Karibu Nairobi

I told you I would return to Kenya. I did, a few weeks ago. In my usual travelling style, my safari to get there was eventful, but that’s another story, luckily though I made it in time for the family wedding.

This time round I was in the East African metropolis of Nairobi. Those of us in Harare complain about traffic, we have nothing to complain about as compared to other capital cities. Nairobi is a huge, bustling city, characterized by traffic of all sorts, matatus, pikipikis/borda-bordas, and most importantly people. You find the same thing in Harare, but there is a different flare in Nairobi (with a population over three million).

The language

In Nairobi just about everyone speaks kiSwahili. By everyone I mean everyone, all the market vendors, (people of different ethnic backgrounds. Not like in Zimbabwe, with our 16 official languages (courtesy of the new constitution) most people speak either Shona or Ndebele or English, not often do you find us speaking all three let alone the 16 which many remain unintelligible. But a real linguae franca- a trade language does not exist. Perhaps I am wrong, consulting socio-linguists about this one may be necessary.

A huge smile plastered on my face, in an attempt to apologize for my lack of language I would answer the Kenyans, in English desperately wanting to throw in my few Swahili words and a few words of sheng (the local slang-that I have learnt from my Kenyan friends and family) or better yet answering back in the similar sounding Shona that I know, Hopefully, by the time I return to East Africa I will be more conversant in this trade language that intersects Arabic and Bantu languages.

The people of Nairobi represent a multitude of ethnic and social backgrounds from across the globe. While walking through a large supermarket with my Kenyan sisters, I tried to heed to my mother’s council of not prying into conversations. It was impossible to not to ignore the English spoken with accents from around the globe, the KiSwahili and not surprisingly Shona conversations.

KiSwahilii, allows the people of the nation from over 40 language groups to understand each other. It is the language of choice during  a marriage ceremony joining up two people from different ethnic groups, building relationships and growing families.

The traffic

The traffic of Nairobi is something that everyone who has been to this East African metropolis will attest to is nothing more than irritating. You spend a considerable amount of time in a jam, no matter how hard you try to outsmart it, something will make the journey longer than you anticipated, perhaps it is the road works, or the traffic police who might be chatting with one of the drivers in a stationary car instead of directing traffic. The road infrastructure, even with the many roundabouts, does not match with the sea of cars, the majority being high clearance ones that are able to navigate through the pot holes.

While the traffic is irritating, there is so much to see, roadside markets and vendors selling tourist curios. The vendors selling everything from fresh cut flowers to adorable puppies. If it all gets to be  too much, there are road side restaurants, and popular eating spots all dotted around the city specializing in local delicacies, offering  meals and snacks at cheap prices. If that doesn't entice you there are fast food chains all over.

And then there are the matatus or mats- minibus taxis, which in all the African cities I have been to, are the same. I might even add the Roman taxi cab drivers also share such a reputation. Their names may be different, from a taxi, a Kombi, Candongera, to Molue the drivers and their conductors exercise their entitlement bestowed on them by apparently us; the paying public who desire to get to our destination in the shortest time possible. In an attempt to please us, the drivers have an unusual disregard for the law, weaving in and out of traffic, committing numerous road traffic violations that constantly go unnoticed and not reprimanded.

The upside to these mats is that you have your standard fare and you have no worry about parking. Parking your car is a costly expense when venturing to the numerous shopping complexes, which surprisingly for me from Southern Africa were full of busy shoppers. And off street parking, if you find it, may not be the safest option. The little I saw of the city center of Nairobi along Moi and Kenyatta Avenues, I think it’s a wise option to be a pedestrian. Not to mention that with the mats you can go to the less attractive areas, the real hidden gems where you really see that Nairobi is a sprawling economic epicenter of East Africa.

The sights and sounds

My sisters and I, weary of being stuck in the weekday traffic headed out of the house in the suburbs at the crack of dawn. Jumped into the mat just outside the gate of the housing complex and began our sleepy journey to Gikomba Market. One of the larger markets in Nairobi, where, if you are a self-proclaimed fashionista on a budget, will consider this market as a bargainer’s  mekka. According to my sister, it is the market where all the nearly-new clothes from abroad come into. Walking through the market you find people like me and my bargain savvy sisters, backpacks in hand, market vendors trying to pick out the better quality garments to buy then clean up and resell for exorbitant prices in other less markets of Nairobi. All this is done while trying to hold on to your backpack stuffed with found treasures and men shouting out to move out of the way as they try to move through the haphazardly ordered aisles, carrying sealed sacksful of clothes.

