Mchongoano

Nothing makes a Kenyan feel better than making fan of another Kenyan. Here in the US, MTV has a similar-premised show, Yo Mamma ,where competitors try to outwit, outjoke, and outdiss each other.

Kenyan mchongoano is a powerful tool used to intimidate other people with wickedly funny assessments of their lives. This happens everywhere-in primary school playgrounds, high school dorms, and college flats. The best mchongoanos are those left the opponent speechless. These were executed in highly colorful sheng terms that were born at that moment.

Below are some of my favorites as provided, unedited, by my dear cousin Jaqy Ngina. These come direct from Nairobi West. If you need translations, please, leave this post you’re not worthy.

• Acha Kureason Kama Round-a-bout

• Ati nyumba yenyu ni kombo mpaka ukilala asubuhi unajipata nnje

• Ati una sura mbaya ukilia machozi zinaenda juu

• Ngotha yako chuma ikiingia lunch unaitoa na spark

• Ati wewe mkonde ukiinua mkono unaona maminyoo zikikatiana

• Nyinyi ni mababi mpaka mnaweka sufuria zenyu kwa saucer

• Nyinyi ni mababi mpaka muna hao ya glass ambayo ina madirisha ya mawe

• Ati wewe ni mfupi sana hadi uki pigwa picha, lazima camera man alale kwa floor

• Ati nyanyako ni mblack design venye alijoin ma brownie, yeye alibaki ame itwa “blackie”

• Kwenu nyi ni mafala hadi mna patia kuku zenu maji moto ati ndio zitoe mayai boilo

• Nyumba yenu ni round lakini mnafight kulala back left

• Gari yeni ni noma siku za mvua inavaa gumboots

• Mobile 4n yako ni kali mpaka inamixx ma ringtones

• Sura kama sufuria ya ocha

• Mko wadosi mpaka ng’ombe zenu huvalishwa Trust condoms zikienda kulala

Specialty Drinks

Contributed by Ngina Chege:

Remember VIMTO? I think this was 1000 spoons of sugar syrup, color and flavor. This this yet somehow refreshing soda found its way into your throught on a hot day. Not knowing that the sugar will only intensify ones thirst. And if tyou drunk enough vimto you were sure to get a sore throat from all that syrup drink. Am suprised that we did not go into sugar induced commas after downing a bottle of this so called soda.

How about TREE TOP orange drink. Who invented Tree Top? This must have been in an era where sugar was considered a form of healthy food and entertainment to ones palate. If you place your drink / glass of juice on the ground , you would need a kichungi to drink it . Your glass would be attacked by a whole army of ants in a matter of minutes and they would be deparately trying to climb their way out of that sticky mess we called juice. So either you catch teeth clenching skills to sieve the insects out or politely ask your host for kichungi to fish the little bugs out. It always ended up going the teeth clenched way.

RIBENA ya wagonjwa. Was there a written rule that every time you went to visit the sick in the hospital, you had to take a bottle of Ribena? I must have missed that rule. So if the patient was diabetic, were we responsible for the outcome of events after forcing them to drink the juice. By the way the children would watch hungrily at the juice as the patient drank it in hopes that they would be offered some to perch their dry little throats. After all we were forced to come visit you.

GLUCOSE what the hell was that mess. I remember on a hot sports day event in school after running 300meters, instead of being offered water, one was to stretch their hand out and get a spoon full of white powder aka glucose. As dry as the mouth we would lick this mess happily yet out thirst intensified. It was like wipe the mouth out with cotton. If am not wrong isnt the glucose more useful before the race?

A relation of Glucose was LUCOZADE. This fizzy drink was often also associated with hospitals, new moms, and grandparents. This drink came in a yellow textured bottle, wrapped in yellow cellophane. There was no secret when opening this bottle. The crinkling and cracking sound of the wrapper announced that you had received a very special drink and soon prompted “Wewe ni mgonjwa?” questions. And bless those relatives who had little or no experience with Lucozade; it was unwrapped like a golden egg and hastily mixed with water making enough to share with numerous cousins, the final product a sickly yellow fizzless tepid drink.

STONEY TANGAWIZI was this soda invented for sore throats? I don’t see how this soft drink is supposed to make my taste buds sing and dance with delight. Try drinking this after a hard days work and tell me if your sinus functions do not improve 100% just from the burning reaction you get in your lungs and chest from the tangawizi itself.

KREST BITTER LEMON I swear this one was for malaria purposes. Full of quinine and Lord knows what else. This soda was reserved for “mum” and not soda ya watoto.
But like you said it nothing beats a fanta on a hot day. Fanta blackcurrant would hit the spot just right!

