The Westlands: A Slice of Western Life

Today Daisy picked me up for an afternoon in the Westlands. This is an area of Nairobi that this highly westernized with lots of shopping centers and places to eat. Our driver dropped us off at a local mall and after buying movie tickets for a show later that afternoon we headed back outside to take a look at the street vendors. The vendors were not as obnoxious as they were at Maasai Market, but they still nagged at me, trying to convince me to buy their products or just take a look inside their shop. I ended up not buying anything, as their prices were outrageous compared to those at the Massai Market. Scarfs I bought for 300 shillings were sold for over 800.

We headed back to the mall for lunch. Outside the mall there were some guys dressed up. Daisy insisted I take a picture with them. I was leery about the whole idea but allowed her to go ahead. Since the Javahouse I had wanted to go to was full of people, we settled for the food court. The food court was set up similar to one in the United States, but the service was far different. As soon as we sat down about five guys came up to our table shoving menus in our faces. It was quite overwhelming. Being in a “western” area I decided to take another stab at pizza. Remarkably, this time the pizza tasted pretty normal and was actually fairly good. With the movie starting soon, we headed to the top floor where the theatres were. The theatres were once again similar to those in the United States, but they only offered maybe two movies playing for a few weeks straight. I had no idea what we were watching, and I’m pretty sure Daisy didn’t have a clue either. The movie was supposed to start at two, African time. I don’t think we were actually seated until at least half past. When we sat down, Daisy explained to me how we would have to stand for the national anthem. For some reason the anthem didn’t play, but I found the concept of the national anthem playing before a movie unique. We went to watch “Mirror Mirror”. The movie was a mixed up fairytale, one I probably would have enjoyed when I was in grade school. It was still cute and for a while, I didn’t feel like I was in a third-world developing country.

After the movie I stopped to get an ice cream cone on my way out of the mall. The ice cream was incredibly expensive for how much I received. This seems to be a major difference between Kenya and the United States. Healthy foods are fairly cheap and unhealthy foods are not—the way it should be in America. My afternoon in the Westlands reminded me of shopping centers and restaurants in America. I was clearly in a tourist location, as for once, I wasn’t the only Caucasian person around. There’s something to be said about westernization. I don’t want to say it’s corrupting the culture or the way people act, but in a sense it is. I felt as if the African culture was lost, or suddenly diminished in that area. Culture is such a big part of a country; could westernization be attributing to the problems holding back solutions?