Friday afternoon we stopped at a large supermarket to get some snacks for our Friday Game Night. We had a large bill that we wanted to break. Street vendors don’t have a lot of change and can’t break large bills. That makes it necessary for people to keep small change so they can buy things. For example, we went to the fruit market this week and purchased bananas and an avocado. It cost 110 Ksh. If we would have given her a 500 Ksh note, she wouldn’t have been able to give us change. We have also discovered that an askari (guard) at a compound just across the street from us has mangoes for sale. It is mango season and they are a wonderful supplement to our breakfast! He is selling them for 10 Ksh apiece. (That makes them about 15 cents apiece.) We have become regular customers. If we gave him anything larger than 100 note, he probably couldn’t break it. The best thing to do is to keep as much small change as you can so that you can pay the exact amount.
So back to my story . . . We went to a large, well known supermarket chain. The bill came to 413 Ksh (less than $5). The clerk asked us to give her the bill plus 3 ksh to make change easier. We didn’t have it. So, she gave us two pieces of candy and a small packet of gum as part of our change equivalent to 7 Ksh. What a practical solution.
Kathy, a Maryknoll Lay Missioner that is in Kitale, is in town for the weekend. She is a physcian’s assistant and will be attending a medical conference in Nairobi this next week. We are going to visit Kitale on Friday. She isn’t going to be there to greet and help entertain us, so she came to Nairobi a couple of days early to spend time with us. We had previously met her in December 2009 as we were snowed in for our interview with Maryknoll. It is so good to see her again. Of course, this time we had much more specific questions to ask since we are considering moving to her town.
We spent the afternoon sightseeing. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Karen Blixen Coffee Garden. Many of you can probably picture where we were. Karen Blixen was the Danish woman who wrote the book Out of Africa which was later made into a movie of the same title. The Coffee Garden is located in the gardens of the plantation manager’s house. The afternoon was beautiful, the garden was wonderful and the company delightful. We all had hamburgers that tasted just as good if not better than we could have made at home. It was a short drive to see her house. The gardens there were also lovely.
Our final stop was at the Kazuri Bead Workshop. We have heard wonderful things about Kazuri beads while we have been here. They are ceramic beads made here in Nairobi. Kazuri means small and beautiful and they are! This industry was started in 1975 as a way to employ single mothers. They now employ over 350 women and their jewelry is in demand internationally. There are only three places in the US that sell them: New York, Boston and Kansas City. Yes, you heard me right, Kansas City! The store Ten Thousand Villages, a free trade store, in Kansas City sells them. Their web site is www.tenthousandvillages.com. You can learn more about the beads at www.kazuri.com. (Note: They took plastic there, we didn’t get any candy for change there!)
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