perhaps what matters is how we perceive those outside the allegiance - the 'others'. In which case, maybe the solution isn't less allegiances, but more. Until there are no 'others'.

What do you think?

Things that could kill me in Nairobi

2008-03-15T05:46:00.003-04:00

(1) Fumes from the cars (there seem to be no rules about how much black smoke can come pouring out of your vehicles)
(2) Cars generally, especially Matatus (again seem to be no rules about slowing down if a somewhat confused ginger-haired, white chap is in the middle of the road)
(3) My inability to pronounce Matatus. I keep asking for Matatas - which means trouble (as in Hakuna Matata). In other words, I'm the idiot walking around town asking where I can find trouble.

Other than this, Nairobi is actually much safer than westerners seem to think. So far I haven't been (and yes this is a massive exercise in tempting fate) mugged, pick-pocketed, attacked or even looked at funny. Apart from the person I had a work meeting with yesterday, who spent the whole meeting grabbing furtive glances at my hair. Somewhat annoying. Similar I would imagine to how a woman feels when a man keeps on pretending not to be staring at her breasts.

At the end of the day, or course, the main causes for dying in Nairobi are dirty water, diseased food and living amongst sewage. We can't ignore the fact that I continue to live in luxury out here. Thinking of death makes me write a joke in a blog, it makes other Nairobians remember how their children died of cholera.

South Park, Football and Another Point of View

2008-03-13T05:35:00.002-04:00

In case you’ve never seen it, the South Park is a foul TV show, constantly verging on borderline blasphemy, racism and obsenity. However, it is also at times extremely funny. It tells the story of four third grade cartoon students: Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny and their everyday (or not so everyday lives). Like all good borderline blasphemous, racist, obscene cartoons involving third grade cartoon students, South Park also sometimes really makes you think. In one of my favourite episodes, the four boys enter an international handball championship with their school. Amazingly they excel and find themselves in the Handball Under 11 World Final, which is hosted in China and pits them against a Chinese Team.

With the game about the start, the camera zooms in on three Chinese men sitting by the side of the pitch wearing suits and holding microphones. Chinese TV’s commentators for the match. They sit there in staid conversation discussing seriously the likely fortunes of the Chinese team. Then suddenly something changes. As the American boys team start running onto the pitch to warm up, one of them puts his hands to his eyes, shouts something and then all three convulse with laughter. The camera zooms in, and all you can hear from our Chinese men, now on the floor with laughter is, “Look at them. Look at their big fat eyes.”

How do you respond to that story? Maybe you’re deeply offended? Or maybe you’re wondering whether it’s racist or not? Or who it’s racist against – the Chinese or the Americans?

I propose another response. That sometimes it’s just nice to look at something from someone else’s point of view.

I had my own South Park Handball moment last week while sitting in a Matatu on the way to visit a friend. On the radio (always played as loudly as mechanically possible) were two Kenyan men discussing the fortunes of the English Premier League (an obsession out here). As I listened they began discussing British football commentators.

As Brits may know, British sports shows take great delight in playing audio clips of certain African or South American football commentators. These clips sound something like this:

So I thought of South Park, when these two Kenyans reflected,

Kenyan 1: “Those British Commentators – hilarious. It’s like they’re in a library!”

Kenyan 2: “I know, it’s like this, “Oh and Tevez has indeed got the ball. And he is moving frightfully fast with it. And he’s brought back his foot and struck it ever so cleanly. And yes that is a goal. What a good goal that was. Very nicely done.”

Me and Kylie

2008-02-26T15:21:00.002-05:00

When Kylie Minogue first went on talkshows in America she always carried with her a copy of Vogue magazine. Then whenever someone mispronounced her name, she would pull out the magazine and say, "No Mi-nogue, like Vogue".

I'm currently looking for a suitable picture of Bill Gates for me to carry so that the next time someone calls me Mr. Yatt-ess (probably first thing tomorrow morning), I'll be ready.

If you don't find this funny, you are in some way broken.

2008-02-24T14:02:00.005-05:00

'How to write about Africa', by Binyavanga Wainaina

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her.

[... For more, go to http://www.granta.com/extracts/2615]

And how exactly did you get here?

2008-02-23T11:46:00.002-05:00

[I've totally nicked this idea for a blog entry from Rives (www.shopliftwindchimes.com), but hey.]

I've just got a list of the google searches that lead to my site. Some of them are pretty sensible and predictable: "jon yates", "acumen fund".

Some verge a little on the stalker: "yates london", "yates 2008". (As do the 3% of people coming to my site who arrived having google-searched for "Tricia Morente", one of the other Acumen Fellows.)

And then there are those that are just weird:
- "one-legged cyclist"
- "vote yates"
- "swhahili i love you"
- "you want something so bad you become selfish"
- "what does lee mean"

And my personal favourite, "show me the 7 dwarves".

Which leads me to a challenge. Who can get to my site with the most random google search. I'll be checking the stats again next week. A pint of Tusker to the winner.

Five words please

2008-02-23T09:28:00.005-05:00

A challenge for you dear reader. Five words to describe Africa. Don't think about it. Just write them down (you can even post them on the blog if you want to).

I'm serious. Stop reading go and do it. I'll still be here when you've finished.

