Sunrise

It's 6am and we are all awake. Outside the kitchen window the sun is spilling over the distant mountains. Lila and Uma's bags are ready, waiting at the door, their clothes laid out on the end of their beds. Today they are going to school in Iten.

Last Friday we all went to visit Sunrise Academy, a church-sponsored primary school that Maureen, Brenda and Hilda, our neighbours' children, go to. We were given a tour of the school and an enthusiastic welcome from the children, and arranged that Lila and Uma would come and spend a day or two in the class of their friends.

Perhaps their welcome was too enthusiastic, because now Lila is saying she doesn't want to go. She tells me she's scared. Scared of hundreds of pairs of eyes staring at her, hundreds of curious hands wanting to touch her, and of the noise of hundreds of shouting, laughing, overexcited children.

We arrive just after 7.30am, but most of the children are already in school. A few late-comers, who can't be more than three or four years old, run in behind us, wide eyed at the sight of these strangers. We walk over to the staffroom and greet the Deputy Head. He is seated in his office, a bare room with two simple wooden tables piled with paperwork and marking, a couple of white plastic chairs, a timetable stuck to the wall.

Hilda and Maureen come to take Lila and Uma to their classroom to prepare for assembly. Uma runs off with them, arm in arm with Hilda. Lila wont let go of my hand. She starts to cry. The Head Teacher, Henry, comes over, and puts his hand on Lila's shoulder. "It is normal" he says, "it is a new experience for her". Lila decides to wait with Ossian and I until after assembly, which is taking place on the grass square in front of the staffroom.

We are brought a chair and sit down to wait. Ossian wanders up and down the veranda picking up stones and throwing them onto the grass. Lila sits on my lap. From behind closed classroom doors comes the sound of chattering, laughter, bustling energy. The doors burst open and children parade out onto the pathways. The square in front of us is filling up quickly as they organise themselves into rows. I spot Uma, a big grin on her face, holding the hands of Hilda and Maureen. She disappears into a row of children, her head lost behind the row in front.

The entire school is now gathered in front of us, facing the veranda where we are waiting with the teachers. The youngest class of three and four year olds stand at the front, dressed in winter coats, their hoods pulled up over woolly hats. The strong morning sun shines in our eyes, it feels hot already.

A group of eight older children march out in front of the assembly, following orders shouted to them by another child. In military style they turn on their heals and salute the assembly. One of the group steps forward and raises the flag, everyone starts to sing, lead by two tall girls. The group salutes again and swivel on their heals to leave, marching off down the path.

Henry is addressing the children. Ossian starts to cry, the sun is too bright for him. As I carry him into the shade of the staffroom I catch a few words of Henry's talk. He is telling the children that we are all the same, that there is no difference between us. I wonder if this is for Lila's sake, to try and calm the children's overexcited behaviour at the sight of two little blond girls in their class.

Assembly is over, the children file out of the square and back to their classrooms. Uma reappears, still grinning. The sight of her seems to cheer Lila up, and she runs over and joins in the line behind Uma, glancing back to make sure Ossian and I are still there. We follow them into the classroom, a corrugated metal building with no windows, light streaming in from the gap between the walls and the roof. Pairs of wooden desks are arranged in rows, facing a large blackboard. Handmade posters are stuck on the walls.

Uma is sitting down at a pair of desks, squeezed onto the bench between two children. She is busy unpacking her bags. Maureen motions for Lila to come and sit down next to her, a small crowd gathers around as Maureen helps Lila to put her things inside the desk. A shout goes up that Teacher is coming, and the crowd disperses to find their desks. Lila seems to be OK now, so Ossian and I wave goodbye to the class and walk home.

Homecoming

We are sitting in our white Toyota Corolla with the engine running, unable to drive forwards or reverse. We are stuck in the driveway of a village primary school, surrounded on all sides by children in their school uniform, a swarm of red jumpers, buzzing with excitement.

We have been invited to attend the homecoming of four junior athletes from the school who won gold medals at the recent African Cross-country Championships. Godfrey has come with us, but he's just gone off to find some water. On his return, he can not get back in the car, or even anywhere close to the car. The swarm is reaching fever pitch now, shrieking and shouting hysterically, hands thrusting in through the open windows, pulling at our hair, grabbing hold of us. Godfrey shouts out to Adharanand to reverse, and starts to pull children out of the way. Slowly we inch backwards, winding up the windows as we go, Lila and Uma clinging on to each other in the back seat.

