London

Way behind in my blog postings (still), I’ll see what I can do to catch up.

After returning from Nepal and conducting a short trip to Somalia I went to London to attend some meetings. It had been a couple years since I had been to the UK since June 2014. That visit was mostly spent in Windsor though I did sneak in a day in London. I remember being surprised at how much the city had changed over the years.

a quaint little wall-mounted tea box in my room

This visit, being only two and a half years later, I noted fewer big changes though, since I was there a bit longer this time, there were other things that I didn’t notice before. One thing that became apparent as I went on one of my two chilly jogs was the lack of classic red telephone boxes (or “booths” as we say in the US). While some are still around, they are steadily disappearing. Most of the ones that I saw weren’t functional. There are, however, initiatives out there that a looking to re-purpose them such that they maintain their presence on the London streets. Ideas include Wi-Fi stations, advertising, phone charging stations, etc. I also hear that people around the world have been buying them – a rather large souvenir from the UK but certainly a novelty for your backyard.

security barriers to protect from vehicle attacks

Another change I noticed was the presence of sidewalk security barriers, primarily due to the London Bridge attack last June. They were installed on major bridges and places around the city that are known to have a considerable amount of pedestrian traffic. For the most part they were tastefully done (unlike the cement blocks used in some places) and I suspect that they will increasingly be common. It’s unfortunate but that’s the direction we’re heading.

Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background, enshrouded in scaffolding

Given that it was late autumn and the fact that I was busy all day, what little time ad to sightsee was either before sunrise (jogging) or evening, in other words almost exclusively while it was dark. I don’t mind, really, but it’s just a different perspective.

the Eye of London (I'm not a fan)

Our meetings were in a place called Mary Ward House. It’s an interesting building with an interesting history. Considered a masterpiece of Victorian architecture, the building was constructed in 1898 as a part of the “settlement movement” whose main object was the establishment of "settlement houses" in poor urban areas. They served as housing for volunteer middle-class "settlement workers" hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of, their low-income neighbors. They provided services such as daycare, education, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas. By 1929, Mary Ward House had become a dedicated women’s settlement. A legal advice center was subsequently opened during the 1940s to provide both legal assistance and financial advice to low income individuals.

the courtyard at the Mary Ward House - note the low windows

History at the time of the construction dictated some of the interesting attributes:

• Most of the rooms in the house have double doors. Women’s dress at the time consisted of the bustle which would not fit through single doors.
• I was told that one meeting room was formerly called the Cripples Room, a name that fortunately disappeared at some point. Mary Ward, the wealthy yet generous activist who founded the facility, felt that people with disabilities were capable of overcoming them and thus put their dedicated room a couple of flights of stairs above the ground floor.
• Because disadvantaged children were a key focus of the house, windows in some of the rooms were designed to be low, many only about a foot above the floor.
• The house contained one of the UKs first public libraries. At the time, most felt that libraries should not be provided for the poor. Not only were most illiterate, the upper and middle class felt they could not, and would not, take advantage of such facilities. As you might guess, it was a huge success.

Today the building serves as a conference and exhibition center.

That Friday afternoon I took the tube back to Heathrow. I had a night flight so I arrived home early morning on Saturday. In addition to being unable to sleep on the plane, I had caught a bad cold my last day in London. It made it more of a challenge to enjoy the day with family. On top of that, I needed to get up the following morning at 4am to catch a flight to Somalia where I would endure seven take-offs and landings in a day and a half. With severe congestion, the landings were particularly painful. By Monday night upon my return to Nairobi I was in a rare state of complete exhaustion. The only saving grace was that the coming Thursday was a holiday and I would have some respite. Thanksgiving is obviously not a national holiday in Kenya but it’s one of the two American holidays that our US organization recognizes here – the 4^th of July being the other.

Things didn’t let up, however. By the following Monday I would be off to Mogadishu again for two days followed by two days of senior management meetings in Nairobi. It’s no wonder I was at the end of my tether by the time my Christmas break rolled around.