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Having lived my childhood, young adult and part of adult life in different parts of Kenya, and then living across the pond these last few years, I have observed quiet a number of cultural differences—and similarities between the two spaces that needs mentioning.
1. Americans waste a lot of food
Make no mistake, the sheer amount of food wasted in one county in the USA per day is enough to feed the Horn of Africa for a month. Americans will buy a whole turkey during Thanksgiving Day to be eaten by a family of two. Beyond the turkey, they will make mountains of pies, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and the whole gamut of mishmash added to a variety of drinks.
The next morning, all the neighborhood dust bins will be full to the brim with wasted, and good food. Even though each home has a fridge and maybe a freezer, people will just not eat yesterday’s food today.
Back in Kenya, every morsel of the huge Ugali and Sukuma wiki must be accounted for. And dare you say that you are satisfied after filling your tummy with the badly cooked kienyeji, the woman of the house will remind you that people are eating wild berries in Turkana and that throwing away food is showing the owner of ostriches your stomach.
Even deep in the village where fridges only exist in people’s dreams, githeri that was cooked on Saturday will be food for the family for almost a week. Did you read about those guys who would rather die of illnesses than let a cow that died of ECF go to waste. What about those who fight over dead carcasses of elephants or hippos.
2. Kenyans waste time greeting and eating
A Kenyan will greet you animatedly in the morning when you meet, at noon during lunch break, and in the evening when you meet at Magomano for a drink. I once worked in a certain place where greetings would take a whole five minutes! You can imagine standing to answer to an old mama how you night was, how your family is faring, your domestic animals, your bicycle, that uncle of yours who lives in Nairobi, on and on.
Whether it is out of genuine care for one another, only the gods of Africa know. But methinks we are lovers of taking life at a stride.
No wonder simple ceremonies take forever in the village. In certain villages, the villagers would be very upset if the Catholic Father ends a burial ceremony by 11AM. He would be cursed by the villagers to the high heavens. “Riu arenda tuthii ku? (Where does he want us to go this early?) The villagers would be heard complaining. For you see, in the village, a ceremony is supposed to end with the setting of the sun. Politicians know this and therefore turn such functions into impromptu political rallies.
For the villagers, such functions also act as an opportunity to count the number of cars in attendance, bet on the newest vehicle number plates, or just argue about the number of Toyota models in Kenyan roads.
I once lived in a place where a Chinese contractor was constructing the firs tarmac road in the district. Villagers would come early in the morning to...you guessed right, gawk at the huge earth movers and trucks the whole day. And I am talking about men and women leaving their homes to come and see for themselves and for posterity. By the end of the project, a few babies had been born in the locality that had similar eyes and complexion with the Chinese laborers.
Americans have no time to waste with greetings. Life is on the go. You are allowed only one opportunity to shake a person’s hand; when you meet for the first time. After that, a “Hi†would suffice, better still, a superficial grin would also act as greetings.
Any function or meeting that lasts more than 30 minutes is frowned upon. How dare you take the whole day for a function? Even some presidential functions takes minutes, na watu wanaenda shughuli. I think President Moi had learnt some important lessons from Wazungu; he would attend various functions in a day and always kept time. I know that because half of the Taarifa ya Habari in the evening was dedicated to the President’s diary.
If Americans were gods, they would make a 29 hour day. People are always in a hurry from one job to another, from one appointment to the next. Vehicle manufacturers must ensure there are like ten cup holders in a Camry. Because people eat and drink on the go.
I once saw a driver shaving as he drove to work. It is no wonder to see a girl nurse changing inside her car at the hospital parking lot; because she did not have time to do so between her two jobs. Mr. Bean did not just create his memes from the air. Some people literally live and love in their cars.
