Polite Notice: Don't drink the tap water?

The tap water here seems fine. I boil it for five minutes and drink it, use it for cooking and brushing my teeth and I haven’t gotten sick or died (yet).

I stopped using bottled water when I realized a) it’s absurd to buy water in such large quantities! What did they build water pipes for then? b) I can’t lug 5L bottles of water home all the time from the supermarket. I walk everywhere here. c) those large plastic jugs seem awfully wasteful. I don’t know whether there’s any kind of recycling system in place for them, so I figure I won’t even put any into the system.

I know lots of expats who don’t even bother boiling the tap water before using it to drink or cook or brush their teeth. One day if I’m feeling especially fearless I will brush my teeth with water straight from the tap. For now, I’m a big kuku (chicken).

Polite Notice: Window shopping is easy

Lots of people have witnessed this around the world, but there’s something I like about street vendors. It’s like browsing the internet from the comfort of a car seat, or window shopping without walking. The vendor comes up to the window and shows you what she’s got and if you’re not interested, you move up. In Nairobi, there’s a stretch of Peponi Road near Westgate Mall where you can get all kinds of interesting things from vendors right in traffic. These include:

-         pet rabbits

-         puppies

-         skirts

-         peanuts

-         wire contraptions that look like TV antennas

-         screwdriver sets

-         kitchen knives

-         hand-made banana leaf note cards

-         newspapers (naturally)

-         paintings, batiks

-         pirated DVDs

-         plastic pinwheels

-         Kenyan flags

I know one person who has bought a rabbit (not clear whether it will need to visit a veterinarian and its gender also remains a mystery). I generally walk everywhere, so “window shopping” from the sidewalk is really more like having things thrust under my nose with expectant salesmen telling me they’ll give me a good price for the banana leaf sculpture/wire motorcycle toy/silkscreen art/pirated DVDs. I almost always say 'No thank you' but it's kind of fun to go through the ritual every day on my way home from work, otherwise I wouldn't pass anything really interesting. It's easy to window shop.

Polite Notice: Yes, Argentine tango is also African

I did not pack my dance shoes. I didn’t think Nairobi had any Argentine tango on offer. I was wrong! There is a fledgling tango community here in Nairobi thanks to a brave Maltese-Canadian who, after a lot of encouragement from two local "tangueras", decided to start teaching. He started an association called Patamango.

 

(Special thanks to Patamango Association for Argentine Tango for sharing this photo.)

I’m glad there is tango here in east Africa now. As a former student of African studies, I now have a new area of culture and diaspora to learn about.

The tango as we know it originated in Argentina about 150 years ago, but there are theories that suggest it is tied to African forms of music and dance.

My teacher recently sent me this article from the magazine Indy Week, on the theories of the historian Robert Farris Thompson, who suggests Africans and people from the African diaspora played a much larger role in tango than is actually acknowledged:

'The origins of tango are black, via Kongo culture imported from Central Africa and Cuba. Tango, "the fabulous dance of the past hundred years," started life as a creole: "the Kongo grind, caught in a waltz-like embrace."'

Among other things I have learned, tango is related to candombe (or candomble), danced mainly in Uruguay. Candombe is a musical genre that developed in Latin America among African slaves. It is a partner dance similar to tango, but danced with very bent knees.

There are theories that the name tango comes from Africa, too. One theory suggests the word “tango” comes from the Niger-Congo languages, but other theories suggest the name comes from the Latin word tangere, or to touch, or that it borrows its name from the musical form “tangos” in flamenco dance.

So the tango has come back to this part of Africa … but the dance shoes haven’t. I briefly considered having a pair made by the shoemaker in Sarit Centre mall (After all, how often does one have shoes made anymore? This is a service that I don’t think even exists in Canada anymore), except he doesn’t really deal in dance shoes, but rather in prescription orthopedic shoes, so he can’t make my dream of a pair of shoes in metallic light pink leather with silver straps come true.

Miraculously, I found a pair of affordable strappy heels that seem to substitute for tango shoes rather well, despite the fact that they have plastic soles, instead of suede ones. I dance twice a week now.

A few of us are advanced dancers. Most are beginners who seem really dedicated to the art form. There are a few dozen tangueros now (or maybe there are more in Nairobi and we just don’t know about them … I’m waiting for them to come out from behind the bushes).

I admit I also didn’t pack my dance shoes because I expected to sign up for a more “traditional” form of dance. Anyway, I stumbled on the tango – my favourite of favourites – and now I feel I can justify the choice because this is the continent where it all started.

Polite Notice: October 20 is Mashujaa Day

On Wednesday, October 20, 2010, Kenya celebrated its heroes. Instead of hanging around Uhuru Park and watching the parade, I went for a picnic at a park just outside Nairobi called Paradise Lost. The park, with its little lake where you can paddle boats, is surrounded by coffee plantations. There were plenty of picnickers, a camel, an ostrich, some horses, prehistoric caves (which seem quite comfortable for living in), and a beautiful narrow waterfall.

But back to Mashujaa Day. This was Kenya’s first Mashujaa Day (or Heroes Day). Up until this point, October 20 was known as Kenyatta Day, to honour Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first post-independence president.

