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Stuff Kenyans Like
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18:16
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 If you never got the opportunity to grow up in Kenya then you probably will never notice how many Kenyans are fond of their Calendars. This is not to mean that Kenyans are keen on marking dates and times - because we know Kenyans will always be late for appointments, interviews, work, weddings, lunches - practically everything. But Kenyans for some strange reason will keep Calendars in their homes even after the year has passed. I think mostly for decor purposes but truthfully there has to be something wrong with keeping a 1988 calendar on the wall in 1999. I think picture frames were scarce in the past and basically the freebie Calendar giveaways were the only means to demarcate your walls and cabinets so many people ended up leaving their Calendars to carry on the legacy. Kenyans love Colorful Calendars, anything with a family a house and some Animals is very very impressive. We have to put this down at number 11
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14:53
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 I would like to say this is another of those colonial things that we borrowed from the mzunguz, however I would gladly say it is one of the few things that I don't mind them leaving behind as part of our overall culture. KENYANS LOVE TEA!! Tea in the morning, Tea at lunch time, Tea in the afternoon and then some Goodnight Tea. You cant have a meeting with a Luhya and expect him not to offer some Mutyape!! (Tea) Chai. Koreans love TEA, but not like Kenyans. In Nairobi around the CBD area, offices have actually hired a tea lady who brings tea at 10am (with Sconce or loaf where available) and then at 4pm she brings the evening tea. Government offices are really big on TEA breaks as if they are in school. School teachers have their own Staff room Thermos's that never leave the Staff Room. Kikuyus drink tea some magical unbreakable glasses without shame, the glasses never have handles, but the patrons enjoying the tea never seem to care really. Tea with a Chapati can really go a long way to fulfilling a Kenyans dreams. (Especially when the Chapo is rolled up and stabbed with a fork) Kenyan tea made from the official KETEPA tea leaves, has to be brought to boil at least six times before the tea leaves settle and the foam is blown away. (My mouth salivates at the thought of TEA)... Let me just say - TEA is undoubtedly something Kenyans like
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23:59
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 A lot of people hate the word Mboch, or housie - but rhetorically speaking, when two Kenyans communicate about the people who help them at home, they will normally refer to these people as "my housie", "our Mboch" "Mboch wetu" or the "house help" If there is one thing Kenyans cant do without, I think it has to be a housie. Because labor in Kenya is pretty cheap and the jobs are pretty scarce a lot of the lower income classes have resulted to fall back on taking care of other families for some pay. To some these jobs provide them with the much needed shelter they don't have because most housies will stay in your servants quarters, or if you guys are middle class and don't have a servants quarter you will let her share the guest room down stairs. A lot of these primitive behaviors were handed down to us by the British Colonies after they left us. They forgot to leave us a manual on how we can survive without a Housie, hence we are stuck and fairly insufficient without a Housie. Housies are special in their own right, Male housie are even more special. But in as much as I would like to endulge in a conversation of things that distinguish one housie to an ordinary chile I think I will be kind and leave it at that. However if you used Susana Pomade, or Took a Shower with Rexona and then used the same soap as lotion - then you probably have some Housie tendencies that need to be checked out.
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18:27
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 First of all we have to make a good distinction from a watchman, security guard and an askari. An askari is the guy you pay to watch over your home while you are gone during the day (please note, during the day because in the evening someone else comes to take over from the Askari). He really has no purpose, his job is to be a buffer of sorts. He makes thieves think twice because he will be a little bit stubborn going down. Because lets face it any thieves who come stealing during the day are ready to go down for whatever so they are armed and ready for the tasks at hand. So you hire an Askari to make sure the grass is mowed, the lawn is clean and watered and occasionally ask him to keep your housie busy with manly duties and vibes. A Security guard (pictured above) is a formally trained personnel, most of these guys were army officials or soldiers in their past, but couldn't secure proper jobs after their terms in the infantry so they had to fall back on Security jobs. These individuals are normally hired by Group four, or Sunset Securities or Alarms or Falcon ama Knight Frank for all the jisty guys. A security guard may carry a gun from time to time and or a baton, either way most of these guys hang around a small pick-up with Dogs just waiting for things to go down. Its relatively expensive to hire a Security guard to watch over your home.. so often they are hired by the group (estate management, complex management or rich folk around runda or lavington who can afford their services) Now the last person is the Watchman. Watchmen normally come in two calibers, the Luhya Watchman and the Maasai Watchman. Anything in between is a thief pretending to be a watchman. (Not to be tribalist _ but hey - I remember when you could have tribal jokes and things would be okay, but these days you have to be extra sensitive waaa!!!) The Maasai watchmen are well respected, they report to work around 6:32pm and come equipped with bows and arrows. Some come with a shield which is normally fichwad behind the watchman hut. They don't take nonsense and a quick to cock the Bow to shot on anything that moves in the middle of the night. The key difference between the Maasai watchman and the Luhya is the price differentials. The Maasai watchman is expensive because thieves are scared of Maasai's in general, but otherwise they both perform the same tasks amicably. The Luhya watchman normally carries a club and is very good at opening the gates and watching over things. Kenyans couldnt do without watchmen in the 80's and there was no way we could continue with this post without putting them on the TOP TEN list of Stuff Kenyans like.