For us, eating is a leisurely affair meant to be enjoyed. We sit down in a restaurant, order for tea and mandazi. We sip and bite as slow as possible until we finish reading the Nation newspaper tied to the table with a steel chain by the restaurant owner for reasons better known to you and me. I once saw a notice in a restaurant, "After eating leave within five minutes." Haraka haraka haina baraka. No wonder a Kenyan will waste their phone credit to ask you “Wiku mani?†(Where are you man?)
The drive through economy that thrives in the USA will take a long time to catch up in Kenya. We almost cherish pangaring queues in banks, hospitals, everywhere. Some people would go bananas if they went to a banking hall and find only a few customers. “Kai andu mathire ku?†(Where is everyone?) I heard one man ask when he entered a deserted banking hall at 1PM. No wonder in many banks, they intentionally have one or two very lazy cashiers serving customers even when there are 12 cashier windows. The bank’s ambiance has a therapeutic effect to some of us.
3. Americans are poor dressers
I am simply tired of jeans and T-shirts. Everyone is wearing them. From Minneapolis to Valhalla, Albuquerque to Tallahassee. Jeans, jeans, jeans. Na T-shirt. Only in the summer would girls pretend to be wearing some handkerchiefs around their waists. In the city, in the suburbs, at work, in social places. Blue jeans, faded jeans, torn jeans, sagging jeans, mom jeans.
Lakini go to Nairobi, and all colors of the rainbow are in exhibition. Ladies in lesos, and Khangas, and African design clothes, and skirt suits, and pant suits, and short skirts, and long ones, and stilettoes, and sneakers, and sandals, and head scarfs. Men in ill-fitting suits and poorly tied ties, boots, mtumba sneakers, NBA and European clubs T-shirts. They are all proudly in display in the city, in the suburbs and in the village. People even have Sunday bests! And they wear them with pride.
Due to our affinity of being early adopters, we are well known to adopt other people’s dressing styles. So we have Chinese, Kaunda suits, West African, European, and American dressing styles. Poor Moody Awori tried to introduce the National Dress, we told him, why fix something that’s not broken.
What about our love affair with hats? If I had a sponsor, I would prepare a two hour documentary of Kenyan men and their hats. Especially Muran’ga men and their love for the Cowboy hats. Some children grow into adulthood before seeing their dad’s hair, and if mom is a Woman’s Guild member, then the poor child will never know the color of his parent’s hair!
In all, I celebrate the two cultures I bestride, because they make me richer and wiser.
By Mzee Moja
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It should also be noted that America has changed in the last 50 years. As a child, travel by air was a very special and rare experience. I did not get on a plane until I was 17 years old. Vacations were more often a trip to a cottage on a lake or ocean by car. I never met anyone who had actually been to Kenya or even Africa until I was 17. Everyone had one car for the Dad to go to work. Mom's stayed home with the children. We had sports but one practice and one game a week AND never on a Sunday. , Sunday was church day (I had never met a non-Christian until I left for university. It was expected that if you were driving near our family home you were expected to "drop in" unannounced. It was expected we would put our some sweets and coffee or even an entire meal.. Today everyone has at least two cars. mom and dad both work, sometimes two jobs. NO ONE should ever just drop in without a phone call to allow us to tidy up the house. Children have sports, musical instrument, after school school EVERY NIGHT OF THE WEEK.
I suspect there will be a lot of comments about this entry - I shall await to read all the observations from this since personally it all depends ... For instances , in the part of USA I reside, i do not witness all those jeans and t-shirts - just saying :-)
American Here! We do not dress well. Do you think we dress like actors and actresses? Most work places are business casual and even jeans. As a Mom we LIVE in yoga pants, leggings and ballet slippers or "trainers" which we call "sneakers" or "tennis shoes" or "tennies". We are too busy to do our hair. No worries, a baseball cap and a pony tail will do. On my first trip to Africa (we arrived on a Sunday) we were impressed with the beautiful dresses and full make up on the woman. Initially we thought it was because its Sunday and everyone was attended church or temple. (We dont even dress up for that here unless its a holiday.) When we arrived at the hospital to work the next morning WOW everyone was dressed up with beautiful make up on the women and a proper hat matching the kaftan for the men.
So true about the handshake. Americans comment about what a firm handshake I have. Ati it is an indicator of self- confidence. Little do they know it comes from a lifetime of handshaking in Kenya!
I remember commenting to my mom that visitors had stayed too long. She curtly responded in Kikuyu " here we are not like you Kenyans in America, we like people and want them to stay as long as they want when they visit."
Beyond your first assertion about food wastage, which is generally true relative to Kenya and perhaps the rest of the world, the rest of your observations are entirely wrong. Both are based on the same mindset that has caused too much ethnic strife in Kenya and many parts of Africa - ethnocentrism and it's obvious offshoot known as stereotyping. It's a younger sister to racism, tribalism, clanism and many other forms of -isms. Americans are poor dressers - according to who? Who sets the standards? Are you part of that "acceptable/proper dressing global committee" under the U.N that decides what is proper dressing and what is not? And how would you categorize traditional Pokot dressing in Nasokol, West Pokot District or the Turkana far up by the border with South Sudan?
Ati Kenyans wasting time in eating and greetings? You are truly ridiculous.....exactly what is wrong with that? You must be one of those simpletons who have been swallowed whole by the idiocy that American values and traditions are supreme to everyone's else-what balderdash! They may take time kujuliana hali, kwenda msalani, kujaza matumbo yao, kufua nguo, so what? They equally have less of mental / psychological issues, lifestyle diseases, weirdos etc, mass shootings relative to the U.S. And in the long run, hii mbio yelekeapi? Kaburini au sio? Ts called the rat race coz the winner is still a rat!
And by the way, what exactly did you want to convey in this piece? You've simply written about the obvious, uninteresting stuff. I see you are doing your best to become an intellectual but you may need to be more substantive and original in your thinking. You need to read wider as your American education may not have prepared you fully as an intellectual.
Next time, address more topical and interesting issues of the day.
Finally, what does Mzee Moja mean? Why corrupt the beautiful Swahili language in your quest to become a master of a foreign language? Ati Mzee Moja - I think it should be Mzee Mmoja, Kiswahili sanifu....acha zako bana!
In America we say to our children "do not waste food, there are children starving in India." ha ha. I know in Kenya, you say "Eat your food, there are children starving in Turkana" or something like that. About Thanksgiving. NO ONE THROWS THE TURKEY AWAY. We eat that meal for a week and Thanksgiving left overs are the highlight of our year. It is the sad day when we wake up and all of the left overs are gone. Yes, I do agree we throw a lot of food out.In high school I worked at McDonalds and after the food was cooked and no one bought it, we had to throw it away after 20 minutes. We could not give it to charity as there might be a law suit if someone got sick from it. Many restaurants throw uneaten food out. In our home we don't really throw much food away unless it is bad as is the case with fruits and vegetables. We typically shop for the entire week on Saturday, so lettuce and fruits, such as bananas can easily go bad in 6 days.
As usual i was waiting to read the haters comments (Tribalists). I read the comments and obviously the iphone guy was ....I am so proud of the writer of this article ..A mugikuyu by the few words i read in that language. That is beside the point. The article tels the truth, is not researche and the truth is simply told that only a fool like iphone4g and his comrades look at the "shorter" picture. Duh
@Mlachake, the first Mzungu to meet with a certain central Kenyan community observerd in his diary, and I paraphrase, "Today I met with the most primitive tribe of all. They are nothing but a bunch of savages, dark like all, jigger-infested, and with brown teeth and lice infested hair." Now, with that first observation, would you blame the writer of the diary for his simple observation of phenomena? Yes and no. It all depends on who is reading the write up. Just because we do not agree with certain observations, we should not crucify those who make them. Give it to Mzee Moja, or whoever he is. He just made an observation and put pen to paper. For us his readers, the best we can do is egg him on. Keep writing Mzee Moja without a care about the spelling of your pen name!
