How to spot a Kenyan

There is more to being Kenyan is not just being born in Kenya or legally acquiring Kenyan citizenship. From the popular trends inherent in the Kenyan Cultures; to the sarcasm; to the twitter soldiers and meme creators, Kenyans have a way of making Kenya feel like home. In his book Wahome Mutahi, a Kenyan writer, has put together a series of hilarious tales about what it means to be a Kenyan. Although much has changed since the mid-90s, he gives a hilarious illustration of the particularities of Kenyans in terms of behaviour, attitudes and survival skills. So really how do you spot a Kenyan?

1. Social media answers

Kenyans have an answer to almost every question that may arise. Go to twitter and find a trending topic, Kenyans have something to say. And I don’t know how it happens but the answers are often hilarious. We are experiencing the birth of a highly tech-savvy generation who have adopted fast to social media trends.

Image source: bbc.com

2. Memes

There is no single occurrence that has passed without a joke arising from it. The down side of this is that sometimes your problems may be made hilarious.

3. Slay queens

A Kenyan girl will go to India for a two-week’ vacation and come back with a British accent. Also, in those two weeks, she will take hundreds of photos in different attires then keep posting them for months, giving the village witches sleepless nights.

Sometimes accents can also be acquired by passing by the American embassy in Nairobi and taking a well calculated photo (which may be illegal).

4. Foodies

We also carry around foodstuffs in our bags. From mangoes to KDFs and groundnuts and most importantly tropical sweets from hawkers. Also, while we have the ability to boil as many eggs as we want from our houses, we prefer eating boiled eggs from hawkers in town because Kenyan eggs know when they are in town and when they are in the house. (It’s a Kenyan joke, if you know you know.) Also, a daily dose of mutura is good for an average Kenyan’s well-being.

5. Phone calls and lengthy conversations

Kenyans have peculiar calling habits; like you will get 6 missed calls from a person and when you call them back, they tell you they just wanted to say hi.

Or after a three hour conversation and one person has to go, the other hits them with “we will talk.”

Or in a celebration and a person is invited to talk and they start with “Much has already been said so I’ll just add a few remarks…” and three hours later they are still talking.

6. Bad decisions nonetheless

There is this thing that Kenyans do that makes them regret later, but do we learn? We elect leaders on tribal lines in the name of “mtu wetu” the after two or three years when the country is suffering economically, we complain about bad leadership, corruption and embezzlement of funds. The gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening.

Life in Kenya is hard as it is and the ability to laugh at things and become comedians momentarily is what keeps most Kenyans going. We still hope that one day things will work out and the Kenya we have today will be a better place to be.