Godfrey takes us up to the centre of the village, a strip of dirt road with a handful of wooden shops on either side. We walk into a small blue building marked 'Hotel', which is actually a cafe. There are a few men seated at wooden tables, rickety chairs, benches along the walls, dusty red floor, blue painted walls, a framed quotation "failure is just a setback on the road to success". A wooden counter stands in one corner, a pile of solid-looking buns on a shelf behind the glass front. In the other corner, a butcher's shop shares the tiny room, the headless body of a cow hanging from a hook.

Just after one o'clock, three hours later than scheduled, a parade of cars arrives carrying the junior athletes, their families and local dignitaries. The schoolchildren line the driveway to the school, chanting and dancing as the athletes wave down at them from the back of a truck. The homecoming has begun.

Two marquees have been put up in the field by the school, shading rows of white plastic chairs, one for guests, the other for the athletes and their parents. A wooden table stands on the grass in front of the marquee, and beyond this sit the schoolchildren. Villagers sit on the grassy slopes behind them.

We take our places on the white plastic chairs, and as special guests are handed tinsel wreaths to hang round our necks. Ossian immediately begins to pull mine apart, keeping himself occupied for a good ten minutes or so while a group of children perform a song. And then the speeches begin.

An hour later and Lila and Uma are getting restless and hungry, wriggling about on Godfrey's lap. They've finished reading all the books they brought with them and there is no end in sight to the speeches. I take Ossian to play on the slope behind the marquee. Below us is a secondary school playing field. The children are coming out of class, wandering into the field. Suddenly they are running over in our direction, pointing and waving. Ossian and I wave back.

In our field, a group of women come over and ask if they can take a photo with us. I agree, and we soon find ourselves posing with one lady after another. Each one wants to hold Ossian for the picture, but he won't let them and starts to cry when they insist. After a while, the smile muscles in my face start to ache, so we get up and walk back to marquee. A cake is being presented to the children by six women. Now even Godfrey's making a speech. Where will it end?

It is past five o'clock, and there are still several more dignitaries left to speak before "lunch", which is the last thing on the agenda. The hot sun and eternal speeches have subdued the schoolchildren sitting on the grass. They stare at us with glazed eyes as we get up to leave. Lila and Uma have had enough, but before we can go, more photographs have to be taken with people we've never met.

We walk back to our car, waving goodbye to the schoolchildren in the other field, who are still standing, cheering.

It's a beautiful drive back, green sloping fields, wooden fences, round thatched huts, pine forests and the escarpments of the Rift Valley. No speeches in sight.

Nairobi Waldorf School

Ossian and I open the heavy metal gate onto the street. It is wide with red dirt footpaths running along either side, no pavements. A steady trickle of people are walking on the footpaths in the shadows cast by the trees that tower overhead, trees belonging to large tropical gardens, one after another after another, flanking the sides of the road. A elderly lady is walking towards us carrying a big bundle of firewood. It is tied to her back with a strap that passes over her forehead. She greets us as she passes, stopping briefly to touch Ossian's head.

Lila and Uma come running from the house, their rucksacks on their backs, hair brushed neatly back. Adharanand follows behind them. Ossian and I give them a kiss and wave them off as they slip into the stream of commuters on the footpath, off on their way to spend the day at the Nairobi Steiner Waldorf School. Today is the first of three days they will spend as guests of the school, Lila in Class 1 and Uma in Kindergarten.

Curious to see what a Steiner School in Kenya was like, we all spent the morning at the school yesterday. Lila and Uma seemed to feel at home as soon as we arrived, and were keen to join their respective classes. The school is only two streets away from where we are staying, set in one of the large tropical gardens. As you enter from the main street a security guard walks over to the gate to let you in. Nailed onto his wooden guard hut is a plaque stating that the hut was built as part of a class project by the children. Placed amongst the trees are wooden cabins, each one a classroom, with tidy footpaths linking one to another.

We are shown round and talk to a few of the teachers. All have trained and taught in the Kenyan state system, re-training in the Steiner curriculum when they join the school. Many of them knew nothing about it before, applying to a job vacancy at the school without really knowing what a Waldorf School was. Out in the countryside to the south of Nairobi is another, larger Waldorf school, where they receive their training. I am told that this other school has many of the local Masai children in its classes, as well as children from further afield who board at the school. Although the children in the Nairobi school are mainly black Africans, there are also several Asian and European children, and Lila and Uma do not stand out.