-----

So what did you come up with? 'Magical'? 'Magical’? ‘Violent’? ‘Family’? ‘Backward’? 'Beautiful?' 'Corruption'? 'Community'? 'Oppression'?

Words are powerful things. Not least because they reveal how we imagine our world. And most of our words about Africa spring from two images of this vast continent.

Image 1: Africa as the dark and magical continent
This image paints Africa as a place of mystery. A place of magic and a place of adventure. A place where values still matter. A place where the importance of community and family have not been overtaken by love of ipods and colour televisions. A place where an elder is respected not shouted at by rowdy teenagers. A place of beautiful children with self-made toys playing outdoors against a backdrop of big skies and endless beautiful sunsets.

Image 2: Africa as the dark and dangerous continent
This image paints Africa as a place of fear. A place of instability and violence. A place where values are unaffordable. A place where the importance of protecting your tribe and family against all comers has not been overtaken by enlightened self-interest. A place where an elder is busy organising election fraud, corruption and coups while teenagers sit on the side of streets out of work and out of hope. A place of sick children with distended stomachs playing outdoors amidst the sewage against a backdrop of slum housing and endless hunger.

Now I don't want to be the self-righteous ass that delights in pointing out how wrong these perceptions are. Partly because - like all clichés - there's actually some truth in them. I also don't want to be the pompous traveler who tells you that these are massive oversimplifications, simplifications that remove from people here their human complexity. For what choice do you have? How on earth are you meant to hold in your head what life is like for 800 million people living in 53 different countries, speaking countless different languages, remembering countless different histories and praying to countless different gods. Unless you enroll in a PhD in Africa studies, surely the only choices you have is to simplify.

Well, maybe there’s another option.

For there is a image of life that is highly complex that you hold in your head everyday with ease. An image where you understand that humans - by their very nature - are complicated and contradictory. An image where no human is reduced to being only magical and pure and no human is completely violent and backward. It’s the image you hold of your own country and your own friends.

And here's the controversial bit. Maybe, just maybe, - once in a while - we'd be better off when we think of Africa and Africans, starting off by thinking of our own country and our own friends. And then making the dangerous step of assuming that people in Africa aren’t actually that different.

At least that way – whilst we may lose critical cultural, historical and religious differences - at least we don't remove from the African the most human attribute of all – complexity.

Caption Competition!

2008-02-20T06:53:00.003-05:00

Don't know if you saw this on the news, but George Bush is in Africa (where people generally love him - which incidentally is kind of fair enough seeing as he promised $15bn to the continent for AIDS work, which he recently doubled to $30bn. I know the dollar is now worth about a handful of M&Ms, but that's still quite a lot of money.)

While there, he visited an Acumen Fund investment, A to Z, who make malarial bednets. That's worth blogging about partly because it let's me tell you that A to Z produce a malarial bednet which lasts for 5 years, rather than 6 months (thus saving numerous lives). But mostly because it allows me to launch a caption competition. Here's the photo and my own attempts at winning:

Bait-based approach to capturing Bin Laden enters second week

or ...

Key Obama strategy for changing America unveiled

or ...

Supreme Court rules punishment recently imposed on two African-American women 'cruel and unusual'

Omer's dark side

2008-02-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

Omer is the manager of Acumen Fund's healthcare portfolio. Basically he helps us to assess potential investments in organisations that provide healthcare. He's also got a rather large dark side. He sent me this poem today, which I liked and thought you might too:

---

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog,
and nobodies dream of escaping poverty:
that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them --
will rain down in buckets.

But good luck doesn't rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever.
Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle,
no matter how hard the nobodies summon it,
even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin their day with
their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing.
The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.

[Eduardo Galleano]

The oldest person I have ever met

2008-02-04T01:49:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Lisa, Catherine and I went to visit a farm that's run by the mother of my colleague Wendy. Now Wendy has two almost-teenage children, so I was expecting her mother to be a relatively sedate older woman.

I was wrong. Wendy's mum is 70 going on 50 and I'm pretty certain she could have beaten me in both a verbal and physical fight! (Although the warmth of her welcome convinced me that neither was immediately likely.)

After meeting her mum, I remarked to Wendy how fit and healthy she looked. Wendy replied, "You should meet my grandmother."

Wendy and her grandmother

Wendy's grandmother is 112. That makes her the oldest person I have ever met. And probably older than the oldest person you have ever met. I say that with some confidence as although the age of the world's oldest person frequently changes (mostly because they tend to die with alarming regularity!), the present oldest person is only 114. So if I come back in two years time then I'll be meeting a record-breaker!

Who Scares Wins

2008-01-31T15:12:00.000-05:00

I heard a rumour today that the British Army soldiers who normally train and are based in Kenya have left. Yes, that's right - that's the British Army that hangs out in such health-and-safety approved locations such as Basra and Kabul.

I guess unlike Catherine and I, they're just not ...

The weird thing about this sort of reflection (apart from the fact that it involves a bus with the word 'Amazing' embossed on the side) is realising that although you can go home if things get nasty, your colleagues and many of your friends can't. They actually live here full-time and it's their 'home' country that is burning. Sometimes it's the most obvious things that catch us off guard.

Returning from a holiday

2008-01-29T03:20:00.000-05:00

Returning from a holiday is always an unpleasant experience. Coming back to a home that is messier that you expected and a list of chores that you had forgotten about is a sure-fire way to make you feel in need of another holiday.

