Getting in early

In September, the Sun is in the southern side of the ‘sphere. This means that here in Nairobi we get early sunrises. By 6.15 am. It’s already light and clear. Very good for me as I am a morning person.

September ’09 is also the month that Nairobi is hosting the 1st International Conference in Africa on Family Based Care (subsequently referred to as The Conference). SOS Children’s Villages International, through the Regional Office for East Africa is one of the organizers of this conference.

“Morning Roseanne, you come in rather early these days!” quips Harun the gardener as I pass him and greet him on my way into the office. Since the beginning of this week, I have come in with the sun, and found him still sweeping the fallen leaves and twigs from the paved pathway. I know Harun is very efficient at his work; he probably doesn’t appreciate co-workers coming early to find him with a pile of dead leaves. Ah, well, now I know for certain that its not that the trees are so well disciplined as to shed all their leaves in one neat pile at their base.

“Yes, Harun. This week you will continue to see me early mornings. Other than rising early to beat the notorious Nairobi traffic, I also have a lot of coordination work on my hands right now - I have three key functions to host!” I inform him as I smile, knowing that this might not have been the answer he had expected.

I enter the office as I make a mental note to ask the office manager if we can have a get together of all the visiting co-workers at the beautiful gardens at the Regional Office. I’m sure Harun would love to show off his diligent gardening to an appreciative audience.

In order to take advantage of the allocated travel resources - which have been rather scarce this year as National Associations practiced frugality - we moved some scheduled workshops and planned others strategically so that participants would not have to travel to Nairobi twice within this year. As a result, the next three weeks are –as we would say in KenEnglish - Bumper to Bumper. Simply put, it will be one meeting after another.

The International Child Protection Training for Investigators is the curtain raiser for The Conference, and after The Conference we will have the National Focal Persons in Child Protection Workshop aka the NFP Workshop. During this time, SOS Children’s Villages in Kenya, particularly the SOS Regional Training and Resource Centre in Karen, Nairobi, will play host to not less than a dozen people at a time, from Africa, the Middle East and Europe. I can hear it calling: “Goodbye routine, welcome melting pot of culture, knowledge and practice.”

I also hear the Centre Manager calling-“Roseanne, these are many people; we need to discuss the hosting of all these people!” I think they are not exceedingly many, I know they are just enough.