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Serving
Students at
Santa Ana
College and
Santiago
Canyon College
KENYA
Culture
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Cultural
Orientation
A republic
of Africa, Kenya is located on the equator on the continent's east coast.
The country is well known for its scenic beauty and varied wildlife.
Although only about 20 percent of the land is suitable for cultivation,
the majority of Kenyans are farmers who produce crops mainly for their
own needs. Coffee and tea, grown for export on large plantations
and on small farms, together with tourism are Kenya's most important sources
of foreign exchange, money used to buy foreign goods.
The nation
imports all of its petroleum and most manufactured products. Kenya
is a poor country by comparison with industrialized countries such as those
of Western Europe.
There
are more than 70 tribal groups among the Africans in Kenya. Distinctions
between many
of them
are blurred, western cultural values are becoming more ingrained and traditional
values
are disintegrating.
Yet, even though the average African may have outwardly drifted away from
tribal traditions, the tribe is still the most important part of a person's
identity.
Among
the nation's 28 million people, the most populous groups are the Kikuyu,
the Luhya, the Luo, and the Kamba. There are just over one million
herders such as the Masai and the Somali living in the semiarid and desert
areas. An increasing number of people live in the capital city of
Nairobi and in other large cities.
Family
In Kenya,
ethnic identity is more important than national identity. Loyalty
to the family is important to all groups. In Kenya, family members
give up their individual rights in favor of the wishes of the group.
The benefits of this social value are that the sick are cared for and elders
remain part of the community. The national motto of Kenya is harambee,
meaning "pull together." In that spirit, volunteers in hundreds of communities
build schools, clinics, and other facilities each year and collect funds
to send students abroad.
In the
countryside, families live in homesteads with more than one house.
There are usually four to six children per family. Sometimes a man
will have two or more wives. Parents, young children and girls live
in the main house, while the older boys and grandparents have their own
hut. Women are always the busiest in the homestead. They cook,
clean, collect firewood and water, care for children, farm and build their
own homes.
The huts
are usually built with earth-brick walls, thatched roofs and a cement floor.
Additional huts will be used as a kitchen and storeroom. There is
an outside bathroom, which is shared by everyone. Oil is used for
lighting lamps and cooking is done on open hearths. Many villagers
listen to a radio to catch up on news or soccer scores. Televisions
are expensive and electricity can be difficult to obtain. People
like to meet in market places, at bars, at places of worship, at the water
hole, or at the local chief's house.
Kenya's
artistic heritage is represented by a variety of crafts. Among them
are matweaving on the coast, wood carving by the Kamba people, and beadwork
jewelry made by groups such as the Masai and the Samburu. Kenyans
love to party, and the music style known as benga is the contemporary dance
music preferred.
Kenyan
cuisine generally consists of stodge filler with beans or a meat sauce.
It's really just survival fodder for the locals, maximum amount at minimum
cost. If you had to name a national dish in Kenya, nyama choma (barbecued
goat meat), would probably be it. Kenyan food is not exactly designed
for gourmets or vegetarians. Kenyans love beer almost as much as
dancing and there's a thriving local brewing industry.
Annual
Migration
The annual
migration of wildlife between Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Maasai
Mara National Park in Kenya takes place between June and September.
The migration of almost two million wildebeest, zebras and other species
is nature's greatest spectacle on earth. The animal trek has been
captured by filmmakers worldwide.
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