Only 4 days left

The apartment is a mess, and I haven't done an inventory yet or filled out the insurance forms. What have I been doing to prepare for the move from Paris (land of Berthillon, Martine Lambert, and Picard luscious ice creams) to Nairobi (parched desert almost devoid of frozen treats?) I've been making ice cream with my Cuisinart ice cream maker, the kind that has a built in freezer unit so you don't have to pre-freeze anything. It's important to make sure all is working properly before the move, yes? My good friend "Amazon" is right on with their recommendations. If you have room in your kitchen and want an easy to use ice cream maker with built in freezer unit, get the Cuisinart one, plus two books, Ben and Jerry's "The Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book" (for American style uncooked ice cream and traditional flavours) and David Lebowitz's "The Perfect Scoop" (for European style cooked custard based ice creams and exotic flavours like Basil Ice Cream). Perhaps it's just coincidence that American style ice cream is fast and easy, and European style tastes creamier and smoother but involves a lot more work and takes longer. So far, so good: raspberry-rosé sorbet and chocolate with chunks of chocolate-walnut praline. I think I can face the move now.

Only 4 days left until the movers come. The next few days will be a frenzy of sorting, organizing, and paperwork. Yesterday afternoon when I walked into our apartment building I could barely get to our mailbox as there were stacks of huge TeamAllied moving boxes piled up in the front hall. TeamAllied is our mover too and I wondered who else was moving out of our building. A big, burly mover stepped out of the elevator with another box.

"Who's moving out?" I asked.
"Someone on the 6th floor," he replied.
"We're moving with TeamAllied too, next week in fact," I explained.
"Where are you going?"
"To Africa, to Nairobi."
"That's Kenya, right?"
"Yes."
"This is also a move to Nairobi."
"Really? To Nairobi?"
"Yes, it's that man over there," and the mover gestured to the hallway where a man was talking to the gardien (caretaker) of our building. There are many neighbours that I say hello to regularly, but I had never seen this man before. I accosted him as soon as he was done talking to the gardien.

"I hear you're moving to Nairobi. We're moving there too. TeamAllied is coming to move our things next Tuesday morning."
"Interesting, why are you moving there?"
"It's for my husband's job, with UNEP."
"I work for UNEP too."
"Really? What's your name?"

So that's how I met Dr. DM. He gave me his card. We'll look him up after we get to Nairobi.

House staff: do we or don't we?

We haven't moved yet and I'm already wracked with guilt and anxiety about servants. We currently have cleaning help for four hours a week, and that is enough. I don't want more, both because we don't need it, and also because the kids can do more and if there's constant help they'll never learn how to do things on their own. The current tenants of our Nairobi house have a part-time gardener and one full-time maid/nanny. We were asked if we wanted to keep them on, and since I don't know them, had barely met them, don't need a nanny and don't like household help hovering while I'm trying to work at home, I initially said no. Since then though, I've been gently persuaded/guilted into keeping them on for a 3 month probationary period. It's good for them, they aren't left unemployed, and it will be good for us, to have experienced help right away who know the house and garden, and who come highly recommended.

Take a look at the Monday June 13 post and comments from http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/ for a brief discussion of life with servants. Is it modern and independent and admirable to do everything yourself (with the help of electric appliances) or is it cold and callous to refuse to employ house staff? And here's an opinion from a Kenyan who grew up in Nairobi and now lives abroad (from comments, http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/): I really feel sorry for women in the West who have such a huge burden. They feel sorry for women of the south but they are the most burdened women in the planet. They have such demanding domestic work as well as the pressure to go out and have careers they are the real 'beasts of burden'.