Advertisement
Published: December 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
A Very Merry German Christmas (in Kenya)
Merry (belated) Christmas everyone!! I hope this finds you well and hope you and your families enjoyed the holiday. Personally, I missed spending the holiday with my family but found myself very lucky to have some nice friends with whom I celebrated Christmas in Nairobi. Being in Kenya you may assume that I would have a Kenyan influenced Christmas but in fact it was closer to a German/European/American holiday. No slaughtering goats or other traditional Kenyan festivities this time around.
I spent the holiday in the big city of Nairobi - full of Western style malls, fancy restaurants, good food, shopping, nightclubs and bars. Of course not all of Nairobi is safe or modern, and it’s often referred to as “Nairobbery”. Some consider it to be the most dangerous city in Africa, rivalling Johannesburg and Lagos. But outside city centre and away from the slums are nice suburbs full of these fancy Western style comforts. Not to give the impression its wholly safe, people are still robbed and such in these neighbourhoods but their appearance gives a much
safer impression. I still would not walk around after dark regardless of who you
are with and recommend only driving short distances when you know exactly where you are going, but it does not feel wholly unsafe either - at least in the areas where I was during this stay.
I drove from Kisumu to Nairobi with my friend Selina. We left on Wednesday the 21st and drove halfway to Nakuru, stayed the night in a decent quality hotel, e.g. there was hot water, you could walk around in your bare feet and there were mosquito nets. Early on the 22nd we drove into Nairobi arriving about 9:30 in the morning. Our road trip was a success; we survived the kamikaze maniac Kenyan drivers, more potholes than I could begin to count and the very narrow highways. Most importantly we did not get lost, not once! This is small feat as there is really only one main highway connecting any two cities in Kenya but anyone who knows how terrible and/or nonexistent my sense of direction is - Selina’s sense of direction (or lack thereof) rivals mine. So that we managed to not only arrive in Nairobi but also find our way once there was a feat in and of itself.
Our
Yummm.... beet root soup
I know you are all so terribly interested in seeing what we ate (but it's all I got pictures of) but this soup I thought looked particularly festive - no? first stop was a local mall - a huge culture shock first thing in the morning, everything was so modern and full of
mzungus. What really struck me was how new everything appeared, because in general even the nicest places in Kenya are worn, in the more upscale places you have to look for it in the details but they are somewhat worn nonetheless. Taking advantage of the malls, markets and deals to be had in Nairobi I did some serious shopping, spent all day Friday negotiating pre-Christmas shopping crowds and traffic while hitting a local market and some of the malls. Saturday Selina and I took full advantage of the second hand clothes market; we even waited out a short storm to load up on used dresses, pants and shoes (yes even shoes). The quality of new shoes here leaves much to be desired as does the quality of new clothes so if you want nice, stylish and wearable items you have to sort through piles of clothes and shoes to locate the treasures. Most of the clothes come from the UK you can get pretty nice or at least decent name brands in good shape and if your
bargaining skills are honed you can get some great deals. A good rule of thumb is pay no more than half the asking price, this does require hard bargaining, some acting and feigning walking away but 95% of the time they will call after you to complete the sale and this rule also applies to the souvenir and curio markets - never pay more than half the asking price! It does take some of your energy though but if your up to it it’s quite fun.
The bar scene was also a culture shock, probably because we hit the mostly ex-pat places but I figure the local joints are more typical of what I am accustomed to in Kisumu or Eldoret. The places we went were crowded with ex-pats (ex-patriates like me), Indians, KCs (Kenyan Cowboys or white Kenyans) and rich Kenyans all of which offered terribly entertaining people watching. It’s quite common to see old white haired, white men with young Kenyan prostitutes which although entertaining is also a bit sick to watch. One evening we went to a local dance club called Pavement that really made us all feel pretty old as the average age could not have been more than 21 and I had not seen scantily dressed girls/women since I left New York. Christmas Eve, after dinner, we went out to the local Moroccan themed club equipped with hookahs, expensive cocktails and bad music. My whole Nairobi experience was almost like being outside of Kenya for while, providing a nice change of scenery and a bit of time out from my normal routine.
So finally onto the actual subject of this blog
A Very Merry German Christmas. I say it was a German Christmas because most of the people I spent it with were German and we ate traditional German cabbage, I heard lots of German spoken and we drank traditional German Gluvein which is actually just mulled wine (red wine, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom sugar and orange juice). I was the token American and then there was Emma (from UK) and the Germans - Selina, Birgit, Johanna, Christina (actually from Switzerland but speaks German) and Jakob. We successfully baked and carved a turkey and I made traditional southern sweet potato casserole complete with marshmallows on top, which everyone was a little sceptical about at first, but it was a huge hit. We decorated Birgit’s apartment with white lights, candles and listened to Johnny Cash while eating dinner. Everyone brought one gift so after dinner we opened them. The we relaxed, digested and went to the Moroccan bar I mentioned above. Christmas day was pretty lazy; we slept in and had a nice brunch of more turkey, sweet potatoes and other leftovers. That afternoon Emma, Selina and I spent the afternoon being lazy at Alex’s place, finished the leftovers for dinner and relaxed. My Nairobi holiday drew to a close on the morning of the 26th as I headed out of town and back to Kisumu. All in all it was a very Merry and non-traditional Kenyan Christmas.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0382s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb