Happy New Year, dear Reader! I hope you had a wonderful festive season and that this year brings you the fulfillment of your most heartfelt desires!
Towards the end of last year, I was asked to complete a questionnaire on Dar es Salaam that would be used as a city guide on an American fashion website. Continue reading
Hmmm…Riiight. Like I can even attempt to answer that question with any sort of authority. Although a friend recently called me the East African Carrie Bradshaw during a late night Facebook chat (you can imagine the kind of stories we were swapping 
), I’ll have to decline the title because it’s simply not true. Nonetheless, I have recently realized that I have been on at least one date with men from each of the five East African countries (and had relationships with men from three of these), so neither am I entirely clueless on the subject. Continue reading
I love to hear from you, dear reader. I love it even more when, in your comments, you tell me about a product, service, or establishment in East Africa that I know little about but that hopefully, I can try for myself one day. Last month, I was pleased to receive my share of such comments. In case you missed them, allow me to share a few of these with you.
Early in July, I received a comment from Timmy, who had recently purchased a Toyota Vitz. Here’s what he had to say about his new car: Continue reading
Hi. Believe it or not, today ChickAboutTown turns three! You can’t believe it? Neither can I. Where did all the years go? What I can say for sure is that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog and interacting with you, my dear readers and fellow bloggers, over the past three years.
As one often does on anniversaries, today I am reminiscing. I am looking at the highlights and the “low-lights” of my blogging journey over the past three years. Without going into too much details, I’ve been looking through my archives trying to figure out what it is that you most enjoyed, what you didn’t, what I most enjoyed, and what I didn’t. For instance, for the first time ever, I thought to take a look at which posts had you talking the most, i.e., those that generated the most comments from you. That made for an interesting find. Continue reading
Photo Credit: Jurvetson
Some would be embarrassed to admit it, but I am going to give it to you straight up: I don’t watch, listen to, or read the news. It’s not that I like to be out of the loop; rather, this is a defense mechanism that I developed after first being exposed to the gruesome, horrific, doomsday nature of news in Kenya. After spending many troubled nights feeling like the world was a horrible place, nights on which coincidentally I had watched the evening news, I put two-and-two together and decided to forgo having my finger on the pulse of current events, in favor of being a calmer, happier, more positive Nairobi resident. This defense mechanism eventually spilled over to all forms of daily news including newspapers and news on radio, as well as to other countries (well, except for Uganda, where I find reading The New Vision a real pleasure…but I digress).
How do I keep abreast of what’s going on in the world, you might ask? My response to you would be: if something is really important and worth knowing about, then people will be talking (and blogging) about it, so eventually I’d find out somehow. Take, for instance, the advent of submarine fiber optic cable to East Africa. Continue reading
During the course of my life, I have watched my parents both build and buy a number of houses – in and out of East Africa. In hindsight, I’ve much preferred the homes that they bought to those they built (sorry Mom and Dad!). There’s one home, though, which they built – the one we lived in during my teenage years – that felt more like home than any other that they ever lived in. Maybe it’s because I saw it built from the ground up, meaning that I knew things about the house such as why the tiles in the kitchen were different from all the other ones in the house, or maybe why the area containing the children’s rooms was separated from the rest of the house by a solid wood door (because of security), or that I had a hand to play in the creation of the raised graveled platform area in our backyard (an in-built dance floor for all the great parties my family threw ).
Despite the wonderful memories that I have of that particular house, I also remember the tedious, endless Saturday site visits that were a regular part of our lives while the house was under construction – visits during which my parents, the contractor, and the architect seemed to have endless discussions about the smallest details of the upcoming structure. Continue reading
Before I get to the point of this post, allow me to share with you the story that inspired it.
Sometime last year, in Kampala, my cousin and I were leaving home around the same time and decided to wait for each other so we could leave together. As we left home, my cousin asked me to join her on a small detour to an apartment complex in the neighborhood, where she needed to run an errand for a friend who would be moving there soon. Not in too much of a rush, I conceded and accompanied my cousin.
Once we got to the apartment complex, my cousin sought out the property’s caretaker to give him her friend’s security deposit and first month’s rent – this was the errand she needed to run. Hmmm…for a moment, I wondered why my cousin’s friend wouldn’t want to complete such an important step in the renting process herself but chose not to dwell on it and figured that it wasn’t such a big deal as long as the caretaker gave my cousin a proper receipt. It’s what happened next that completely shocked me! Continue reading
Guess what, readers? Finally, Furahi-day has rolled around again! In case you don’t know, Furahi means “be happy” in Kiswahili. Doesn’t the thought of Friday simply fill you with happiness? Believe it or not, the weekend is here again. What are you going to do to celebrate its advent?
Today, I am planning to meet up with a childhood friend who tells me that there is a club night at Club Malaika in Dar-es-Salaam. Continue reading
Hi! Welcome to ChickAboutTown.com. I am not yet sure what this blog will become, but I guess if it’s ever going to happen, I need to just get started. 
Let me start by introducing myself. For the purpose of this blog, please feel free to call me Biche. That’s not pronounced b**ch, but rather \bish\. I have a passion for all things good. I love to go out. I love to travel. I love anything that truly stands out above the crowd.
ChickAboutTown.com would like to be your guide to the good things in life. Continue reading