Exhausted from our bargains, we exited the market, a large one, nothing quite like I've seen in Zimbabwe but the hustle and bustle reminded me of the markets in West Africa. Back onto the matatu, we dropped of in the center of Nairobi and stopped for a much deserved early lunch in a popular take away in Nairobi center. Along the street there were several of them with very familiar menus (things you might find at other take always across the globe), chicken rotisserie style, or fried, hamburgers, hot dogs, and deep fried potato chips- what I was after.

I’m not the biggest fan of deep fried potatoes, but my sister had convinced me that I had to try bhajas, before leaving Kenya, having visited Zimbabwe before they assured me that I wouldn't find anything quite like them in my Southern African home. True to their word, the bhajas were nothing short of delicious, the exact carbohydrate fix that was needed after shopping.

The deep fried potato disks that have been coated in herbs and spices, and the ubiquitous fresh coriander leaves sprinkled on top. The flavours of this street food (and I believe many others that I did not have an opportunity to try) are reflective of the intersection of the people and cultural backgrounds in East Africa. Incorporating flavours from the Indian subcontinent, Near, Middle and Far East, subtly alerting you that the nation is a colourful melange of people, histories and stories.

So there you go, a very quick, and very short story of Nairobi, hardly doing it justice. Perhaps the next celebration in my adopted Kalenjin family will give me another opportunity for a safari through Kenya. If you get there, before me, embrace it all, the language, the people and the traffic. For now, I say asante sana Kenya. 

Any time is tea time

Tea has always been a part of my life. I don't think I can imagine life without it, or memories of my large extended family without it- especially my aunties and uncles sitting together and discussing life over CUPS POTS of tea. A hot beverage that brings people together; one to warm up your soul on cold winter nights as you sit at the back of a truck on your way to the village for a family gathering, or even to be drunk in the afternoon in the middle of the blazing hot summers of Southern Africa.

My memories of tea are to do with community. Everyone drinks it and as the common saying goes: 'any time is tea time'. Where I'm from, one drinks tea all the time- maybe that's not quite true- but I can only speak for my family. I'm not sure which side of the family consumes more of this beverage, my mother’s side or my father’s, it is a close tie between the two. When you go to large family gatherings the tea that is served is warm, milky and sugary- just the way that everyone is expected to like it. In my large extended family it’s usually two pots made and sometimes even three varieties- thanks to diabetes and other health restrictions: one pot made with sugar and milk, one without the sugar but the milk and finally one just black tea. Did I mention that you need to know who drinks what lest you cause the onset of some health problem.

A cup of warm milky chai in Eldoret 

That has not always been the case. I remember some darker days in recent past when you drank whatever was offered-well you still do but, there is a bit more on offer these days. Most likely the traditional tea that you were accustomed to was just not there and you drank indigenous herbal tea sourced somewhere in the garden or in the farm from the rural areas (possiblyMoringa tea  or even Makoni tea ) but not in a supermarket, obviously without milk because you could either not find it, or afford it. Lemons became our friends. Somehow I remember always having sugar available even though I don’t usually put sugar in my tea.

In all my few years of drinking tea I was basically clueless as to where it came from and how important it is not only to warm up your soul, but as a liveliood to so many and the social, economic and political implications that tea has on people and nations. Drinking numerous cups of chai and seeing tea plantations for the first time in my life and picking tea inspired the anthropologist/sociologist in me to observe and asks questions about the dynamics that surround the discourse of tea.

Tea is the livelihood of so many people. It is a labour intensive crop that needs to be harvested meticulously with gentle hands as only the bud and the two youngest leaves are picked. Harvest is almost weekly. The people go through the vast plantations bush by bush picking the leaves and putting them into the porous sacks the walk to the delivery point where the tea is weighed and collected by the tea company. Wages are then paid, I believe by virtue of the weight of the sack. All this human labour just for tea I thought, why not mechanize it? The answer I was given was that it would be a terrible idea. The machines do not have the same finesse as the human hand and the quality of tea would be inferior to that picked by people. And then what would you do with all the people who would be out of work?

