Getting around food.

ln the past one week, it has been raining on daily basis here in Nairobi and other parts of the Country, glad l have been working indoors and consuming lots of tea! l have gradually become Kenyan as my body now craves for tea even after having a delicious meal of okro soup and wheat for supper!


For many, when they newly arrive are shocked by how so different our meals are from the locals, l had always felt like throwing up as the local dishes made no sense to me. tasting so tasteless as most Kenyans don;t eat pepper except for those  in the coastal regions who have strong middle-eastern influence in their dishes.

lf you know your way around, you will still get to eat your regular meals.

Okra which is locally more known as lady finger is eaten by only few Kenyans and mostly foreigners. One can get it in the vegetable sections of supermarkets such as Nakumatt, Uchumi, Tuskys and a kilo of it ranges between N250 and N300 depending on the store.  You pick the quantity you want and it weighed for you, l usually pick about N80 worth of okro as l prepare it with spinach and it serves me thrice.

Semolina is sold in Nakumatt stores and a pack of one kg sells for N175. l now have a preference for wheat which l get for N150 per kilo and Kenyan friends are shocked seeing it being prepared as swallow just as shocked as seeing one cooking with fish and meat in the same pot, it is scandalous to them.

Their is a popular Nigerian here who owns shops where she sells Nigerian fabrics and foodstuff but l must certainly be high on weed to go buy foodstuff there! l can't imagine buying egusi that is about N100 in Lagos for N650 here when l have means of having foodstuff bought for me at oyingbo market at rock-bottom price and have it sent to me and it arrives in 5 days! l think most of the people who buy her wares are mostly adventurous Kenyans who want to experiment on our food from too much watching of nollywood movies which most local stations airs round the clock! A tin of peak milk is sold for N550 in her stores when l can one get a litre of fresh milk from the dispensing machine for N155! lf peak milk dey hungry, l go add am to my egusi and ogbono package from Lagos!

Palm oil is an issue as Kenyans do not know what it is nor eat it, One an get it at a Nigerian store for aboot N1,000 for a litre of it. Congolese consume palm oil as we do thus they sell also but theirs is lower in price but tastes slightly different.

At city market which is in the midst of Nairobi CBD, there is a shop owned by some Congelese and there one can get Nigerian foodstuff from ground egusi to sachets of Gino tomato, scotch bonnet (ata rodo) l only go there to buy Plantain which is N700 a dozen as the Plantain comes in from Uganda because Kenyans do not know what plantain is nor do they eat it despite the fact that banana is very common and cheap here!