Some critics say Kenyatta Day had become a little too Kenyatta-centric, instead of celebrating all the people who helped fight for Kenyan independence from British colonial rule. 

So, on Mashujaa Day, Kenyans celebrate heroes like Dedan Kimathi, the Mau Mau freedom fighter, and a group known as the Kapenguria Six: Achieng' Oneko, Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, and Jomo Kenyatta. 

Although I missed the president’s speech, the police parade and the fly-overs, I was a bit excited for Mashujaa Day. This is the first-ever Heroes Day, and it happened just a few months after Kenya proclaimed the Second Republic by passing its new constitution. 

President Mwai Kibaki’s speech at Uhuru Park (which I missed) went like this at the beginning: 

“It is my great pleasure to join you as we celebrate the first Mashujaa Day since the inception of our Second Republic that came into being following the promulgation of our new Constitution. Mashujaa are men and women who have made a lasting mark in the lives of fellow Kenyans and in the history and development of our country. They are men and women who have taken great risks in service to save, advance and protect their fellow citizens. These are also men and women whose hard work, courage and perseverance have had a great impact on the socio-economic well being of our people.” 

Some of the mashujaa he mentioned included:
1. Successful Kenyan companies like Equity Bank, KCB Bank, East Africa Breweries (brewers of Tusker beer), Safaricom, and tea and flower farms. (In Kenya, business owners are heroes. They take their status as regional economic powerhouse seriously.)
2. Kenyan scholars including the author Ngugi wa Thiong’o (who teaches in the United States) whom I admire immensely. He was shortlisted for the Nobel this year for his novel ‘Wizard of the Crow’. 

… but I was busy eating cheese sandwiches and exploring prehistoric caves when all this was being said.

Polite Notice: Please read my attempt at analytical journalism

Published today in the 500th edition of Pambazuka News in the Comment & Analysis section:

Panacea or predicament? Kenya's constitution and land rights

Polite Notice: Take your broad-spectrum antibiotics with you, even in Mombasa

I spent a weekend in Mombasa. Click on the pin-points on the map below to see what I managed to visit ... before I got sick with a mystery stomach bug and had to stay in bed.

Mombasa used to be a major trading centre along the East African coast. It is one of the oldest settlements in East Africa, in fact (at least 700 years!). Now it's also a major tourist area, thanks to the miles of sandy beaches. The old part of Momabasa town shows the influence of Portuguese rule, the British colonial period and local sultanates. The city is on an island linked to the mainland by a few roads.

My visit focused on the Portuguese-built Fort Jesus and Haller Park (further north up the coast).

View Mombasa in a larger map

Polite Notice: To Us, All Flowers Are Roses

I don’t usually quote poets in my head, but the purple-blossomed trees here make me think of Lorna Goodison’s poem, “To Us, All Flowers Are Roses.” (Goodison is a Jamaican poet, and her poem is really about place names in Jamaica, but for some reason, the electric purple trees remind me of it. I don't have Goodison's anthology here with me in Kenya, otherwise I would quote from it. It's a beautiful poem.) 

One of Kenya’s biggest industries is horticulture (flowers, fruits and vegetables are the top export). Kenya is Europe’s lead supplier of flowers, according to the Kenya Flower Council. The Kenya Horticultural Council reports that the horticulture sector grows by 15 to 20 per cent each year and employs 4.5 million people. Areas in southwestern Kenya have become major flower-growing centres: near Lake Naivasha, Nakuru, Mt. Elgon, Eldoret and the Mt. Kenya region.

The top exported flower? Roses. 

After some reading, I have learned that the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) – to which Kenya still hasn’t signed on – are expected to make Kenya an even bigger flower and produce exporter to the EU. The EPAs are meant to establish free-trade areas between the European community and African, Caribbean and Pacific states. Proponents of the EPAs say that if Kenya doesn’t sign on, it could lose millions of shillings in revenue (EPAs are meant to be reciprocal). Other analysts, however, suggest that the EPAs favour Europe, since its cheaper goods will have easier access to African markets. All of this raises questions about whether policy priorities should centre on food self-sufficiency (floriculture uses a lot of arable land and water that, some critics argue, could be used to farm food for local consumption) or earning foreign exchange.

(If you're interested, you can read more about this debate in Khadija Sharife's story Biotechnology and Dispossessions in Kenya, in Pambazuka News' latest issue.)

I pass a garden centre on my way to work. It’s right at the edge of the road. Rows and rows of little black bags (or large white bags) of dirt – like flower pots – neatly sectioned off into blooming flowers, ground cover, ferns, trees, and even hanging plants. I don’t know much about flowers, so all I can spot so far are geraniums, impatiens, poinsettias, gerber daisies, and roses. Nairobi seems like a great city for a garden.

There are flowers all over Nairobi, in completely un-manicured places, too. For example, in the ditches along the sides of roads, there are tiny orange flowers growing on dusty bushes. Creeping up the fence outside the army barracks in the south end of the city are bright fuchsia flowers. Pink flowers cascade over the outer wall of the Progressive Park Hotel near my office. The flowers stand out against the sky (hazy quite often), the ground (rust-coloured dirt) and the buildings. The electric purple tree near my building makes me happy no matter what.