Success Cards

Exam time brings around the success card season. If you’re in boarding school and have many relatives, you’re sure that every mail day will bring a fresh batch of success cards of all manner. Kenyans don’t wish people Good Luck; they wish them Success. Apparently, good luck means you really don’t deserve to pass that biology practical but success means you’ve earned the grade you go.

Kenyan success cards can be bought anywhere from the newspaper vendor, to the high-end stores.

These highly coveted cards are displayed in various ways: Hang over a sisal string strung across the dorm room, propped up on the window sill, or carefully filed into a folder for a guided unveiling to anyone who cares to see.

The cards can be scented, doused in the floral scents of jasmine or fumigated in the every popular Game of Paris cologne.

There are a couple of varieties of success cards:

1. The always safe, vase of flowers, where roses, tulips, carnations are front and center, in full bloom. This type of card usually comes from older relatives like aunts, grandparents, church deacon, or parents. Teachers are known for favoring this card. They’ll send a couple to their most favored students with positive messages.

2. The happy couple that’s somewhere in Aboreturm or near the beach. They are seated on the grass, feet streched before them, ever so innocently leaning into each other. Sometimes there’s a bottle of Fanta off to the side indicating this couple has just finished a picnic and decided to share their joy with the world by posing for a cheap photo. These are sent by wannabe boyfriends or girlfriends, that ndugu who told you God told him you were his future wife, or the cousin in shags who spent hours dedicating a poem to your success on the inside of the card.

3. The religious card with a cross, Bible, or other religious symbol. In it are verses of the holy books exalting the value of hard work and banishing to hell any thoughts of cheating during exam time. The church pastor, lead kayamba player of the choir, and your parent’s friends usually send you this to keep you faithful.

4. A musical combination of all card. This one is the most prized. Not only is it the thickest to accommodate the battery, but it’s the most expensive. It’s especially appreciated when it’s from a boy or girlfriend, soaking in floras scents, and peeling out tin-music nobody can recognize.

It really doesn’t matter who sent the cards, what they smell like, or what they look like In the end, it’s HOW many cards you receive that shows the other students everyone is wishing you success.

Bus Trips

The best way to travel cross-country in Kenya, is by boarding the “bus”. Growing up, Christmas in shags meant the chaotic lines at River Road or Machakos, haggling for seats that were together, trying to squeeze a metal suitcase into the rusty overhead compartments

The clerk behind the chicken-wire mesh scribbled into the carbon copy book, tore off the paper tickets as thin as toilet paper, which you clung onto for dear life as you made your way to the hunk of metal called a bus.

After a hasty goodbye to the village that came to see you off, you clawed your way onto the bus. There was always some ample-sized woman sitting in your sit, napping. After the conductor sorted the “confusion” with the help of a 20 Ksh bill that fell out of your wallet, you had your seat. You settle into the now warm seat the smells of limara, satin sheen, and vim. Your prized seat is next to a smudgy window.

Late comers make their way onto the bus and inevitably, the man with the chicken in the carton box will have the seat next to yours. This will be a long trip. Then there’s always the “jungu and juice” man worming his way up and down the aisle trying to sell you burnt peanuts in a cone-shaped newspaper, cools, or boiled eggs. And as if hell couldn’t be closer, your fellow passengers buys four boiled eggs while the chicken watches you, his neck sticking out of the makeshift pen. Oh the irony.

The suitcases secured with sisal have been hauled into the belly of the bus and the trip is set to begin. The drive staggers into his seat and you realize it’s not a good sign. After all, you ran into him at urinating and chewing miraa in the alley by the bus stop. His eyes are blood shot as he tries the jam the key into the ignition. The bus sputters once, twice, then dies. He tries again. Nothing. The conductor-cum-mechanic goes to the back and yells to the driver to try again. Soon the beast chugs to life a black cloud of exhaust fume swirling into the bus from outside.

The bone-rattling goes on for some minutes while the bus driver absently chats with his buddies unaware that the departure was scheduled for 7 p.m..

The conductor walks down the aisle checking the tickets as the bus leaves the city lights behind. Wow to any passengers who are on the wrong bus. They’ll be hastily dropped off in the dark, dangerous, Savannah between Athi River and Machakos unless they can pay upfront, triple for the ticket.

Your fellow seat-mate has fallen asleep after ingesting an egg that perfumes the air around you with it sulphuric smell. The chicken in the box is still eyeballing you, and the conductor has settled on the engine by the driver. It’s relatively silent around you and you’re grateful the onboard TV and video isn’t working otherwise you’d be stuck watching Indian musicals all the way to your destination.

