a weekend of culture

ok, i expected this posting. in fact i feel that by posting am only meeting my expectations. the day was Friday, i had seen a small advert about a ramogi night at the great carnivore. to celebrate luo kit gi gi timbegi (culture) i knew for sure i was going to give it a miss. the last time i went there it was too packed. but this friend of mine insisted i take him since it was going to be his first time. i protested that i was broke, but that excuse did not fly since he offered to buy the tickets and the beer!

we got there at 8:30 and already there was very little parking left. inside there were no seats left but the musicians were not yet ready. we found the new luo-english dictionary being sold near the door. on the culinary side were varieties of roasted maize, roasted gizzards, fire roasted chicken, fish potato etc. but they did not yet have ugali. (food isn't food without ugali!) one surprising thing was that unlike the last time i was here, there were no politicians, at least no MPs and the other surprise was that the crowd was rather young, maybe about 35 and below. current top musicians were in attendance and the very first one was the young and beautiful lady Maureen. looking at her you could not associate her with ohangla. traditionally ohangla is played by men with dirty lyrics. but when Maureen took to the stage, the house came down. you could not stay on your seat.However you could hardly dance since the floor was so packed so all you had to do was let the music sway you in the crowd. this time maybe since it was such a young crowd, the air was full of very sweet perfumes. there were two dance areas. so if ohangla was not your cup of tea, you simply moved to where dola kabary was belting his benga beats

I think when it comes to organizing these kinds of things carnivore is way ahead of the park. i was pleasantly surprised that in spite of the large crowd, their professional service remained untainted, and the waiters were affording a smile even after walking several kilometers back and forth taking orders from the excited revelers. i know how difficult it is to serve young rich people. After 1 hour you would easily pick up a fight. but thumbs up to these waiters and their managers.
How carnivore keeps on surviving the turbulence of the entertainment scene baffles one but may be it is because of the high turnover of entertainment managers in the place. in Kenya your club can kick for just 3 months during which time, patrons would be only too happy to even sit on each other or stand but then all of a sudden they disappear into thin air and you are left with all the renovation and the expansion you recently did. you never know what hit you. but carnivore has survived all that.

on another note, courtesy of Benin Mwangi i have come across this very nice site which led me to this very heart warming and inspiring story.

Benin Mwangi has really advanced in the business in Kenya and Africa line and he keeps me posted on very great new happenings in and around Africa.