Mantu Nja Kurigarania (something funny)

Mantu Nja Kurigarania is Kimeru for "something funny." I began thinking about these yesterday when i complemented someone on their vest. Turns out that a vest is really an undershirt, and they were confused why i was complimenting them on something i couldn't see. a half coat is what we would think of as a vest. who would have thought.

1. What we would call a vest, they call a half coat. a vest is a wife-beater, or undershirt. 
2. I have mentioned before that they eat only unsweet, white corn. Almost all corn they grow becomes corn flour for ugali, a staple in a Kenyan diet. so when it is time for harvest they let the plant completely dry out before they take the corn, so they don't have to dry it so much once it is harvested. because of this, if you ever do eat corn on the cob, it will be very tough and juice less. 
3. i have also kind of mentioned this before, and to people not from an agricultural area this might not be so strange. all planting, harvesting, and plowing is done by hand. In the states it is planting season right now, and it would be beyond impossible to do all of that by hand. this is hard, back breaking work that is usually done by women. Often you will see a group of mamas (older ladies) out in a field plowing and planting. 
4. actually women do a lot of the hard labor. every Wednesday the forest is open to people to go and get firewood. they walk to the forest, chop up wood that is already dead (they aren't allowed to take anything that is living), and then walk back home with huge loads of wood on their backs. often you see them going home in the evening, because this is an all day process. 
5. I have learned so much about African hair. when Ruth goes to the salon, i usually go with her so i can get a pedicure. It is so interesting to me to sit and watch all the goings on! being at a salon i have seen many weaves put in. a weave is when they braid their own hair and then sew in different hair that is straighter and more like white people hair. I don't understand this. i would love to have hair that i could braid, and forget about for 2 weeks. that sounds so lovely. but they think i am very strange for saying this. they would love to have my hair, which takes so much maintenance. 
6. Women change their hair every 2-6 weeks depending on what kind of style they get done. This is so hard for me. I am used to people having the same hair style for long periods of time, and i then associate the hair with the person. i have had to really look at people's faces in order to recognize them. sometimes this is embarrassing when i have met a person more then once.
7. African fabrics. most Kenyans did not traditionally wear fabrics, they wore animal skins. I am not sure of all the history behind it, but it partly has to do with it being so hot, and then so cold at night. when they needed covering it needed to be a warm covering. most of the fabrics that are now worn are from Tanzania. Some of the very old people, from very interior, still wear the animal skins underneath their clothes. 
8. Vaseline is used like lotion. at the supermarket there are rows and rows of all different kinds of petroleum jelly. hand lotion is available as well, but not in the variety that is available in the states. 
9. All milk is whole milk. When i came back to the states last year, i brought Cadbury's drinking chocolate because i thought it was so good. it turns out that when you add any drinking chocolate to whole milk it tastes so much better!
10. you can always tell a Kenyan by the inoculation scar on the upper side of their forearm. Older people have a second one higher up, but everyone has one on their forearm. i am not quite sure what it is, but it is something like a MMR. i have no idea why it leaves a scar. 

love to everyone!

Suzanne