For a couple of hours the dark interior is peaceful. Even the chicken has fallen asleep, it’s beak uncomfortably close to your privates. You begin to drift off into some dreamless sleep, your fingers clutching your wallet that’s hidden under your arm pit to avoid pickpockets. Suddenly the bus lurks forward throwing you into the seat in front of you and you’re wide away.
It’s potty time.

Fellow passengers wander into the dark, women to one side and men the other. You need to stretch your legs so you join the man pissing on shrubs in the middle of the national park. This is how the newspaper stories on people being eaten by lions starts. With your eyes trained into the dark you pee what you can as quickly as possible. The only real danger is the rogue monkeys that will materialize out the dark and pinch your naked butt. The bus shudders to life and everyone rushes to climb on. There are stories of passengers being left in the bush because they went the extra step; number two.

The guy next to you cracks open another egg and offers you one but you’re too savvy to accept. Passengers have taken food from others only to find out that it was laced with stuff that made them sleep and rendered them helpless to pickpockets. They woke up at their destination, their luggage, wallets, purses, all gone.

The bus hurtles into the dark and images of wrecks splashed on newspapers haunt you as you try to convince yourself you’ll be okay. The driver is chewing on mirror and yapping away with the conductor his eyes barely on the road.

By the time you stop at the road-side cafe, you’re glad to be on solid ground. Fellow passengers line up for late night rice, mystery meat stew, and sodas. The lines to the public toilet are even longer and the smell makes you think twice about using them. So you join others in the clearing just beyond the poorly-lit buildings.

The food stop didn’t help anyone. The sounds of farting, gagging smell of burps, and smacking of lips is enough to make you want to walk the rest of the trip. Someone opens a window and after a refreshing breeze you start to doze off. But the window is broken and now you’re stuck freezing under the cold air rushing in and trying not to swallow any bugs that fly in. The chicken is only too happy to peck at the dead bugs on your shirt.

The bus pulls into the first destination and is immediately surrounded by hawkers. They seem to appear out of no where. They press they wares against the windows, selling everything from bananas and malariquin to lifebouye and more eggs. For some passengers, this ride to hades is over and they disembark, but for you, there’s still some way to go.

The guy next to you isn’t going anywhere, neither is his demon possessed chicken. A new passenger sit in the seat in front of you and promptly adjusts it to lay back. It goes all the way back and is now stuck on that position forcing your knees into your face. They proceed to read aloud from their Bible for the rest of the trip. On ones side is boiled egg guy, snoring loudly the stench of boiled eggs seeping out of his pores, his chicken daring you to look at it, in front of you the prophet loudly proclaiming the end of the earth, and behind you the rasta-wanna-be blasting music from his cd player.

You count the minutes as the bus races toward it’s final destination, but that’s not fast enough. You stare into the darkness hoping that the city light show up on the horizon and end this nightmare. Another egg is cracked open, the cd player gets louder, and the lady-prophet goes into a tongue-speaking trance. And just when you think you can’t stand it any more, a crackle announces the life of the TV. Soon the ear-piercing sounds of a Bollywood movie echo in the bus. Passengers cheer but you’re ready to jump out the window.

But salvation is at hand. The dull yellow light in the horizon are the best sight you’ve ever seen. After six hours in the metal coffin, you’re almost home. The chicken clucks and you smile, relieved that the ordeal is almost over. Suddenly, everything is better; your neighbor doesn’t stink of sulphur, the ladies praying is mediative chanting, the Bollywood music is soothing, and you fell refreshed.

The bus coughs up that final hill before careening down into the city. Passengers all around you stir to life and some sense of normal returns. Neon signs greet your arrival into the town and you smile back.

After dropping off passengers at various stops, you finally arrive at the final destination.
In another ten days, you’ll be making the same trip back. It wasn’t so bad, you think to yourself.

JIK

AKA Bleach. Kenyans love this stuff. It’s a multi-purpose product found in every household. It makes your whites yellowish, disinfects toilets, sufurias, cement floors, and nappies. It kills lice if mixed with shampoo. It overwhelms any other smells in your house so visitors marvel at what a clean person you are.

At boarding school, there was always that one person who had an endless supply of JIK and would sell it by the cupful for those notorious end-of-term cleaning rituals.

In shags JIK was used sparingly to cleanse the sheets and towels when “special guests” came over for the holidays.

Every home with a newborn had a bottle of JIK ready to soak dirty nappies in that special ndoa with the cover that would sit under the bed for days.

The only other problem with JIK is that it really didn’t make whites, whiter or brighter. It usually turned them an unfluttering dull yellow color.

Cheering at Movies

Doesn’t matter where the movie is showing-in a theater, a video-cafe, or one of those mobile movie vans that criss-crossed shags over Christmas; Kenyan’s will cheer the good guys and jeer the bad, quite loudly.

