ChickAboutTown

  Living & Lifestyle in East Africa

Twende Tujivinjari* at KWS Marine Parks Day 5 : Back to Nairobi

Tree in Tsavo National Park

*Twende Tujivinjari is Swahili for “Let’s go and enjoy ourselves!”

It was the last day of our trip, and we were keenly aware of it. Instead of the gusto and excitement with which we’d woken up the past few days, on this last day, we were dragging our feet and barely talking to each other. We got up, had breakfast, and put our stuff together in preparation for the long journey ahead.

Personally, I was a bit excited because I knew we were scheduled to drive through Tsavo East National Park on our way to Nairobi. Granted, we’d just be driving through, but I remember the excellent time I had “just driving through” the Serengeti, a little over a year before. Continue reading

What’s Dating Like in East Africa?

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

Who Exactly is Mr. Price?

Mr Price CapI can still remember the day when I first became aware of Mr Price’s existence. The year was 2007; I was driving along Ngong Road in Nairobi near Prestige Plaza. I looked up to see a huge banner announcing the opening of a home furnishing store called Mr. Price Home at the Westgate Centre in Westlands. I found the idea of a home furnishing store interesting and made a mental note to check out the store the next time I was in its vicinity. Continue reading

Ramblings about Bridal Showers

Bridal Shower

Hi…so did you miss me these past three weeks? Please excuse the silence – it’s just that I got caught up in a flurry of activity related to a cousin’s wedding. You know how weddings can be. But how so exciting! This wedding was particularly exciting for me because it was the first truly Tanzanian wedding I was attending in 18 years. On top of being a great opportunity to catch up with the Tanzanian side of my family, I was looking forward to this wedding because I knew it would offer me a chance to attend some typically Tanzanian wedding functions for the first time. Of particular interest to me was attending a kitchen party.

If you’ve not heard of Tanzanian kitchen parties before, basically, these events are a sort of bridal shower where the bride-to-be’s close female friends and relatives get together to “provide her with all the necessary qualities and material things she needs to be a proper wife to the man she is marrying”. On top of the gifts she receives, mostly household items (and of course kangas), the women present offer the bride advice on how to have a happy marriage based on their own marital experiences. Sounds harmless enough, no? Yes, except that I’d heard that kitchen parties, despite being an all-female affair, could turn extremely wild and racy. This, I wanted to see for myself! Continue reading