We came back from a holiday on Sunday night. And sure enough, the home was messier than I expected and the chores were waiting to surprise me. With them, however, was something that I didn't expect and hadn't experienced before - news that the place we had been staying was now the source of tribal violence.

Lisa and I spent last weekend in Naivasha, "definitely go to Naivasha", we were told, "there's been no violence there - you'll be perfectly safe."

And we were perfectly safe. On Saturday night we slept peacefully in our deserted hotel with glorious views of Lake Naivasha's shoreline. We slept safe and sound while 20 kms away 9 people were burnt to death. We slept as mobs arrived in Naivasha and looked and found Luos to kill. And on the Sunday we drove back through the town centre - the centre we had driven through just two days before. The town was was almost deserted. And the main road was now impassable - with heavy rocks and bricks scattered across it.

On returning home (via a different route!) we reassured family that night that we were safe and well. We reminded them that we had been staying at Lake Naivasha, not Naivasha town. For all the violence in the town centre, we were surely perfectly safe there; "Here is always peaceful" more than one local told us. Locations like the rural cottages at Fisherman's Camp, the giraffes and zebras near Crater Lake and the fine food at the Lake Naivasha Country Club were surely the last places that violence would reach.

This morning I was somewhat unsettled to read this on the BBC website, "On Monday, there were tense stand-offs between the rival gangs. Outside the Lake Naivasha Country Club hundreds of men from Kikuyu and Luo sides are being kept apart by only a handful of police officers, who are firing live rounds into the air."

Critical but stable?

2008-01-29T02:40:00.000-05:00

In hospital dramas, when a patient has just come through life-threatening surgery and the director wants you to know that their life has been saved, they are often referred to as being 'critical but stable'. In other words, things are pretty nasty, but they are unlikely to get worse and - in fact - we can pretty much predict things getting better from here.

Up until now I would have described the situation in Kenya as 'critical but stable'. There had been and continued to be significant violence and loss of life, but it was predictable and decreasing. I knew where the violence was likely to be (the slums and out west in the rift valley). And I felt I could plot a graph of decreasing violence as more and more Kenyans became tired of the troubles and (more sadly) as the mobs in Kikuyu and Luo majority areas ran out of minority groups to displace.

But today - as I reflect on the last night's murder of Mugabe Were, an opposition MP shot at midnight at the gates of his house, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7214558.stm and the spread of violence to Naivasha - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7212493.stm- Kenya feels much more unpredictable and that 'critical but stable' status is edging towards 'critical and unstable'.

Remembering December 27th one month on

2008-01-27T14:24:00.000-05:00

In the tragedy of what has happened in Kenya since the election, it is easy to forget what actually happened on the day of the election, December 27th. For that day was not a day of conflict, of tribalism or of war. It was a day of pride for Kenyans everywhere. For on that day, one month ago today, millions of Kenyans of all tribe, tradition, religion and gender queued together peacefully, calmly and joyously. Together they stood in line - most of them for many hours. Together they stood in line - many of them in the noon-day sun. Together they stood in line - and together they voted. As one they headed back to their families and waited for a result. At first it did not come, and then it came will doubts, questions and finally violence.

In between December 27th and December 29th , someone stole from Kenyans their peacefulness - and with it much of their pride and dignity. And today, as January 27th draws to an end, Kenya desperately needs its leaders to step forward and reawaken the spirit of December 27th. At the moment, I’m not holding my breath.

Two views of Nairobi today

2008-01-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

Lisa saw a beautiful and brave sight today. She saw 50 Kenyan women marching past our flat. She saw them holding pictures of the opposition leader, wearing the opposition colours, and singing peace songs as they headed to a local church.

Jon saw an ugly and fearful sight today. He saw 50 Kenyan women run and scream past his office. He saw them panic as the smell of tear gas filled in the air. He closed the windows of the office and returned to work – it is amazing what seems normal after a while.

Something completely different

2008-01-10T02:38:00.000-05:00

I managed to find some free time yesterday to update the website for Lee Abbey Camp - the camp for 13-18 year olds that I help to organise. The most pressing job was to change the intro to camp which was pretty factual and non-inspiring. I've replaced it with something that instead of describing the campsite describes our values. See if you like it.

---

We believe that young people are part of the solution not part of the problem

We believe we’re happier when look out for each other

We believe that life would be better if it was a bit simpler

We believe people should be real We believe everyone’s got a massive creative streak

We believe some people take themselves too seriously

We believe God is something that can full us with awe, not just embarrassment.

We are Lee Abbey Camp. What do you believe?

---

You can see more about it here: http://camps.leeabbey.org.uk/
If you know any 13-25s who want a chance to escape from normal life for a week or two, a chance to have some fun, meet some new people, and – if they want to – find out what they think about the world and what they think about God, then do let them know about it! We have some spaces left for this summer!

They're sending in the Big Guns

2008-01-05T23:39:00.000-05:00

International attempts to mediate the crisis have focused on sending in internationally respected mediators. You've probably heard on the news that they've already sent in

Desmond Tutu

and the Head of the African Union, John Kufuor

But I can break to you the news that our own Foreign Office is stepping up to the plate. I just got an email that they've just decided to transfer in from Sierre Leone my best mate, Rob Collett.
All I can say is, watch this space. (oh and welcome to Nairobi Rob, I've missed you!)