@Mlachake, the first Mzungu to meet with a certain central Kenyan community observerd in his diary, and I paraphrase, "Today I met with the most primitive tribe of all. They are nothing but a bunch of savages, dark like all, jigger-infested, and with brown teeth and lice infested hair." Now, with that first observation, would you blame the writer of the diary for his simple observation of phenomena? Yes and no. It all depends on who is reading the write up. Just because we do not agree with certain observations, we should not crucify those who make them. Give it to Mzee Moja, or whoever he is. He just made an observation and put pen to paper. For us his readers, the best we can do is egg him on. Keep writing Mzee Moja without a care about the spelling of your pen name!
Iphoneg4, i did my research, I consulted the knowledgeable and hurray.....I found out that you are a kikuyu.One angry kikuyu. The psychologist(Reaearcher) also told me that most likely you were abused by another kikuyu growing up. For this reason, I will never comment on any of your blogs. Am so sorry .You have reasons to be angry with all kikuyus because you are an idiot.
I find the story entertaining but i don't agree with dressing part.. Can't understand why @mlachake was so harsh to mzee moja.
I kind of agree with numbers 1 & 3 though I have some reservations, but number 2 stands out. The author needs to do more research if he tryly wants to display the American culture as it is. Let me be clear. The African Americans behave so much differently thatn their European Americans in terms of how they handle such things as time and eating as the writer portrays the America he interacted with. After staying with blacks for quite a while, I have observed on them, exactly what no. 2 depicts Kenyans. They want to stop you in the hallway and they cannot stop talking, you have to excuse yourself. Any time you greet them or you allow them to say hi to them, they expect you to engage in a never-ending conversation. Should you respond otherwise or unitretersted, they think you are acting white. Secondly, during lunch, Americans frown upon anyone interrupting them when eating food. It is like walking in on someone naked. That is unlike us Kenyans where you can talk as you eat. So, the blacks will talk forever when having lunch and they virtually forget it is time to go back to work, etc.
Mzee Moja, take a walk into the black community and interact more with them if you can and you can see no. 2 and more on them.
Mzee moja tried his best but I critical think I can comment is the way He said Americans brush their teeth in the car,Always jumping from this job to the other or changing kids diapers in the car???This is called problems n they wish they can have a beta life than that.Compare that life with somebody who leaves in village back in kenya who owns a small mawe or mabati hse,3cows,few chickens,4goats/sheep!that someone leaves n enjoys life beta than the one who is changing diapers,or doing matriples in USA .We need to know what quality life means???About saying pple in kenya/Africa waste time greeting @ other,talking to @ other I totally disagree juu in USA /Europe they don't care about @ other,I have seen them even taking their parents or sisters to court juu ya 200$.Can u find this nonsense in Africa??So I like tour culture of having pple who atleast seems concerned on how ur doing.I always say barabara za rami,buildings kubwa,speaking English ,wood houses don't make USA/Europe better.In the quoted countries divorce rate is upto 70%,abusing drugs,sucide n depression n stress!but in Africa is very minimal.
This is a major issue. What would you prefer
1. A short intense period of honest love and then part ways with your spouse in divorce (American love). Or
2. A long suffering (In most cases women and more and more men are joining) marriage (African love)
BTW while we are at the subject, I read in one research journal that Americans have more sex partners in their lifetimes than the polygamous Africans. The reason being that the Americans are serial polygamists- meaning they may have multiple lovers in their lifetimes. However, they try very hard to remain faithful to only one lover at a time. Their love affairs are intense and short lived. Compare that to our people who get married to one wife and one or two mpango wa kando for life. Food for thought!
