Universidad Santo Tomás

Facultad de Sociología
Inglés VI
Johan Alejandro Cruz Muñoz, Joan Camilo Ochoa Bejarano

Kenya, culture and feasts

The republic of Kenya, is a country located in the east side of Africa, its population is over 47
million people according to the latest census made in 2019, its capital city is Nairobi and its
official languages are both English and Swahili. As many other countries, Kenya’s culture is
full of diversity, feasts and celebrations that take place all over the year, the countries motto is
“Harambee”, or in English “let us all pull together”.
In this document, we’ve tried to put together some of the most important and distinctive feasts
that Kenyans have.

Along with a long history of musical and artistic expressions, Kenya also owns a great
literature of many kinds that throughout history has teach them about virtues, values and
principles, even though all the struggle this country has been through they’ve managed it to
keep it as characteristic culture and traditional societies.

Firstly, it is convenient to mention Kenyans beliefs, even though more than a half of the
population are Christians, the Kenya’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so much
so that 10% percent of its population were identified as Muslims, and there are some Hindu,
Traditional faiths and No religious minorities.
Despite of this Christianity, most of Kenyans interlace their native beliefs with their current
religions, no matter which one it is.

Feasts and Celebrations

Cultural Festival of Lamu: this festival is celebrated in order to show the beauty of “Lamu”,
which is not other than the same Swahili’s culture, which is more than 700 years old, their
architecture and traditions were named and acknowledge as a World Heritage by the
UNESCO.
This festival, that takes place in November, is full of shows about their cultural dancing, their
oldest crafts, there are some “dhows” (regional sailboats), that were and are still used as a
traditional way for going from one small island to the coast, a curious thing is their donkeys
race that also take place all the three days that this festival lasts.

Nairobi Restaurant Week: During 10 days, depending on the year it can be done by January
or February, the most fancy, expensive and representative restaurants in the city of Nairobi
offer popular and ridiculous discounts so that both citizens and foreigners can try the
traditional dishes, even some starter meals are free, so they encourage people to have their
meals there during these 10 days.
StoryMoja Festival: This is an artistic festival for music and literature lovers in the National
Museum of Nairobi, it is celebrated every September and gathers the greatest musicians and
local writers, they also invite some international guests. In this festival many playful activities
take place, such as, book clubs, master classes, presentations that elapse along these 4-day
festival. It is also common that people go and buy lots of books because they’re cheaper at
that time.
Lake Turkana Festival: This festival is celebrated by the shore of the Turkana’s Lake, in
Marsabit, it gathers culture and tradition of northern communities all along Kenya, it lasts
three days where more than 14 ethnic groups share with the other groups their dressing habits,
the art they make, their gastronomy, dozens of tourists come to get to know different
communities, amongst them, the Samburu, Turkana, Gabra, or Konso tribe.

Although there is no official dressing code in Kenya, one of their most characteristic
dresses apart from normal clothes is the “kitenge”, a sort of a cotton fabric, embroidered and
dyed in fluorescent colours. Kitenge is quite colourful and bright, it is not used just for special
occasions so it can be worn at any non-official day.

Finally, as a national symbol, and perhaps the most important celebration nowadays of this
country, is the Jamhuri day, a national feast in which they celebrate the creation of the
Constitution of Kenya that stablished them as an independent Republic on 12 th December
1964, however, it is a double celebration since this date is just a year and six months afar from
the independence from the United Kingdom. On this day, the “Kenya Defence Force” does a
trooping the colour, just like the British ceremony, where they display all of their military
army.