Normality if you can afford it

2008-01-04T10:50:00.001-05:00

A view of Nairobi that you might not have seen in your papers.

At the time this was taken, our guest Bridget was speaking with an organisation that works in the largest slum in Nairobi. She was told that the police have sealed the slum to stop trouble spreading. This means two things. People like me can go to the pub in peace. People also like me (but with much less money) are trapped in the slums where food and water supplies are running out. Probably something you also might not have seen in your papers.

A tale of three countries

2008-01-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

I want to tell you a story. There once was a small peaceful country on the coast of a large continent. A country where people voted on tribal lines and lived in tribal enclaves speaking tribal languages. A country where violent invasion and occupation defined recent history, where the older generation could remember the fight for liberation. One day recently this country held an election and no-one was sure who had won. In fact no-one was clear for half of a year. And so there was no government in that country. And yet there was no violence here. No fighting. No murders. This country is Belgium.

I want to tell you another story. There once was another country. A vibrant diverse country - full of different tribes and voices. It was a young country still feeling its feet in the world. A country noticeable for its inequality - where wealth and poverty sat side by side. One day recently this country also held an election and no-one was sure who had won. Although, in fact, half the country was sure - they were sure their man had won and the other half were sure that he hadn’t. And for five weeks no-one knew who would rule - and rumours spread of fraud and election rigging. And yet there were no riots, no looting and no violence of any kind. This country is the United States of America.

I want to tell you a final story. There once was a third country, that was much like the other two. It too was a small peaceful country on the coast of a large continent. It too was a diverse country where people voted on tribal lines and spoke tribal languages. Its older generation could also remember liberation day. And it too was noticeable for its inequality - wealth and poverty sat here side by side. Just like the others, one day recently this country held an election and no-one was sure who had won. But this time as the rumours of fraud and election rigging spread, there was violence, there was looting and there were murders. Kenya has now gone 7 days without a fully legitimate government and 300 people are dead.

So what is the difference between these three stories? Why are 300 people dead in Kenya, but none in Belgium. What have 70, 000 Kenyans had to flee their homes, while not a single Gore-supporter felt the need to even move down the road?

The thing is Belgium and America have something that Kenya doesn’t. And - to make matters more complex - it’s not something you can see. It’s not pothole-free roads, schools with textbooks or affordable hospitals (although those sure help!). But it is something you’ve experienced every day of your life. It’s the thing that’s made every group you’ve ever been part of work or not work - whether it’s a marriage, a church or a business. What is it? It’s trust. Why didn’t Belgium become a government-less anarchy? Because the Belgiums trusted each other to get on with their lives in the interim. Why didn’t America fall into a second revolutionary war? Because the Americans trusted the courts to make a decision and everyone else to respect it. The trouble is that trust isn’t built in a day, but it can be destroyed in a moment. And at the moment, Kenya seems to be doing more destroying than building.

Arrival of the irresistable force

2008-01-03T06:19:00.000-05:00

Tear gas really hurts. And I'm standing miles away on the balcony of my flat. My eyes are watering and I can feel my throat burning. I go to the bathroom to wash my eyes. Outside, our street - which was completely empty just ten minutes ago - now contains two to three hundred young men on foot carrying pictures of Raila Odinga, white flags and small tree branches with another hundred sitting in cars backed up along the street.

They were chanting at the time the tear gas was thrown, “We are here for peace. We do not want trouble with the police. We want peace.” They have stood for the last twenty minutes at a road block at the end of the road where the police chief has spoken in Swahili and English, asking them to disband. As I type, the cars are starting to turn round and the majority of the crowd is heading back the way it came. The immovable object seems to be winning.

Today is going to be a bad day in Kenya

2008-01-03T03:26:00.000-05:00

Some questions are unanswerable - such as "What noise does a one-handed clap make?", "How can Mike Huckabee know so little about the world?" and "What happens when an immovable object is met by an irresistable force". Those who want an answer to the last of these questions should focus their eyes on Uhuru Park in Nairobi today - the proposed site of an Opposition rally against the recent election result. A rally that the government says will not be allowed to go ahead.

This morning I headed to the airport to pick up a visiting friend (I know, not the best timing!). On the way there, I passed trucks fulled with armed police manning temporary roadblocks. At the airport, I read in a national paper that the Opposition leader will not allow his march of 1 million people (in practice men) to be stopped. As we travel back home, I ask my driver whether there will be violence; an immediate answer, "Yes". "How much?" I ask, "A lot ... it will be terrible." We sit in silence for the rest of the journey.

And now as I sit in my flat, the national TV network is looping messages of peace while the two groups head ever closer towards each other. Today is going to be a bad day in Kenya. How the leaders respond tomorrow may well define the future of this country.

Why so much violence … and why so little?

2008-01-02T06:26:00.000-05:00

I’m sorry but I like statistics. And here’s a good example of where stats help to explain the world.

One question you might be asking as you look at the news from Kenya is ‘why is there so much violence’? One statistic helps to explain the amount of violence. Kenya’s population is incredibly young; three-quarters of Kenyans are under 30. That is a lot of, often under-employed young men; it would be much harder to imagine these riots if three-quarters were over 30!

