Cooking for Kenyans

Hello!

Yesterday we celebrated the 4th of July by cooking American food for the staff at our guesthouse.

Of course, it was actually the 5th of July, and the meat dish was actually more Chinese than American (Coca-cola chicken), but hey, we have been in Africa for 4 days and we improvise.

Stage one of Operation Cooking Independence was to get the food. This required a trip to one of the more westernized (and consequently, higher priced) Nairobi grocery markets.  We pushed our trolley around, looking at camel milk in plastic bags, sacks of Indian spices, finger bananas, and massive 55 liter cooking pots for weddings.  Then we went to the check out... and were short money.  We were 3 Kenyan shillings short, which at 85 shillings to the dollar, is about 0.03 USD.

Luckily, the checker was nice, and let us slide.

Then we had to wait for our taxi driver to come get us.  Taxis in Kenya, as far as I can tell, are not "registered" per say, no signs lit up saying if they are taken or not, not even any sticker saying "taxi."  They are all private cars who either try to pick you up on the street, or who you know already and call to come get you.  Simon is our taxi guy, and we gave him a call to come pick us up.  But while we were waiting on the dirt strip besides the street, watching the security guards check under every car entering the supermarket compound with mirrors, a beggar man in very bad shape came up to us.  Which is fine, we had a whole bevy of street children asking for Mollie's jacket the other evening.  What was less fine was that he wanted our sodas we were drinking and wasn't leaving when we wouldn't give them to him.  What was even less fine was when he tried to keep touching Mollie's arm. What was totally uncool was that, not only were the security guards 20 ft away not paying attention (ok, they have jobs to do) several Kenyan men saw us two mzungo girls cornered by a rough 40 year old beggar man and not only didn't step in, but one actually shouted at us in English "give him something!"  Super helpful.  We picked up our groceries and walked away, closer to the guards with guns, and eventually the beggar left and Simon came.

Then we rode in the car back to the guesthouse and suddenly, one of our Chinese academic contacts called us and wanted to meet right now.  An hour later he would be busy.  And he was 18 km out of the opposite side of town.  I ask if we could meet him tomorrow or Saturday, and he said maybe, he didn't know what his schedule would be like tomorrow, so call him in the morning. 

Then we got to the guesthouse and found out guests aren't typically allowed to cook in the kitchen.  So we had to wait until the owners left... mostly.  The owner lady came in while we were cooking and asked a few narrow questions, but we answered light heartedly and it seemed to go down ok. 

But it was all worth it, because the staff loved the food we made and we had a really fun time making it with them.  The two cooks, house girl, manageress, and night guard had a ball.  They really enjoyed the coca-cola chicken, potato salad, watermelon, banana bread and vanilla pudding which we made, and learned how to cook new dishes and offered to show us how to make pastries tomorrow. 

So we celebrated independence from the British, both Kenyan and American, after all.

Happy Independence Day to you all!