Christmas in Kericho

I couldn’t make it home to my family for Christmas, so instead I spent it with my flatmate’s family. Barbara has spent most of her life in Iowa but was born here and has family living in western Kenya. A day after I got home from Ethiopia, I hopped on a bus to Kericho, a town about one hour’s drive east of Kisumu.

Kericho is where Kenya’s finest tea plantations are located. Barbara’s family grows tea in addition to various other crops like sukuma wiki (kale) and a maize. Kericho is where some of Kenya’s Kalenjin ethnic group live. There are a few different languages in the Kalenjin community. Barbara’s family speaks Kipsigis in addition to English and Kiswahili. The kids in Kericho don’t start learning English or Kiswahili until they start school. Instead, their mother tongue is their first language, so I couldn’t communicate with the young kids except for body language and funny faces.

Some kids hanging out at a local outdoor church

Christmas week in Kericho was quite relaxing for me. We spent some time walking around the farm and visiting all the houses, each belonging to one of the aunts and uncles.  Around tea time, we made a rotation to maximize our tea drinking opportunities at each house.

Freshly chopped sugar cane from one of our house visits

Midway through the trip we drove to Kisumu to visit a friend. It’s too bad we only had one day there because it seems like a fun city. We had lunch on the shore of Lake Victoria and had some delicious tilapia with chips.

On Christmas Eve, the cousins organized a special gathering where no adults were allowed. Snack packs were put together, sodas were purchased, games were planned, and a playlist was created for dancing. I had an absolute blast. Near the end of the party, a meeting was called to discuss a plan for buying a special gift for their grandmother next Christmas – each of the cousins would set aside a certain amount each month to be collected at the end of the year.

On Christmas day, everyone got involved with preparing a big meal. There was something being made at each of the houses – vegetable stew at one, chapatti at another, and so on. We spent most of the morning at the house in charge of the mbuzi (goat). A fine looking goat was chosen and I stayed to watch the entire process of its slaughtering. I also was handed a knife to help with skinning the carcass.

Me holding two goat feet

Every part of the animal was used somehow. The best meat was put aside for our Christmas stew, and the blood was saved for pudding. One of the house helps wrapped up the male genitals in a leaf and a plastic bag and put it in his pocket. We inquired about this and learned that only circumcised men are allowed to eat this part of the male. We also asked if women get to eat the equivalent of the female; this was taken as a ridiculous proposition as the answer was no, of course not.

I ate Christmas lunch with all the men while the women ate in a separate room. We were served first, but I got the insider’s scoop from Barbara and apparently the women set aside the best bits of meat for themselves. They did all of the cooking, after all. Regardless, it was delicious.

Christmas lunch

After lunch everyone got into their Sunday best for a family photo. We then got into a circle and I was presented with a gift, a beautiful calabash decorated by one of the aunts. I was so honoured and thankful not only for the special gift, but to be welcomed so openly by this family. It was tough being away from home for the holiday, but at least I was made to feel belonging somewhere.

It was then time to go visit a different grandmother living a few kilometers away. The 25 or so cousins (I never did get an accurate count) and I hopped into the back of a lorry for what would be, for me, the ride of a lifetime. The cousins quickly climbed up to the overhanging metal bars on the top of the truck to get the best views. I decided to lay low and just peak over the side. The views of the tea plantations on the way were absolutely beautiful. The driver was a bit of daredevil as we went up and down the hilly, unpaved roads, but we all made it there and back just fine. Definitely not a Christmas I’ll ever forget!

Lorry ride

The view from grandmother’s house