Maisha ya Kenya (Life in Kenya)

After almost three months, we thought we’d give you an idea of life in Kenya. Some things you might have already heard, some things you might not.
One of the things of living in Kenya is that you stand out. Since your white and most of the rest is not, they call you mzungu (white person). This is not discriminatory or offensive, just a statement. It doesn’t matter whether you are European, American or Asian, you’re a mzungu. The plural, by the way, is wazungu. Anyway, you always stand out. As you pass a few Kenyans to the hospital, they think you’re a doctor without asking. Not really a weird idea, but still a bit of a fast conclusion. Another funny thing is that sometimes the children who see you start waving at the mzungu. If they have enough courage, they will even ask you: “How are you?”. They will always expect you to say “fine”. If you say something else, they stare even more at you and say “fine” themselves (with a startled face, like: “you should say fine… Why didn’t you?!?!?!”) Really funny… And that’s one part of life in Kenya.
Also, Dutch guys have a tendency to be rather tall. So as a tall, white guy it’s even weirder. That’s life in Kenya (for some).

The public transportation system is rather extensive. It’s amazing how many vans are driving people just about anywhere. The vans are called Matatus. There is also a funny police system. Apparently they do not earn a lot of money. They have road block to check on passing vehicles. The matatu drivers always just give a little bit of money when they are checked. Sometime the police officer doesn’t even check the license plate just accepts and waves the matatu on. However, sometimes the police also stops a normal personal vehicle. We’ve heard from Western friends that the police might ask for “chai”. Now chai is just tea here in Kenya. What the friends didn’t know at that time was that chai is also a cover word for bribe. So the friends said they didn’t have chai in the car. They had water, some coke, but not chai. They didn’t have a clue that they were being asked for a bribe (until later). Also, a matatu is not allowed to have more than 13 passengers plus the driver and conductor. So when there are too many people in the matatu and it passes a police check, the conductor will lie down so as not to be seen. That’s life in Kenya.

The house we live in is also something interesting. We never know when a new housemate is coming in. If the house is full, it won’t happen. But when a room is empty, you just might enter the house after a hard days work and someone you do not now might be there cooking. The first thought you have is: who is this? The second thought is: Oh, this is probably our new housemate. We asked the housing people to let us know when someone new is coming and they would do that. Now we just need to see it happen. But the house is fun. Some people have funny cooking habits. Like cooking and eating at the same time. Eating a salad, but constantly adding ingredients.
We’re learning al lot from living with other people, but we’d also like a place of our own to have our privacy. Somewhere where we don’t have to keep in mind that anyone can walk into the kitchen at any moment, you can’t go out your bedroom without some decent clothes on and also the noise people can make. Our housemates our lovely people, but sometimes it’s also tiring. But hey, that’s life in Kenya.

One final fact about life in Kenya is the market where we buy most of our fruits and veggies. It is a building of stone where some older ladies sit all day (from 10 am to 6 pm) and sell their things. There are between 5 and 10 ladies at all times. Most of the time they do nothing. Just chat and wait for customers. Sometimes they wait outside (laying on the grass) and rush in when a customer comes in. It’s also a good place to observe shared poverty. They all sell basically the same things at the same prices. So it doesn’t matter where you shop. But they also insist that you buy a little bit with every person. So you buy some tomatoes at the first lady, mangos at the second, zucchinis at the third, onions at the fourth, bananas at the fifth and so on. This way they all make some money. No competition, no hard feelings if one gets more money and even a credit system between them all. You buy something with lady 5, but she can’t give you the change you are due. With lady 6 you get a discount of that change and they “fight out” how each get the money they are entitled to… It’s funny to see.
On Tuesdays and Saturdays there are also a few ladies selling muffins, tortillas and the like. When you go in the building, they all jump at you (3 or 4 of them) shoving their foodstuffs in your face hoping you will buy some. If you only need 10 tortillas, they all get 2 or 3 from their bags, put it in one bag and give it to you. Then you pay one person and they divide the spoils between them. Welcome to life in Kenya.

Our time in Kijabe is getting shorter. We’ll be leaving somewhere in the end of June or beginning of July. So we only have one month (and some days) left here. So we should be thinking of how to finish up on our projects. After living here for some time, it’s weird to finish up and leave. However, we will be travelling in Kenya quite a bit and that will be nice as well. So only a few weeks left and after that a few weeks of vacation and after that, we’ll be on the plane back home. So hold on everyone, It won’t be long before we’re back!

Kwaheri! (means “see you”, or “tot ziens”)