Day 17: Today we had a brief presentation to George about our findings on the field. The team and I found the presentation very helpful in terms of organising our thoughts. George also provided some feed back and direction for the following couple of weeks. While walking back from the office we stopped and checked out the golf course and we found out that the price of a game is exactly the same as in Canada, but instead of getting a golf cart you can get a caddy for 400 Kshs (7 $US). Golf is a very elite sport in Kenya and this particular course is managed by Indian people. From the feeling I get, the Indians own and manage most of the business in Nairobi, this obviously causes a lot of racial tension. This is another legacy left by the British Empire, but I guess if Britain hadn’t imported labour from India to build the railway some other form of immigration would have taken place creating the same kind of tension.
After the presentation we went to the supermarket to stock up supplies for our new flat. We were all very intrigued with the supermarket in Kenya I guess the products sold in the supermarket identify the habits of the locals. For instance I noticed that the meat was sold frozen. I guess the most fascinating department was the fruit and vegetable since the products sold here are so different from the one you see either in Europe or North America. Consumer packaged goods are all the same as the one sold in developed countries I guess this is a consequence of globalisation. The only problem being that most Kenyan cannot afford these products. We spent a total of 14000 Kshs which for a Kenyan family is a small fortune and we didn’t even buy that much grocery, we obviously bought the brands we recognised from our countries and I guess that pushed up the cost of our shopping.
In the evening TY cooked our first and probably last house meal, since we are employing a cook to make us nice Kenyan dinners… we need to try authentic Kenyan cuisine hence why we employee a cook... or at least that is our excuse.