Shop Kenyan Style!

We’ve had some people ask us about shopping in Nairobi, so we’ll tell you about it!  Obviously, in a world without Wal-Mart (thankfully!) or Target, shopping can be quite different in Nairobi than it is in America.  To us, there are two types of shopping, and which you use typically depends on your income.   

 

The Galleria

At one end of the spectrum are very Western malls like you would find in America (just smaller), and most have an anchor store called Nakumatt which is quite a bit like Target or Wal-Mart.  Nakumatt has everything from food, clothes, liquor, luggage, furniture, etc.  The only odd thing is that you never know if a product you bought last week will be there next week!  This is especially true for import items (e.g. Oreos, Ritz).  They have very little in the way of frozen foods or canned goods, so we have to rely on fresh vegetables & meat.  We occasionally do our grocery shopping at the Nakumatt that is located at the Galleria mall.  At the mall, they also have a KFC!  It is just about the only fast food here, and the only chain from America that we have found.  We tried it, and it is quite good.  Taste just like we are in America!  When we go to the Western malls, we see very few Kenyans there, but mainly Europeans.  We are told that only the wealth Kenyans shop at malls like the Galleria.  There are no department stores like Dillard’s or Nordstrom’s. 

   

Shops in Rongai

More Shops in Rongai

The next type of shopping is where the average Kenyan shops, and is typified by many of the shops in Rongai.  Rongai is a suburb of Nairobi, and the closest shopping for us (only a 3-4 min tuk-tuk ride from campus).  Here you will find retail stores in strip malls, but don’t think of them like those in America!  The stores are generally smaller, and the selection is really limited.  They also focus on one type of good, so you have to visit several shops to get what you need.  There are, however, a couple of larger stores like Tuskey’s or Tumaini (Peace in Swahili) that have groceries, clothes, furniture, etc.  It is similar to Nakumatt, but the selection is much less and you won’t find as many imported goods.  While these stores are cheaper than Nakumatt, you lose the ambiance.   It is pretty barebones.  Kind of like the trade off in Target and Wal-Mart!  

 

Tumaini Supermarket in Rongai

Why not stay in a hotel/butcher?  Nothing wrong with that!

One type of store that I find shocking in Kenya is the butcher.  Each morning, the butcher will slaughter a cow and a goat and hang the carcasses in the front window (in the hot sun!) of their store without any refrigeration.  

People will just come by throughout the day, order some meat, and the butcher will go over and cut it right off.  Now that’s fresh!  I’m not sure how sanitary it is, but that’s fresh!  I don’t think we’ll ever get our meat from this type of butcher!

Central Park

We went downtown to shop over the weekend, and spent some time at “Central Park”.  Maddy really liked playing on the monkey bars and walking around the pond, but asked why we kept telling people that we didn’t want to buy anything when they offered to sell us something (which happened like every 20 feet!).   








On the way back to campus, we took the university bus.  We usually have a driver drop up off and pick us up at a set time, but since we were going to be near the bus stop, we decided to save them the trip and take the bus.  There was a lot of traffic, so we took a bit of a scenic route.  Actually, the bus driver was driving the bus like it was an SUV, and took us off road through a soccer field, a ditch, a forest (which we barely fit through), and finally through the largest slum in Nairobi (Kibera).  

Kibera

Kibera

Kibera

Kibera is also the second largest in Africa, and the third largest in the world.  We had seen Kibera from a distance while driving into town, but nothing like driving right through the heart of it!  Believe me, it was shocking.  There are nearly a million people living in what amounts to shacks built in a garbage dump.  The smell was atrocious; likely due to the open sewage system and the trash that was everywhere.  This was definitely a different level of poverty than I have written about in the past.  We will not soon forget (if ever) the despair that we witnessed that day.