Not only do we cheer them by clapping, we stand up, pump our fists in the air, and do a little dance when the good guy finally delivers that final blow to the bad guy that sends him reeling over the edge of the bottomless bridge.

Take the James Bond movies. We all know Mr. Bond will manage to escape and defeat the evil guy in the last minute of the movie. And he’ll get the guy. Despite the obvious plot, Kenyan’s act as though it was a real matter of life and death. They hiss at Mr. Evil with his ominous scar running down his face, jeer when he delivers his final vengeful speech to a struggling Mr. Bond whose bound somewhere in a high-tech room. They gasp when the villian makes his escape leaving our hero to face impeding death (a laser, slow rising water, toxic fumes seeping into the chamber, etc etc).

Kenyans yell at the screen, encouraging Mr. Bond to try this and that, do this and that, seemingly oblivious to the fact that our Mr. Bond is (a) is a work of tw0-dimensional fiction (b) CAN’T HEAR YOU!

But does that stop the worked-up Kenyans? No. As soon as Mr. Bond finally wriggles away from the chains/leather straps/sinking car etc, the Kenyas erupt in cheering. Clapping, high-fiving each other, patting each other on the back as though it was all their doing.

Then comes the finale where our brave Mr. Bond must do battle with the crazy evil scientist/billionaire/rogue spy. This takes place on any one of the million improbable places; atop a speeding train, an industrial maze complex, a perilous highway overlooking a steep canyon.

With every blow Mr. Bond delivers, comes a resounding howl from the Kenyans. By this time you’ve given up sitting and are standing to see the screen above the animated Kenyans infront of you.

The bootlegger isn’t having a better time, ducking excited flaying elbows. The climax of the fight is nigh. A bloody Mr. Bond whose good looks are still intact despite the bone-crunching blows he received reaches for that one last gadget, that one last trick in this arsenal of battle, and

(a) shoots the evil scientist right between the eyes
(b) drives the secret pen cum poison tipped needle cum death needle into rogue spies heart
(c)with all his strength kicks the evil billionaire off the ledge and into the seething cauldron of poison.

Kenyas clap, cheer, sing, with elation at the defeat of Mr. Evil and the truimph of Mr. Bond who lives to make another movie.

No wonder our bootleg movies suck.

Chapos

Better known as Chapati, this flat bread of Indian origin is a special dish in most Kenyan households. To many aspiring cooks, chapos are the final frontier. Mastering the art of making great chapos takes skill, patience, and that special “cooks hand” few have.

The ideal chapo is light, flaky, moist, and slightly sweet. But the true test of the chapo comes hours later when the chapos pair up with tea for breakfast. After 24 hours, the best chapos remain soft and pliable; the worst have become hard and brittle, crumbling into flour.

When informed that chapos are for dinner, Kenyans ask “Who made them?” This question will determine just how excited one should get for a meal of chapos.

Chapos are labor intensive, requiring nimble fingers and attention. A woman who can make the ideal chapos is a catch in any society. From mixing the flour with the right amount of hot water, kneading the dough until it’s just right, to knowing exactly when to flip the bread on the kikarango is an art in itself.

Then there are those who insist on making chapos although they’ve been told, subtly, that their chapos just aren’t right. They look like tan fatigue uniform with patches of black burnt spots. Or they smell of smoke. They are too thick, haven’t cooked through and feel like one is chewing a leather shoe. Those chapos tend to last for days because nobody wants more than a half.

The side dishes that accompany the chapos are equally as important. Like a good dance, chapos needs a great partner. The most popular is beans. Not just any beans though; red kidneys beans that have been cooking on a makaa stove for hours. And woe to the person who puts them on the stove int he morning and forgets about them all day. The smell of burnt beans lasts for days and will require gallons of JIK to neutralize.

The boiled beans are drained and fried up with onions, tomatoes, spices, and coconut milk.

Chapos can only be eaten with hands. Parents usually get two chapos to themselves, and the kids get one each. The downside to making the ideal chapos is that the neighbors smell them and make themselves conveniently available during dinner time. If such an occasion would occur, the chapos must be quartered and each guest given one piece unless there’s more to go around again.

So if you ever cook chapos and a whole busload of Kenyans show up, rest assured, you’re a good cook. If you make chapos and they’re still around 24 hours later, perhaps you should learn how to make something else.

Chai

Fanta Baridi

On a hot, scorching, mid-December day, nothing beats a refreshing swallow of a cold Fanta soda. That citrus flavor

Booking

What’s better than not standing in line for an event? Asking a friend to “book” a space for you. This is especially common in high schools where the concept of first come first served is lost.