However, the bigger puzzle is not ‘why is there violence’ but rather ‘why is there so little violence?’ Nearby counties like Rwanda and Burundi have succumbed to violent civil wars while Kenya never has and likely never will. The difference is not the degree of wealth, the influence of religion or the extent natural resources. It is the statistic that tells you the number of tribes in these counrties. Rwanda and Burundi have two main tribes (Hutus and Tutsis) each big enough to wipe the other out. This knowledge means each is easily provoked into violence as a form of defence. Kenya meanwhile has 42 tribes! With no one tribe big enough to wipe all the others out, and the 41 non-Kikuyu tribes too disunited to threaten the Kikuyu, Kenya remains an unlikely location for continued violence.

How not to run an election: 7 handy hints

2008-01-02T06:16:00.000-05:00

When updating the electoral register, omit the Opposition Candidate’s name so that he cannot vote. This is a low-effort, high-visibility way to appear like you’re pulling a fast one.
Time the announcement of the results so that the Opposition stronghold results come in miles before the Government stronghold results. That way you can massively raise expectations amongst opposition supporters before you dash them later.
Selectively ignore rules. In regions where the government is strong ignore the rule that regions can’t submit results on photocopied paper, that is a great way of adding to any conspiracy theory about fraud.
Make a result better for your candidate by pretending people voted who didn't. Do this in one constituency in such a way that voter turnout equals 115%, that should suitably worry the international community.
Stop announcing results for a day, even though the ballots have been counted so that people have a reasonable length of time to get properly suspicious.
When announcing the delayed results, ensure the numbers differ from what journalists actually present at the counts thought they were.
Let the Chairman of the Electoral Commission announce the President as the winner. Then wait two days. Now let him announce that he’s not too sure after all. This should ensure that anyone who wasn't freaked out before is now.

A foolish thing to do

2007-12-27T09:23:00.000-05:00

A wise person once said that you are much better off predicting the past rather than the future (or something like that). On that basis it is clearly a foolish thing to try to predict the result of the Kenyan election before the results are announced. However, where angels fear to tread and all that ...

There are two main candidates in the election for President. The first is (the present) President Kibaki, praised by many for the 6% economic growth he has overseen and criticised by others for the limited reductions in corruption he has brought (despite promises of 'zero tolerance'). The second is the polarising and charismatic figure of Odinga Raila. Seen as a man of the people by many in Kenya, others (especially in the business community) fear that he has not lost authoritarian and state socialist leanings that they claim he gained from an education in East Germany.

In practice, politics in Kenya remains highly tribal. Kibaki's electoral support today will come largely from his own Kikuyu tribe (the largest tribe in Kenya), meanwhile a huge part of Raila's popularity to non-Kikuyu comes from simply from not being Kikuyu.

So now the foolish part! The final poll before election day gave Raila a greater share of the vote - roughly 43% to Kibaki's 41% (a third candidate took the remainder). However, I predict we will wake up tomorrow to news of a Kibaki win by 1%. Voters tend to be more risk-averse when in the polling booth than they were when talking to a pollster. Just ask Neil Kinnock.

Part of me hopes I am wrong. A Kibaki win that narrow is likely to lead to claims of vote-rigging. If I am right, an even bigger question will arise, which is even harder to predict. How will Odinga Raila respond when his followers and supporters start calling for him not to recognise the result? Kenya could be about to live in 'interesting times'.

Local people dancing local dances

2007-12-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

One of the big issues in international development is how you make sure that the work you do is empowering and based on real needs and desires of local people. At dinner the other night a new Kenyan friend who works for a local NGO said something worth repeating:

"Donors preach to us a lot about involving local people. But they make our deadlines so tight that all we end up with is a spot at the opening ceremony where local people dance local dances in local dress. What worries me most is that I'm not sure that anyone really minds."

Show me the goat

2007-12-18T07:24:00.000-05:00

Here are some things that make my blood boil. (1) Genocide. (2) Corruption. (3) People who say 'bartering' when they mean 'haggling'. Seriously how hard is it? Just follow this simple test: Ask yourself, "Have I brought a live goat with me?" Not so much? Then you're probably not bartering!!

While we're on haggling though, I have a question:

In Nairobi I haggle for food. All food. Religiously. "10 pence for a mango. How about 3 for 20?" [Obviously I need neither the extra mangoes, nor the 10 pence saving!]

Back in the UK, I buy fair trade food. "Guaranteeing the grower a fair price"

Am I being massively inconsistent?

Being one of the seven dwarves

2007-12-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

I've never been able to name the seven dwarves. Not a particularly shameful confession (unlike the fact that I tend to be a little unclear on elements of the alphabet - seriously what use is it after all!) - but a true one nonetheless. However, I always remember Grumpy.

Which is how I have been feeling this weekend. And I'm not entirely sure why.

There is a theory that all new teams go through four stages, and bizarrely it feels a little relevant.
Stage 1: Forming - you get to know each other's exciting habits
Stage 2: Storming - you start to get wound up by those oh so 'exciting' habits
Stage 3: Norming - you learn how to ignore those habits
Stage 4: Performing - you realise those habits can work together really well

Maybe Kenya and I have gone through our forming stage and we're on to storming. What's that like? Well, new horizons become a lack of old friends, exciting matatu rides become 90 minute sweaty commutes, and a world of possibilities becomes simply too many options. Bring on the Norming.