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18:15
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 I selfishly added this to the list because it what I grew up reading. While the rich kids were reading TinTin and Asterix and Obelix (those were expensive comics, hard covers - glosssy). I was busy with the 2 shillings Beano and Topper. With the Bash street Kids. Most Americans have no clue about these comic magazines because they were mainly British Mags. For the few fans out there I have good news for you, I will have you know that BEANO is very much alive, you can catch their new stuff here BEANO TOWN. However the classic old school stuff was probably more influential to me or anyone who grew up in the 80's in Kenya. Other Magazines existed such as the local Pied Crow which I think was like a PSA and Stano and Gitonga, Bogi Benda and the likes....  But thats all old news now.... Speaking of comics.. PLEASE can someone bring back BIG BEN... Big Ben was a picture esq Comic which was simulated as a Kenyan Thriller action packed Comic. Ben was a Kenyan warrior (Otero, Jaribosi - proper swahili for a starring role) .. Ben was the Tereng tereng in all ways. He was the messiah.. When he jumped, you could see text coming out of his mouth "HIKARAAAA!!!" 
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18:03
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 I really was torn between what Kenyans really like or what I personally like: On one hand I grew up around bougainvillea flowers which were sorta the status symbol of beauty in Kenya. They were all over, next to Kay Apples (the trees that we used to insinuate a fence with, that had yellow lovely poisonous fruits) and black jacks. So for a long time I though that bougainvillea plants grew in the wild, they easily got unmanageable after a while if neglected or not pruned properly. They had thorns.. so I am torn.. However The money plant, which thank God my mom never had the guys to bring into our home and let it crawl around the house like it was part of the furniture, just so happened to be a Classic Kenyan phenomenon. I hate to be tribal, but next to the drum coffee table, you could almost guarantee to get a Money Plant at any successful Kyuks hao, or more less wanna be successful Kyuks hao. Albeit a lot of Kenyans thought it would bring luck or was a sign of some good things to come, because we really planted those things around the house and at times it just was nasty. Between the Money Plant and the Crochet table cloths I think living in a small home and growing up in Kenya wasnt that bad :) 
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17:46
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 One thing Kenyans and Hispanics have in common is their love and fear for GOD. A great symbol of this fear and respect comes from trying to demarcate your home with any memorabilia and art of Jesus (please note, not Jesus - HESUS, I mean the real Jesus). Many Kenyans felt that having numerous pictures of Jesus or the Virgin Mary around the home would sorta protect the home and maintain the family values around religion or the stigma around faith. The more popular framed picture was the "CHRIST IS THE HEAD OF THIS HOME" piece that I believe was in virtually every house hold. Some catholics would call in the pastor (father) to come and bless their homes from time to time, he would sprinkle holy water through out the entire house, pray for the home. Sometimes when one of the children in the house became more deviant - prayers were the only way to go. Way before Kanye West coined the TERM " Jesus piece" I think all Kenyans were rocking it in their homes! ps. in the Late 80's one of the few things that freaked me out was this multi dimensional (2D) Jesus picture that would close and open Christs eyes based on what position you were looking at it from. So I recall my mom putting this picture ontop of the fridge and often before I stole something I would feel as though Jesus was watching me. It totally freaked me out... I eventually countered that by wearing a rosary all the time - and probably not stealing, but hey.. I was young.
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17:24
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 Contrary to popular belief amongst most Kenyans, the ordinary individual will think that the most popular car in Kenya was the PIJOT (Peugeot) or Chevrolet (yes there were there in Kenya in the past). Sure enough there were more exciting cars such as the UHURU, or the failed MOI project Nyayo Pioneer. But nothing came close to what Kenyans epitomized as the ultimate Floss mobile like the Citroen Sedan pictured above. The Citroen was a sign of Status - it was a symbol of arrival, some people get to destination, but with a Citroen you would arrive. This car was so cool because of the hydrolic shock absorbers that would push the car up or down depending on the ignition mode.  Most Kenyans on the come up owned a Citroen or a Datsun (coincidentally for all folks who didn’t know that Datsun was actually a Nissan). Soon after the Kenyan Market was flooded by reconditioned cars and the Nissan Bluebird became the big mwananchi car.
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0:36
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 The two things that were synonymous with Kenyan Breakfast back in the day were Blue Band and Bread. You could never have bread without Blue Band. Sure enough there were other types of Bread spreads available, Marmalade Jam, Butter, Peanut Butter. But nothing tasted as good as Blue Band. Blue Band become such a BRAND name in Kenya so much that people never really know that Blue Band was just a type of Margarine, and that there were or could have been other types of Margarine available in the market place. It was all too late for any other Brand though to introduce anything to the Kenyan consumer as far as Bread spread is concerned. KCC had a butter brand that was slightly pricey and had to remain cold, so that wasnt going to work. BLUE BAND really was the best option - that stuff lasted for weeks. Besides they had that cool youthful boy insinuate that if you ate blue band in the morning with your tea, you were guaranteed to ran as fast as the kid. So trust every boy and his cousins uncle had a can of Blue Band in their homes. The old School Blue Band came in a TIN (Metal TIN) that you had to rip out open with a CAN opener. The new school blue band comes in a plastic bowl with a silver foil for hygiene purposes.
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23:15
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 Having a Crochet table cloth was a standard in Kenya, at the very least 4 out of 6 homes would use these exotically decorated and knitted crochet mats and table tops to cover virtually every piece of furniture in the house. Kenyans would cover their Television sets, their Sanyo Radios, their seats, their home phones and even their Thermos and food in extreme situations. The crochet was a such a Kenyan landmark so much that the jisty families decided to upgrade to normal table tops made from cloth and regular material. And just incase you may have forgotten how the Crochet needle looks like - 
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23:06
From: Stuff Kenyans Like
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 For the longest time in the early days in Kenya, one of the first few signs that your family was doing well was the purchase of a grand coffee table. And not just any coffee table would do, it had to be a custom Cow Skin Coffee table that came in the form of a DRUM. As illustrated above (although the illustration above is an example of an urban esq coffee table drum) people would use these by placing them at the center of the house in the living room to place things on top of. Occasionally the man of the house would break a beat or two, but for most part it was just used as part of the homely piece of furniture.
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