Kenya, Music

A great song by one of Kenya’s better-known artists, Jua Cali. I’m not sure why I never heard it until now because it’s been out since late 2008. Anyways, it’s Jua Cali and Enika (apparently she’s from Tanzania). It’s a nice break from all the “I’m a thug” and “get money and bitches” music that is becoming so popular (even in Kenya). From what I can understand (and from what we see in the video), Jua Cali is reminiscing about when he was a young boy discovering his love for music.

If you want to download the MP3 you should head over to GetMziki because it was featured on their blog when the song was released.

Kenya, Travel

Randi and I are back from our East Africa safari but, other than the few pictures we uploaded along the way, we have nothing to show for it! My fancy Nokia camera phone decided to eat all the pictures we took. There are lots of great stories to be told, though, like the day I swapped t-shirts with some dude on the streets of Dar Es Salaam.

Alan walking on the street in Dar es Salaam
Alan walking on the street in Dar es Salaam

It went down like this: Randi and I had decided Dar Es Salaam was way too hot and humid, and we hadn’t had a cup of coffee in a couple of days. We noticed a sign saying “Coffee Lounge” outside a fairly classy building in a nicer part of town (read: probably had air conditioning), so we went inside to investigate. It was there, climbing the stairs, that I saw a dude coming down the stairs with a shirt that said “Niko Juu!!” (slang, literally “I’m up”). He kinda paused when he saw me, and then I told him, “Wee, shirt yako iko poa. Tubadilishane?” (dude, your shirt is cool, let’s trade). To my surprise he took his off immediately and we traded right then and there. So if you see some dude walking around Tanzania with a Ramones shirt it’s probably the same guy. Hopefully he enjoys telling the story as much as I do!

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Kenya, Travel

Randi walking on the beach in Watamu, Kenya
Randi walking on the beach in Watamu, Kenya

We’ve reached Watamu! I’m not sure if it actually means “sweet people” or not, but in Swahili tamu means sweet, and the plural form of people is “wa” — like mkenya and wakenya for Kenyan/Kenyans.

I’ve been here before with Sara and some other volunteers. It’s a great little touristy beach getaway with lots of Italians. You can tell there’s an Italian influence because the tuk-tuks say “Piaggio”, the kids shout, “Ciao!”, and there is a gelato shop on every corner. I’ve been longing for gelato ever since we left Nairobi so we plan on eating it at least twice a day. We’ve also been eating a lot of mangos (there is a great apple–mango hybrid that is really delicious and cheap). Randi swore left and right that she didn’t like fresh mango but I guess they don’t make ’em like this in the US. Karibu Kenya (welcome to Kenya)!

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