London is for wimps

2007-12-08T03:27:00.000-05:00

The two kenyans on the stage took a moment to answer the question. The worst thing about Kenya. They thought for a moment. The broad smiles broke out on both their faces as they both gave exactly the same answer, "Nairobi city centre at 5pm"

Nairobi is smaller than London. In total there are less shops, less people, less cars. But at 5pm on a weekday, it doesn't feel like it. And every weekday I am there, walking for 10 minutes across town from where one matatu arrives to where the other leaves. And I walk like Moses trying to part the red sea of people, but proving much less successful. With one hand on my bag (which I have been instructed to have in front of my body), I try to nip past people and dodge cars and matatus all pushing forward for each inch of space. Once I get home I feel exhausted - less from my day's work and more from my commute.

But at least I don't have to drive. I can't decide whether the drivers in Nairobi are the best drivers you have ever seen or the worst. They are definitely some of the most agressive. And the driving is some of the most unpredictable Here, lanes are for losers. Speed bumps are for deadbeats. And as you walk through it all, you can't help but feel that London is for wimps.

A Kenyan Wedding

2007-12-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

Lisa and I went to a Kenyan wedding this weekend with Catherine, another Acumen Fellow and an-ex friend of mine. Ex, after she posted this very derogatory video of me on Youtube!

The two girls kept us entertained for most of the afternoon. They proved particularly entertaining to me when they told Lisa and Catherine that they had beards.

Vote for me

2007-11-29T09:24:00.000-05:00

It's election time in Kenya. Through the smog of the city on my long commute home I can make out smiling faces of politicians on large bilboards. "Raila - One Determined Man" reads one. The newspapers are full of opinion polls and political intrigue (the latest story is about a supposed secret deal between the main opposition candidate and the Muslim community).

And on December 27th, the country will vote. They will decide whether the President who has overseen the recent upturn in economic growth has done enough to rule for 5 years more. One thing is clear, it is going to be close. And everyone's votes suddenly matter, including the million or more living in slums in Nairobi.

On Wednesday last week I went to visit a slum in Mathare, on the East of Nairobi. On the side of the road I saw women queuing up to collect water from a standpipe. "It won't be here in two months time", one of the locals announced. "I beg your pardon." "It won't be here in two months time. The government put it in place a month ago. Once the people have voted them back into office, they'll just take it away again."

By all accounts, corruption in Kenya is much less than ever before. And this tale is in fact very Western - the only difference is that in the West, the government buy votes with tax cuts, rather than running water.

I intend to return to Mathare in two months time and see if the water is still running. I hope I have to write the government an apology.

We win!

2007-11-26T15:26:00.000-05:00

[an entry from the wife]

Paying for our groceries yesterday in the Nakumatt supermarket we were informed that we had won a special prize. What excitement for a sleepy Sunday afternoon! Weekends haven’t seen such drama since I invited a load of kids to church and one of them pushed over a rather expensive motorbike to see if Christians really believe in forgiveness.

Eager to see what goodies we were about to receive, we dutifully followed the cashier’s instructions and made our way over to the customer service desk where we filled out roughly the equivalent number of forms required to section your own grandmother. Triumphantly we completed the last detail and handed them back, safe in the knowledge that our prize would come with a lifetime of unwanted and one-way communication from the supermarket chain.
Naturally, this in itself wasn’t enough to claim the treat. Form filling is one thing - but apparently a little ritual humiliation was needed to fully complete the process. Ushered to a tiny desk actually in the middle of a supermarket aisle, we crouched down trying to avoid the elbows and baskets of busy shoppers as we gave away yet more personal details - plus some advice on how to find an English wife - to our third friendly employee.

The session took on an increasingly surreal atmosphere as he whipped out a digital camera plus a giant-size version of the voucher we were to receive. Alice-in-Wonderland like, we posed in front of the tiny desk clutching the gigantic voucher as yet another employee (the fourth to be involved in this transaction) shook our hands. His repeated urge to ‘smile, smile!’ proved completely unnecessary as we eventually lost the battle we’d been waging to politely repress our hysterical giggles. Reluctantly we were allowed to go on our way, though not before the actual voucher had been placed inside a specially made envelope - (memories of Rowan Atkinson as the refined shopkeeper in Love Actually - ‘it is but the workings of a moment’). We bumbled our way through the rest of the process and eventually exited the store the wrong way through a one-way entrance, clutching our prize. It was the equivalent of about four pounds. I don’t want to be too nauseatingly ‘gap-year’…but just for interest…that’s about eight times more than a typical resident of the nearby Kibera slum would live on each day.

What not to read on a Matatu

2007-11-22T13:27:00.000-05:00

Can I recommend that if you decide to read a book called 'The White Man's Burden' you don't sit on a Kenyan matatu (another name for minibus) with it on your lap face-up.

"White Man's Burden. What's that about?"

"Well - um," said I, trying to hide the cover which includes the title in bold and then a picture of Africans queuing for free healthcare. "It's about development. It's written by this guy who was at the World Bank for years and became convinced that giving poor countries lots of development aid to implement grand 'save the world' plans didn't actually make them any richer. In fact it just helped bad government stay in power while making rich donors look generous."

My smartly suited questioner is beginning to think I might not be a closet racist after all - just a big geek.