What was the point of this haphazard article, if it was to portray the differences, it failed, if to educate, it failed. In some comments, it seemed to discredit some tradations especially the Kenyan, like the sitting down to enjoy a meal rather than to eat on the go. Ofcourse food is supposed to be enjoyed followed by some socialisition. Different people have different habits and traditions that suit them but none are superior than others. Most people s in the world sit down for their meals, eeven some in the US would have nothing else. I once had a visit couple from Germany and the lady insisted we must sit dow for meals, now for the American I have become my dinning table had been replaced by a desk with a computer on it. She had to buy a small dinning table and place it on the balcony where we ate every day. She could never understand this eating on the go. I did appreciate that trdation which I had lost since coming to the US. I think you could have done abetter article for education purposes.
As time is money, those who waste time on trivialities, daily rituals and ceremonial greetings are bound to lack in good things of life. If in a family of say 4, 6 or 8 only one person is productive; then you expect deficits in the needs of such families. Poverty, lack of sufficient supply of food and scarcity cannot be mistaken for prudence. What is viewed here as wastage is called spirit of abudance-more than enough for all including the unfortunate in society. When poverty mentality superceeds abundance mentality; people turn to misers fearing to spend lest they become destitute like so and so in their midst. What do you call it when the West give food and other aid to the needy peoples of the world? Is that wastage too? On dressing, I guess it is partly due to what people do for a living. A 24 hour economy that has been running for decades has "many" color jobs which dictates attires, dressing and dressing up. In US most dress for comfort, and dress up when occassions call for it. Cheap raymond that look presentable is not to be confused with dressing up. In a culture where majority mind their own business, the kind of conformity in dressing ( kila mtu na suit, tie, trouser suits etc) is rare. On the other hand those whose professions require dressing do really clean up well and in quality. On mention some of the t-shirts and jeans apiece cost as much as 5 mitumba suits plus dress shirts! Most in kenya not only "waste time in greetings", but we waste valuable time in daily life, man-hours, money, resources and so we cannot afford to "waste" food, because in the first place there is no food to waste. Finally, am just curious where the well dressed kenyans learnt their dressing from. Who are their designers again?
The writer has done a good job sharing his observations. He has not judged them as bad or good. I respect that because these are two cultures with none being better than the other.
The American's life in his/her car is a matter of survival. When you consider the bills and taxes, slacking is not condoned. Even if you have paid your house off, the property taxes will be paid until you sell off the property, an income that will still be taxed. I can not imagine someone going to my parents home and demanding a tax on their house or land in Kenya. The idea of running around is therefore not necessary. In this respect, Kenyans have a better quality of life, Americans have quantity. Or developed world problems as we call them.
Again, serial monogamy and polygamy are similar to me. Both tend to yield similar results; several baby mamas/daddys, split attentions...none better or worse than the other.
I actually find it ridiculous when people do these comparisons because I don't think any society is aspiring to be like the other. Matter of fact, when taking the American citizenship oath, the advice is to retain your unique identity and share with your new countrymen, as opposed to dropping who you are. It is that diversity that makes America great. Not its adherence to any particular culture.
I loved the article. It made me laugh. I think a lot of people writing comments need to chill out. The guy did do a thesis paper or Capstone for those who attend Johns Hopkins on Kenyan vs. American life. He simply made a few observations. If this was Ngugi wa Thiogo Or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I think such critism would be fair. Just relax people. You need to take Yoga or meditation classes if you take such stories so seriously.
I enjoyed this light hearted comparison. And it is pretty accurate give or take from the authors experience. I agree, there is a lot of food wastage around here. I am guilty of this one. I keep something in the fridgefor X amount of time then throw it away. My reason is simple; a trip to the Emergency Room from food poisoning is way more expensive than another trip to the grocery store!!! I also agree with the dressing. OMG, the dressing here is ridiculously bad. At work, people act like I dress up when the truth is, they are too dressed down. Some of these must be jammies. But if you ever want to see bad dressing, go to Wal-Mart. Enough said. Kenyans on the other hand a very good dressers.
As a culture, we do pay quite a bit of attention on niceties. Something you don't find often here (depending on what part of the US you are in). But for most part, it's a quick meet, greet and then quickly jump into business.
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