Kenya is the most beautiful place in the world. Some of the first men and women to live on this earth lived in Kenya. Kenya lies on the equator, but most of it is a high plateau—an ideal atmosphere for all kinds of plants, animals, and people. Early Stone Age Kenyans were hunters and gatherers. The Dorobo, a tribe of people who live in Kenya, think that they in particular are the descendants of the first men and women who lived in Kenya. The great Masai tribesmen, who live on the plateau, are interested mainly in raising cattle and fighting wars to get more cattle. The Kikuyu are the largest tribe in Kenya. The Mau Mau mostly belonged to the Kikuyu tribe. The great explorer Vasco da Gama was probably the first European in Kenya, though possibly the Greeks were there in the first century. Da Gama landed at Mombasa in 1498. The great railroad in Kenya that runs from Mombasa to Lake Victoria was built between 1895 and 1901; it cost the British government over five million pounds. It was built mostly by
Indians from India, and lions ate twenty-eight of the builders near the Tsavo River Bridge. Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann, two German missionaries, were the first white men to see interior Kenya. In 1848, Rebmann was the first white man to see Mount Kilimanjaro, which is now in Tanzania. In 1849, Krapf was the first white man to see Mount Kenya. Charles Millet, of Salem, Massachusetts, was the first American trading captain to visit Mombasa. This was in 1827, and his ship was named Ann. There are thirteen million people in Kenya. It is almost the size of Texas. In Kenya, you can buy a Reuben sandwich, a boneless steak, or lobster thermidor in a restaurant.
We learned all this from a man—a Kenyan—at the first Kenya Trade Fair, which we visited while it was at the Coliseum. As he talked, we walked about looking at stalls displaying goods made in Kenya. We saw a stall displaying coffee beans, roasted and unroasted. We saw a stall displaying three different kinds of tea. We saw many stalls displaying wood or stone carvings of animals, birds, trees, and people. We saw the stall of Ideal Farm, the largest mushroom grower in black Africa. We saw the stall of Kenya Orchards, producers of fruit juice and jam. We saw the stall of the House of Manji, Ltd., makers of Buitoni pasta in Kenya. We saw a stall displaying canned corned beef and canned ox tongue. We learned that in Kenya there is a brand of cooking fat called Cowboy. It comes in a can, too, and the label on the can is a photograph of an incredibly handsome and incredibly black man wearing a white cowboy hat. We learned that Lady Gay is a brand of
talcum powder and that Tusker is a locally made beer. Then we saw a fashion show. In the fashion show were many styles of clothing that can be found in any old store, such as a bikini, a suit, pants, and dresses, but then there were other, very fine-looking garments—all different ways to wear a bright-colored, boldly patterned sheet. From everything in the fashion show, we could see that it has never occurred to the average Kenyan to dress up in clothes that could in any way be called demure.
—June 5, 1978