"Yeah," I blunder on, "he thinks it would be better if the money went to support lots of bottom-up less-glamorous things."

"What sort of stuff?"

"I don't know really. I guess stuff a bit like the organisation I am working for does. Like lending people in slums money so that they can earn a living selling fruit. It might not make the front-page of the newspaper, but over time it might actually change some lives."

The one-legged cyclist

2007-11-20T08:47:00.000-05:00

Jamii Bora provides loans to some of the poorest people in Kenya. Often - over time - these microloans help them to transform their lives . Below is a recent email from JamiiBora's founder, Ingrid Munro, with one particularly inspiring story:

Dedan was a street beggar as a child and teenager. But a car ran him over when he was still a young child begging in the streets and his right leg had to be amputated. Dedan then had to learn to survive in the streets with only one leg. I first met him in 1994 when he was 14 years old. I talked with Dedan and his friends every time I passed them at the Kenyatta Avenue roundabout downtown where they used to beg from motorists. Dedan finally agreed to go to an informal school to learn how to read and write. However, Dedan was a difficult student and often ran back to the streets. It took a lot of convincing and counseling to keep him in school even for a few weeks at a time.

When Jamii Bora started as a Micro Finance institution in 1999, Dedan and his friends formed a small credit group called the Uhuru Highway Self-Help Group. They were all young beggars in the streets of Nairobi and, like Dedan, many had severe physical handicaps. Dedan tried to start several small businesses with loans of Ksh 1,000, Ksh 1,500 and then Ksh 2,000 (about US$12-25). Sadly, all his business attempts failed and Dedan kept slipping back to begging.

But the Jamii Bora staff never gave up on Dedan and kept encouraging him to try again. They feared he would be one of the few Jamii Bora members who never worked themselves out of poverty. Then one day Dedan came to the Jamii Bora office on a bike! He wanted to see me and show me a prize he won in a recent small bicycle competition. We were all stunned but happy to see him so proud and even organized a little ceremony to celebrate his success. After that day Dedan came often to get help to buy bicycle spares or just to talk about his new dreams.

Then a few weeks later Dedan returned with his bicycle and proposed that Jamii Bora employ him as a messenger. That would help us in Jamii Bora, he would have some income and at the same time he would spend his days biking and developing his strength and skills as a cyclist. As Dedan was already so well known and so well liked in Jamii Bora, we agreed to his surprising and innovative proposal. So Dedan became what is likely the only one-legged bicycle messenger in Nairobi and possibly worldwide. Dedan is now a skilled, reliable and fast messenger as well as a proud and charming member of the Jamii Bora staff.

Today is another big day for Dedan and Jamii Bora. This evening Dedan is leaving Kenya to fly to Colombia to qualify for the Paralympics in China next year. Dedan and his friend Ibrahim Wafula aim to represent Kenya in this prestigious global competition. So yet another Jamii Bora member has proven that not even the sky - or having only one leg - is the limit for what our members can achieve.

Ingrid Munro

We arrive

2007-11-16T16:28:00.000-05:00

The investor gathering is now behind us. Our worries about our presentation (see earlier blog) turned out to be completely unnecessary. It went so well, that we ended up being asked to perform it twice (!). I will try to include a video of the performance in a later blog. We got the feeling it might end up going better than we expected when the audience started laughing at the very first line (which we really didn’t think of as remotely funny!)

And so now instead, I find myself in Nairobi where we need to find a place to live! Thanks to the immense generosity of a friend of Catherine's (a fellow fellow), Lisa (my wife) and I are all staying for the first two weeks in an apartment near the centre of Nairobi. But come December we need to find a place of our own.

Catherine, Lisa and I went house-hunting today. It's proving surprisingly complex. We're trying to find a place which is safe, with internet access, within our relatively limited budget and with reasonable public transport links to the places we work. The most complex bit however seems to be working out how comfortable is 'too comfortable'. We don't want to be in a place that feels too grandiose - some of the early apartments we were shown felt a bit like four-bed mansions! At the same time, there is clearly something a bit rediculous about these consideration. There is a slight danger of us becoming like 'Gap' year students who take delight in living in the most-run-down place we can find so that we can say that we 'lived with the poor'. It is also clearly rediculous for us to pretend that by living in a two-bedroom flat in a walled compound rather a four-bedroom one we are just like the people we are here to serve.

On another note, I have noticed again (sorry Lisa) how clumsy my wife is. The score for today: one bashed head and three minor trips. She swears that she wasn't like this until she met me! Having almost wet myself last week watching Catherine bend down to pick up a piece of paper and almost knocking herself unconscious on the table she was sitting at, I feel a competition between the two of them may be in order.

Those missing U's

2007-11-11T22:16:00.001-05:00

Americans hate U's. They will defend their honor, paint with color, and put on armor. Which is all very well, but I would appreciate some consistency. Surely 'your' should be spelt 'yor'. At the end of the day, I guess us Brits are just more rigorous (then again, maybe not!)

The verbal differences between the two cultures continue to surprise me. My favourite one is the difference between the British word 'chuffed' (which is used nowhere in American) and the American one 'psyched'. Only the British would have a word for 'feeling a quiet sense of satisfaction'! And only the Americans would replace it with a word that meant 'feeling highly pumped up'.

