Towards Kirinyaga

Fruit Seller near Chuka town.
 Check out the size of the avocados  to the right above the bananas.

Kirinyaga is the Kikuyu name for Mount Kenya, a mountain that is regarded as sacred by the people that live around it. It is where the great god Ngai lives. I was told that there used to be snow on the top of Kirinyaga all year round but now it is only there for the few cold months of the year.  All around the base of this 5,200m high mountain live different, but related, tribal groups, each one with there own language. There are nearly 70 different languages spoken in Kenya, and my attempt to learn Swahili - the language chosen at independence as the national language - makes little inroad when visiting a rural church where services are conducted in the local language. 

 So I find myself sitting in Miramene Church of Kianjogu Parish, Imenti South Presbytery taking part in a service in which 4 languages are used: intimations, bizzarely, were in English; all hymns and much of the service was in Kimeru; I spoke in Kiswahili and the visiting preacher who didn't know Kimeru spoke in Kikuyu with smatterings of Kiswahili thrown in for good measure! 

On arriving in Kianjogu, after a 3 hour journey from Nairobi we were treated to a breakfast of tea, arrowroot, sweet potato and boiled eggs. And after the service there was lunch for the hundreds who turned up for the ordination of the young man we had gone to support. In fact, hardly anything happens without food being served in Kenya. In this area in particular it is a sign of hospitality and a sharing of the abundance of food which grows so readily.

Matumbo- The Kenyan equivalent of Haggis! 

Yields are very good due to the high altitude and there was more than one stop on the way back to buy fruit, rice and other local produce.

My cultural learning continued the following week when I got to try matumbo which is stomach stuffed with meat and then roasted. A bit like a cross between black pudding, haggis and beef. It was accompanied by African Sausage - a conglomerate of animal parts as far as I could tell ... and washed down with milky sweet tea. Yum!!