15APR2007 “Wazungu for Dinner”

Joseph, our gardener and cook, invited us to come to his home for a celebration. He said he promised to organize a small party for his kids who had done really well in school that term, especially Grace who got first in her class! At the last minute, ‘the entertainment fell through,’ but Joseph asked us to come anyway to share supper with them. It turns out we were the entertainment. All of the neighbors and nearby relatives turned out to see the wazungu. Joseph’s little girls were even dressed in matching satin party dresses, which the littlest one kept trying to peel off in the stifling heat.

Joseph has a nice little garden and a modest mud-brick house thatched with makuti, but lacking both electricity and running water. The kitchen is a small shed separate from the main house where his wife, Agnes, cooks over a fire on the ground (as with most Kenyan cooking rooms, the walls were coated in black from the cooking soot). All the kids gathered around us and gawked, but were too shy to answer our questions.


When it was time to eat, all the women and children moved to the other side of the yard and left us alone to eat with Joseph and Joseph’s brother in law. It was a bit disconcerting for us to eat separately from the kids & women. We ate chapatti, tiny samosas filled with green peas, beans and ugali. We brought ice cream and pineapple for dessert. After dinner, Agnes served us the ice cream, but only us! We protested that we brought it for the kids to congratulate them on their accomplishments at school, so she passed out more bowls. The little girls swished it around in the bowl, almost playing with it, and tasted it very hesitantly. We asked Joseph if they didn’t like ice cream. He said that they weren’t used to eating things that were very cold (which would make sense if you didn’t have electricity or a refrigerator!)


The whole experience was challenging and really got us thinking more about the realities of living as a Kenyan, especially when taking into account that Joseph has a very good and steady job. Although basic by our standards, the meal was quite a spread and the whole event the highlight of their month.