The linguistic difference also hints at one of the things I most love about the US. To give-in to a cliche (I am increasingly convinced they are only cliches as they are so true), there is a much greater feeling of positivity in America than in the UK. A feeling of can-do.

Recent stats have been striking in showing that most Americans believe their country is going in the wrong direction. However, what is equally striking is that (unlike in the UK) most Americans believe that things can be improved; which incidentally is probably partly why they feel so frustrated. This was put rather neatly in something Lisa read the other day, "The difference between the US and in the UK is that Americans believe the situation is serious but not hopeless, while the Brits believe it is hopeless but not serious."

Getting nervous

2007-11-11T22:11:00.001-05:00

Three days till the departure and the fellows are nervous. Which sounds sensible, until you realise that we are more nervous about our 'performance' on Tuesday night than we are about leaving for the field on Wednesday.

Tuesday is an importance day in Acumen's calendar. The investor gathering (which one my friends thinks sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings* ... "the investors are gathering...")takes place once a year and is a chance for Acumen to communicate and discuss what it has achieved. It is basically the equivalent of a corporation's AGM.

Unfortunately for us, the highlight of last year's event was the fellow's slam poetry performance. Exactly. So we have big shoes to full. And we don't feel entirely prepared.

*To be honest, the whole idea of being part of a 'Fellowship' is pretty Lord of the Ringsy. I have expected to turn up on the first day to meet Legolass, Aragorn and Gimlee rather than John Tucker, Jawad Aslam and Tricia Morente.

Is it wrong to be 'selfish'?

2007-10-31T14:22:00.000-04:00

I'm not convinced that 'selfishness' is a very useful concept.

Let me explain. I keep having this conversation:
Me: "That person did a wonderful thing there."
Other: "Not really - it's pretty selfish."
Me: "What do you mean?"
Other: "Well they've only done it because they want to feel good about themselves. Or they want to look good. Or they happened to want to do something nice. It's all to do with stuff they want to do. So it's selfish."

If 'selfish' just means doing what you want to do, then it's not a very useful concept. Surely what matters about an action isn't whether you want to do it or not, it's whether it benefits others or not. How can wanting to do it make it bad! Instead, isn't it better that I do good things because I want to, not because I have to.

Imagine if someone you loved bought you a present, and then as you were unwrapping it they announced, "I want you to know I hated buying you this, I got it out of a sense of duty. I didn't want to get it at all." How would you feel? Struck by the great morality of the donor or hurt?

Instead of wondering whether our actions are selfish and unselfish, it's more meaningful to ask, 'Do I do what is good for others?'. If we find that that is also what we want to do - then so much the better.

Are you sitting comfortably?

2007-10-31T13:08:00.000-04:00

Acumen Fund has some amazing stories to tell (heard the one about the $4 eye-glasses giving sight to thousands in India?). The trouble is getting people's attention in a world where information is everywhere.

I and the six other fellows leave for the developing world in two weeks time, where we will work for 9 months with organisations that Acumen invests in. We will see some amazing stories. But how do we make sure we tell them in a compelling way?

That's why I'm sitting right now in a story-telling and film-making training session (ok, I admit it - I'm in a lunch break right now!).

Assignment #1 was to tell a story in 8 photos (it was actually 7, but I cheated). Here is mine. Hope you like it (try not to cry).

What does Lee Abbey camp mean for today?

2007-10-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

This is an article I wrote for the Lee Abbey magazine about the point of the Christian summer camp I help to run:

I was never cool at school. I’m not quite sure why that was - though, with the gift of hindsight - I might have something to do with being a ginger-haired, uncoordinated, overly academic, son of a vicar with a lisp. It’s hard to say.

In the summer of 1994, a fourteen year old, relatively shy, version of me sat in the back seat of my mother’s white car as it made its way down the hill to the Lee Abbey campsite. I was terrified.

Terrified because I had seen ‘Lee Abbey campers’ before. They were the crazy, unwashed savages, the bedraggled left-overs of William Wallace’s army who sprawled up the hill to defeat the House at sport. They shouted and screamed and wore facepaint. And now my mother – my own mother – had delivered me into their hands.

And yet it was these savages who saved my life.

It’s important to be clear that I was neither dying nor suicidal. My life was pretty good. Without the savages, I would have grown up, got a good job and lived to a ripe old age. But I wouldn’t have become me.

The real me.

For it was on that field that I began to learn that it was alright to be me. I learnt it – the Lee Abbey way - through community.

And every year, a new me appears and learns the same again.

Let me be frank, Our Generation is failing Tomorrow’s. In 2007, UNICEF rated the UK children as having the lowest standard of life in the developed world. Tomorrow’s generation is growing up swamped by examination pressures and electronic distractions, robbed of the joy of community and the beauty of creation, and pushed into tragic uniformity by peer pressure and global marketing.

And yet we know that this is tragic to our God for whom every child is precious, for whom every child is loved.

What so many of our children need is space and freedom. Space and freedom from their pressures. A place where they can remember who they were originally meant to be. A place where God moves through the power of community and the beauty of creation. It’s what camp means for today. It’s what camp means for yesterday and also for tomorrow. From the top of the hill, the campsite may look like a home for savages, but something miraculous is happening there. For on that field, children are learning to be children again. A lesson we adults could also do with learning.