Weddings, weather & Wanderers

Yesterday we were invited/gatecrashed our boss's daughter's wedding out on the outskirts of Nairobi. Obviously, this being a Kenyan wedding, the bride walking down the aisle was scheduled for 10.00am; we got there at ten past ten and were the first people to arrive. The service kicked off soon after 11, and was a Baptist ceremony - which means lots of singing, clapping and "PRAISE THE LORD"s, which is all great fun. The Pastor also seemed to be reading from a Powerpoint presentation on his laptop, which seemed very progressive.

The ceremony was followed by a reception afterwards (at which point, everybody else turns up for the free food. Some human behaviour is universal). The reception was very bravely organised outside in a garden - we're currently in the height of the Kenyan winter, which means this:

As opposed to the height of the British summer, which means this:

And everybody (myself included) is complaining about the cold; to be fair, sometimes in the evening you really do need a sweater. I think I might find Christmas in London a little difficult.

All good fun - we got roped into dancing once (very much against my will, but when you're the only white guy in a large group you seem to get picked on quite a lot), and received 3 phone numbers scribbled on a napkin by a very amused waiter. We had to leave a little early due to other commitments (Premiership has restarted again! Finally - a month without football is more than enough). There's a sports bar near the flat with about 25 screens, all of which were showing the Aston Villa match when we arrived. I asked the manager if he wouldn't mind just changing one of them to the Bolton match - he very grudgingly agreed, and asked who I was supporting. When I told him he grunted again and said "I think you are the only one in Kenya", which is probably true.

Where is everybody?

After a week's leave, I came back this morning feeling refreshed, energised and ready to do some work. Unfortunately, when I got into the office, it was completely deserted. Tomorrow there will be a referendum on Kenya's new Constitution, and virtually the whole civil service has been conscripted into going campaigning.

It's a little unexpected, given the very strong separation in the UK between government employees and political electioneering. However, the political leadership in Kenya are very pro-Constitution, and so, by default, are their employees. The two camps have been campaigning for months now, although it's not always clear exactly what exactly it is they're campaigning for. The Constitution is opposed by the Church (because it contains some limited scope for legalised abortion), some groups who want to improve the Draft Constitution, and some politicians who just plain don't like those in favour of it. On the other side resides most of the political leadership, who seem to hope that the referendum will distract people from the myriad of corruption scandals recently.

It's been mostly peaceful, although people are a little tense following a grenade attack at an anti-Constitution rally which killed 6 people. 70,000 policemen have been dispatched to the regions, and the whole process is being continually monitored to avoid the allegations of vote-rigging which surrounded the 2007 elections, leading to mass riots and violence. Fortunately, tomorrow has been designated a public holiday, so we'll be hunkering down at home, seeing how it all plays out.