When egg and spoons go bad

Two weeks ago we held a Fun Day at work for some of the young people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Social events of this kind are really valued by the participants, as many of those with intellectual disabilities find themselves stigmatised and shut-out from normal interaction with the community. They can feel lonely and isolated at home, and miss out on important social development through lack of time to engage with others.

This particular event was prompted by VSO Jitolee (the Kenyan section of VSO) who wanted to hold a staff CSR day with KAIH to get to know us better. The team at VSO kindly provided the funding for the day and also volunteered their Saturday to join in the games. We were also supported by an awesome organisation called Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), which is the youth arm of one of Nairobi's major football teams. They have a great facility, partly thanks to support from FIFA around the South Africa World Cup, and they very kindly allowed us to use their premises for free. Sweet.

The day kicked off with the expected degree of organised chaos, before the teams got stuck into a five-a-side football tournament. Kenyans love football – like, really, really love it. Passionately. The Premiership is especially popular, with Arsenal, Man U and Chelsea top of most people's bumper stickers. While in this instance the football standard may have not been quite Premiership quality, the cheering and singing would have led you to believe otherwise. The final game came down to a dramatic penalty shoot-out and I don't think I have ever seen a group of Kenyans look so serious.

Football was followed by the egg and spoon race, the sack race and a three-legged race, and a certain competitive spirit began to emerge. The egg and spoon race had to be run twice due to rampant cheating, with accusations of the use of chewing gum. I swear the Olympics committee never has to put up with such shameless and elaborate ruses.

Finally we moved into the Karaoke session. Now if there's one thing Kenyan's like more than football it's singing and dancing (I know it sounds like a desperately patronising cliche, but it's completely true, I swear!). In less than twenty minutes a selection of pop and gospel classics with accompanying hand actions and two part harmony were prepared. I got to play at being Simon Cowell, while my boss's daughter stole the show with some awesome diva action.

Then lunch and the inevitable speeches (making speeches comes third on the list of things Kenyans like doing), which were mercifully restrained and fairly interesting for once, before the guests were given a small gift and departed.

Everyone seemed to have fun and there were no fatalities so I'm taking that as a win, but it's definitely one of the more stressful things I have had to accomplish in my life: organising events is always nerve-wracking (will anyone turn up? Will it pour with rain? Will your suppliers let you down?) but doing it in a country where every price is negotiable, nothing is available on the internet, and you have to 'know a guy' to acquire anything was a whole new ball game. I knew I was losing the plot when, the day before the event, our karaoke guy tried to increase his price two-fold. My boss said: “Allys, stop worrying – this is Africa.” Yes, but I am English! Help me! Of course she was right and it all came good in the end but I just don't enjoy the continual seat-of-the-pants experience: I'm not sure even Africa can stop me being an uptight control freak with a love of order, timeliness and colour coded gant charts. Time will tell...