Much of what we are shown is very familiar to us, the insides of the classrooms, the toys in the kindergarten, the colours of the walls. But unlike in the Steiner schools in the UK, uniform rules seem more relaxed here, with logos and cartoon characters popping up on clothes and rucksacks. There is also a football pitch and regular matches against other schools in the area.

We join in circle time with the Kindergarten, and amongst familiar nursery songs are some traditional Kenyan ones, with the teachers chanting and clapping as the children dance and stomp. Afterwards the children sit down to share a meal of ugali, spinach and fish, prepared by the cooks in the school's kitchen. As we leave we are invited to an upcoming festival to celebrate the start of the rainy season.

A few days later I ask Uma if she liked going to Kindergarten. "No" she replies, "I didn't like it". She has a big grin on her face. "I loved it."

Karen

We are sitting on the veranda looking out at the view of the Ngong Hills. On the table in front of us stand two large silver teapots, china cups and saucers, and a tin of homemade lemon biscuits. Our host, Peter, is discussing the various options for dealing with the frog infestation in his ponds. His garden is magnificent, soft lawns shaded by towering trees, Red Hot Poker, Jacaranda, Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, Water Lilies, and the distant hills.

Ossian follows the dogs through the open door into the darkness of the house. A large room, wooden panels, heavy with oil paintings, a grand piano. Peter turns on the light above a canvas of two life-size figures, Mary Magdalene, with a look of disbelief on her face, and a friend, olive skinned, barefooted, the empty tomb of Jesus in the background.

"Shall we play?" says Peter as he gathers up some tennis rackets from the hall and leads us back out into the late afternoon sun, across the lawn to the tennis court.

Lila and Uma had planned to swim in Peter's pool, but were put off by the dark green water, and the suggestion they would have to share it with the frogs. Instead, they decide to be ball girls for the doubles tennis match, Peter and Ray against Adharanand and Jill. Adharanand is the youngest by at least 30 years.

Leaving Peter's house, we drive down the wide residential streets of Karen and back out onto the main road. Children are walking home from school, as people with bags, coming home from work, shout and jostle for space on the matatus. Hawkers hold up bags of tomatoes, pirated DVDs, while men push bicycles laden with firewood, and women sit hunched on the side of the road selling second-hand clothes.

We turn left onto another shaded side street, and drive up to a large metal gate which is opened by Thomas, the house boy. Inside is the home of Ray and Doreen, who are kindly letting us stay in their guest cottage. All is peaceful in their rambling garden, as night falls on the suburbs of Nairobi.

Evening Stroll

It's six o'clock in the evening, the sun is fading away, the air cooling. We decide to take a stroll around our neighbourhood. Ossian is intent on finding the source of the mooing noise, and we end up walking down a footpath near our house, a trail of small children behind us.

A lady calls out to me from her garden, and I recognise her as Anne, who has a kiosk in her front garden selling vegetables and milk. She calls us over to meet her cows, who are standing in her back garden eating hay from a makeshift wooden feeder.

While Ossian inspects the cows Anne tells us how she was widowed when her husband died of cancer, how she struggles to get by working in the local hospital at night and opening her shop during the day.

A group of children have gathered in the garden, sitting on the wooden fence and giggling as they stare at us. A girl carrying a young boy brings him over to meet Ossian. They are of a similar age. While Ossian is wearing a long-sleeved top and a pair of shorts, the young boy is wearing fleece trousers, several jumpers and two woolly hats. I am told it's to protect him from the cold and the risk of pneumonia. Even during the heat of mid afternoon, young children and babies are dressed like this. By Kenyan standards, Iten is considered a cold place to live.

The night is coming on quickly now, and we walk back out onto the path. Anne waves us off, 'Goodbye' she shouts, 'leave me to my struggle'. Lila and Uma are playing chase with the children in the lane, stumbling over the stones and rubbish as they run after each other. As the sky darkens, the game becomes rougher, the children start to push and hit each other, playfully at first, but it soon turns to self-defence.

In the semi-darkness we walk back up the path, waving goodbye to the children as they disappear into doorways, into the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of crickets, dogs barking. The kerosene lamp is lit in the shop near our gate, a few figures sit on the wooden counter, gazing at the people walking home from town.

Alex (our night watchman) is outside our gate in his uniform, patrolling up and down to let people know he's there. It suddenly seems ridiculous that we are employing someone to guard us.