Cultural Collisions in Kenya
Some (certainly incomplete) observations after (not quite) three months in Kenya
Despite their shared borders, Kenya is a vastly different country from Rwanda in nearly every metric – topography, language, culture, history, on and on – and, after two months and some change, I am really starting to explore Kenya.
A bustling and boisterous metropolis, Nairobi boasts dozens of mother tongues, gridlocked traffic circles, and a certain swaggering approaching to commerce. The public spaces pulse in a certain drums, certain grooves and rhythms dictating social dances. Take the example of negotiation. There are certain rituals that must be abided. First, the opening bid, which is sure to elicit a sharp inhale, as the person leans back, stunned by the audacity of this price: “You must be joking, sister.” Then the comically high counteroffer comes, nearly always accompanied by an assurance that this is a good price. I disapprove; they say that this is the normal price for everyone, even Kenyans; I express my doubts about this claim, to which they laugh in a knowing concession; they promise me that, in their heart, “This service is free,” leaving me clarity the cost in their wallet; and we go back and forth until we land on a price, slightly higher than the value but at least not a blatant rip-off. It’s quite fun in all honesty, a game that requires knowledge and adaptability.
The Kenyan President proudly refers to the country as “Hustler Nation,” a claim echoed by many Uber drivers right before they pitched me on their side hustle; additional services have included personal training, language lessons, DJ services, moving companies, and shoe re-selling. This mentality is fueled by an inherent optimism, a belief that, in the efforts of today, the rewards of the future reside.
Radio jockeys and newspaper headlines discuss the pan-African futurism, evoking the long-held belief that the next century belongs to Africa, and Kenyans, a deeply religious people, favor the prosperity gospel peddled by American pastors. Hell, even the public buses advertise and proselytize, their exteriors acting as wheeled billboards for anything and everything – the Boston Celtics, Juicy Fruit gum, Chelsea F.C., the movie Avatar, the 1990s cult classic hip-hop group known as the Three 6 Mafia. (My personal favorite: the bus that is a shrine to former NBA player Dwight Howard, solely devoted to him and his exploits, for indiscernible reasons
As an international hub, home to the world’s third-largest United Nations office, Nairobi is poised for cultural contradictions and combinations. The city can readily shift between identities. How exactly to classify a place with Afro-beat covers of Taylor Swift, pili pili sauce served on butter croissants, and Chinese-funded trains running on British-built rail lines to the Arabic-founded city on the Indian Ocean?
A few weeks ago, I took that train, passing through the planes of the Great Rift Valley before reaching the Kenyan coast. It was migration season, and there were entire families of animals making their pilgrimage across the valley. This sight would have thrilled six-year-old me, who watched The Lion King bonus DVD repeatedly, forcing my family members to succumb to yet another quiz to test which character we were. (Nala, for the record.) Twenty-three-year-old me pressed my face up against the window, mouth agape, as these hundreds of wildebeests and zebras moved in unison over the desert plains.
Whereas Nairobi is ringed by Ngong Hills and savannah fields, the coastal destinations are situated along a strip of white-sand beaches, a near paradisical locale that attracts tourists and, with infamous, roaming squads of ‘beach boys’ – renowned within Kenya for their easy-going attitudes, charm, and fine-tuned aptitude for the swindle.
Outside of the tourist centers, the coast boasts a distinctive Swahili culture. While Nairobi wears its British influence easily, the East African coast is far more Indian and Arabic in landscape, religion, food, language, and even architecture. Swahili itself is a Bantu language with a significant degree of influence from Arabic, and, when translated, it means ‘of the coast.’
The coastal dialect of Swahili is, more fluid and faster than found in the city; the joke goes that Swahili originated in Tanzania, was perfected on the coast, and died in Nairobi. The coast skews Islamic and conservative, with regular calls to prayer audible from the beach, whereas the food skews Indian. Chapati and curry are offered at every restaurant, although Kenyan chai – or black tea with milk and sugar, Anglican-style – remains the drink of choice. Unlike Nairobi, where the downtown area is still composed of gray-stone Edwardian buildings, the coastal buildings prefer the Moorish arches, geometric tiles, and elaborate wood doors common in Islamic regions.
Just yesterday, I went on a hike at the outer edge of the Maasai Mara, where the Maasai people live. The Maasai Mara and Maasai tribes are probably the closest match to the dominant image of Africa: remote homes among savannah grasslands, dry shrubs and thorny underbrush, elders with shuka blankets and gauged ear piercings. In modern eras, the Maasai are one of the very few tribes who have retained most of their traditions, lifestyle and lore. Due to their distinctive dress and commitment to custom, the Maasai are among the most-storied populations in all of Africa and certainly in Kenya.
We walked through the local village, seemingly so dispersed across 15 kilometers that I struggled to understand it as a single community except that all the locals seemed to know each other. Our guide, Stephen, greeted each passing child by resting his palm at the top of crown of their bowed head. The colonial-style homes gave way to bomas, or villages, that consist of a circular ring of homes built with branch arches covered with several layers of a mixture of soil, urine and cow dung.
A semi-nomadic and pastoral people, the chief concern of the Maasai are cattle; a Maasai myth says that God afforded them all the cattle on earth. These cattle meet all their basic needs: food, clothing, and shelter, relying on dairy products, meat, fat, blood, and hide. When we reached to peak of the hike, 6700 feet above sea level, we were greeted by a herd of cattle that had taken the 13-kilometer route to graze at the summit. Absolutely delightful.
For me, this entire adventure of a year has been about encountering new people, places, customs, so the hike was just yet-another encounter of novelty. I was surprised, though, to find that the other hikers with me, primarily native Kenyans, were just as enchanted by the novelty of the experience. We were less than an hour from Nairobi, and still they too had limited understanding of the Maasai lifestyle. Many of them expressed the same incredulities as me, repeating stereotypes as Stephen offered gentle corrections and inundating him with questions. I had forgotten that Kenya, unlike Rwanda, is a country of heterogeneity. The kingdom of Rwanda dates centuries; the concept of Kenya didn’t exist until the Brits decided it did, flattening into 43 tribes into a single state for colonial expediency.
When I think about all that Kenya has accomplished since the British left in 1962 – a nation younger than the statehoods of Hawaii or Alaska – it is remarkable. There are growing pains, absolutely. The open divisions between tribal nations is a source of ongoing discomfort; a Kenyan may be a Luo, Gikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Maasai, Kamba, Meru, Gusii, Samburu, Turkana, Embu, or Somali, with each ethnicity carries its own traditions, language, and, of course, stereotypes. In recent decades, these tensions have spilled over into violence, but there are active efforts to construct a national identity, particularly among younger generations who don beaded bracelets of the flag in a show of advocacy.
There’s a great deal of Afro-optimism both on the continent and abroad. Experts have long proclaimed the upcoming century as the rise of Africa (whatever that is meant to mean) and it is trite to claim that history is always being written because, well, of course it is. The integration of past, present, and future is an eternal struggle, one that no nation has yet to master.
Still, in Kenya, there is an innovative zeal, as contagious as fever, that hums throughout the country. This infection of hope is evident in the Kenyans who smile and laugh and dance freely and broadly. Kenya is a nation in its infancy, still defining and re-writing their national constitutions, identifies, and ambitions, and it is a thrilling time to witness and feel the propulsion of that nation-building, when the imminency of opportunity beckons.