Tea leaves being collected and ready to go to the tea factory

What about the political? What quantity of tea grown in Kenya gets labelled as being a product of a different country? –I was told that these things do happen although sometimes we choose not to believe that.  Are there governing bodies to regulate the production and the distribution of tea? Who has the highest stake in the tea production, who suffers the most, and to what expense? Dare I even suggest the impact of colonialism in the tea industry in Kenya, lest I be misquoted or misunderstood due to my lack of knowledge of the intricate dynamic that time and history has played on the nation.

                                               
                                              

                                                                                                   

All of those questions buzzed through my mind as we drove through the tea plantations of the Nandi Hills of the Great Rift Valley, stopped at the Tea Hotel in Kericho, visited our host’s grandmother and picked tea in her compound. I think I had and still have more questions than I do answers. I do believe though that I now have a slightly better appreciation of this stimulant called tea- that is until my professors and colleagues here at UNISG succeed to confuse me more about tea. 

Safari through Kenya

I’ve decided to use my time wisely as I’m on a journey right now or rather should I say safari. I’m traveling through Europe back to my little town of Bra. I thought I would reminisce about my days of sunshine and feasting in East Africa.

I did not have a white snow filled Christmas, but rather a warm one with rain. For me both are familiar, although my earliest memories of Christmas are cold winter nights with snow and warm coats, I thought I would be reliving this memory this past Christmas but instead I had the more familiar heat and rain showers that I have been accustomed to.Where I’m from its not Christmas without a downpour of rain. Although I was not at ‘home’ we still had a downpour so it felt like home.

Back to the story. I went on a safari (Kiswhili for trip or journey) to Kenya, spent 2 days in Nairobi and the rest of the time was in Western Kenya, in the Rift Valley , travelling and feasting with friends who have become family. This trip was based on relationships as I earlier alluded to. Back in his day my Dad was a student in Kenya. The holiday was for us to ‘retrace his steps’ in Kenya; meeting old school mates and friends and showing us (my mum and I) some of the places that he called home and people who were family for a time in his life. Without these relationships/friendships I don't think we would have had any reason for our safari.

It was a journey of a lifetime and I have a feeling I’ll be back there in Kenya very soon, there is still so much to see and experience. And anyway I might just accept one of the numerous marriage proposals I had during  our visit there. I may have to learn a bit more Kiswahili or even learn Kalenjin. But I think my Kiswahili is better than my Italian, but that might change in a few weeks.

Let me explain where we were. We were based upcountry in Eldoret , living on the outskirts of town and everyday we would drive out to the country side to visit family and friends- note that the country side was about 20 minute drive from our base station. So after a filling breakfast the ten of us would pack into the two cars and drive off into the day, usually slowed down by the bad roads and long distance trucks on their way to Uganda who were the cause of the deteriorating roads. Our days consisted of visiting relatives, talking, laughing, eating and returning home later in the evening and have one final cup of chai before bedtime.

Since we went to Kenya during the festive season you can imagine we were fed till we popped. Worse still we were usually special guests where ever we went so that meant ‘feed them more’ and generally it not a good thing to leave food on your plate, although the dogs are more than glad when you do. What was on the menu? One of my new sisters explained to me that if you go to any celebration or have a special meal in a Kenyan household its not special if the following are not there: pilau rice,Chapati , meat or chicken, chai, maybe some mandazi and mursik or mala (fresh milk), and sodas (soft drinks: my favourite being Stoney Tangawisi ) there might be ugali , but that’s an everyday thing so it may not feature.

My favourite thing was probably the chapati or commonly referred to as chapo. For my parents I think it could have been the mala and mursik. I think it brought back fond memories of their childhood as we have a similar diet back home of curdled milk- lacto or mukaka wakakora. I don't blame them. I'm not the biggest fan of mursik/lacto/mukaka wakakora but that was some good mursik that we had! 

Oh I just remembered I also enjoyed my chips na kuku- possibly the best I've had in a long time. That was on our journey back to Nairobi through the tea plantations. That being said I need a break for some chai that I brought back to Europe with me. So I'll tell you more after the tea break.