December 26, Boxing Day

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I wrote the following in a letter to my granddaughter, Maggie, after my first Boxing Day in Kenya—a surreal experience because it was my first time stepping into this subculture within the local culture. Everything caught me by surprise, from the food, to the skin color, to the accents.

On the day after Christmas, people in Great Britain celebrate Boxing Day, and here in this former British colony, white Kenyans—people of British or European background who settled here during the colonial period—observe Boxing Day, too, with horse races, ostrich races, and dog shows. They also set up booths and sell food, art, and jewelry.

A couple of our colleagues invited us to the Boxing Day celebration. There, nibbling on strawberries and cream, we found ourselves no longer in the minority—throngs of white people surrounded us.

White Kenyans have their own culture here, separate from that of native Kenyans.… They make up the privileged class. They stick together, smoking and laughing, drinking and partying. Descendants of aristocratic early settlers, they own enormous tracts of land. White Kenyans have their suburban communities, country clubs, doctors, and favorite restaurant hangouts. As far as I can tell, they don’t exclude Africans, but those places tend to be white places.

White Kenyans speak in their clipped, crisp British way—no sloppy enunciations for them! We lazy-mouthed Americans drink “boddled wadder,” but they drink “boTT-l’d WOE-Tah.” We pronounce the word duty as “doody,” but they say “deuty.” We park our cars in a parking lot, but their drivers pull their motor vehicles into a “cah pahk.”

I couldn’t help but notice their customs, speech patterns, and interactions with each other—a study of their unique culture within this culture. (From Chapter 4, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

Have you ever gone to ostrich races? Click here to see a short, hilarious video clip.