Wedding Planning For Kenya from Abroad - Part 1
Posted on June 6, 2008
Filed Under Information, The Observatory | 2 Comments
Planning a wedding is a headache. Planning a wedding locally is a headache. Planning a wedding in a different continent is a massive, gigantic,head-banging type migraine. The list of things that have to go right is quite daunting. For baby girl and I, for a wedding scheduled this coming December, we have had curious surprises, the usual odd ball and had to dodge curveballs thrown our way like any other couple planning a wedding. To say the least, we have learnt a lot about ourselves, and more importantly, event planning and management as a whole. The biggest thing we ever had to plan between herself and I was our engagement party - and that comprised no more than 50 closest friends from all over the US. Weddings are quite daunting and rightfully so. To understand our challenges so far you also have to consider the backdrop against which we are planning this wedding.
DECEMBER 2007
Firstly, a lot of people, fearing pre and post-electoral violence last year chose to hold off on trips, vacations and weddings this past December. Post electoral violence and intermittent civil unrest throughout January, February and March 2008 had a devastating effect on the Kenyan tourism industry. This meant, a lot of re-scheduling not only vacationers and business travelers but also university exchange programs, peace corps etc. This has congested the tourism schedule considerably for 2008 which means this coming December, despite rising gas prices, we will see an incredible upsurge in diaspora-tourism as opposed to previous years. This means increased competition not just locally (in Kenya) but also from abroad.
ECONOMY ON THE BRINK
Secondly, the fact that the dollar is weak largely due to the US economy tittering on the brink of (or already in) a recession has meant not only a surge in gas prices but also commodity prices. This means it will not only cost us more to travel to Kenya but it has increased our commodity expenses significantly. The Kenyan Shilling (Ksh) has gained considerably against the US dollar recently. As we speak, our estimations are that our best exchange rate among different banks, forex bureaus and other institutions in Kenya is hovering between Kshs 60 - 63 against the dollar. Consider this against the dollar trading at about Kshs 70-73 this same time period a year ago.
WHO IS YOUR COMPETITION
Thirdly if you are planning a wedding in Kenya in late December you’re not just competing with fellow couples for venues but also with businesses and corporations holding their end of year parties. This also means, more competition for good DJ’s, caterers, flower vendors, car leasing services, decorators, bakers - the whole nine. In addition, keep in mind the major holidays in December - Jamhuri Day (Independence Day) on the 12th,Christmas eve and Christmas Day on the 24 and 25th respectively, New Year’s Day on the 31st and January 1st. You have to schedule your day somehow to make sure it’s not right before or right after these days. This allows flexibility for travel options for your guests and also means a little bit more availability from vendors whom you are depending on to make things right.
CUSTOMS
I had never thought our customs would have such a big impact on our planning. I knew we wanted to incorporate them to as much an extent as possible without making ours a typical traditional wedding. I have come to note that Kenyans turn such gatherings into mini-political rallies for family members with political aspirations. Weddings/Graduations provide a familiar and captive audience, and being a Kenyan, I know the odd political discussion is always around the corner. In our custom, the groom’s family performs all the wedding planning. The responsibility of the bride’s family is reduced to choosing the church. That meant, for us, at least modifying some aspects of it. We decided against a church wedding for one big reason; logistics. But before we get into that, let me address customs exhaustively.
Our customs create a rift in the planning process. We opted against a pre-wedding since, for our sake our wedding will be in Kenya. It would be disingenuous of us to hold one in the states and have the wedding in Kenya. Pre-weddings traditionally were meant to raise money for the wedding and it was/is expected that all invitees and contributors will be guests at your wedding. This benevolent custom has been abused so much so that not only will baby girl and I not hold one, we generally do not attend pre-weddings. We substituted this with a committee of our closest and dearest, and assigned certain costs to each individual with baby girl and I assuming 90% of the cost.
Secondly, weddings are planned and executed by committees in our customs. Again, I personally do not care for committees so in the interest of simplicity and not to do away with this custom, we formed two committees. One largely symbolic - that has uncles, aunts etc - which will do the ‘negotiating for the bride’ and oversee other tradition-related aspects of wedding should they arise. The other is a smaller 4 person committee, baby girl, myself, my sister and my mom who has run our Kenya operation superbly. This acts as more of a finance committee which has made our decision making process pretty simple and highly effective. Simply put, it avoids bottlenecks in decision making by large committees and has handled the more important aspects of the ceremony such as choosing vendors, venues, caterers, colors, decorations etc and engaging with a myriad of vendors which is basically the brunt of the work that needs to be done.
Thirdly, as briefly mentioned above the bride’s family is not involved in the planning process. As such it is difficult for me to ask my in-laws their opinions/likes/dislikes etc. Baby girl’s parents are cosmopolitan in some ways but traditional custom-wise for most part. As such, they have relinquished planning to us and let us run with it. It would help to have their input which baby girl solicits once in a while but for most part they seem to be happy with our operations.
I will talk about our plan and execution here soon. Until then the journey continues….
Just Ranting Nothing Much
Posted on June 6, 2008
Filed Under Rants, Passing Affairs | 1 Comment
Patience is a virtue that my personality tends to lack quite acutely. My patience last all of two seconds. If you have ever been in line ahead of me and hesitated or balked when it came to your turn, or had your credit card rejected while at the grocery store and you were in line ahead of Magaidi, it is possible Magaidi said something about the shape of your head. Besides this, I have no ‘poker face’. When I’m thinking happy thoughts i’m probably smiling. I could not bluff you or whoever you’re sitting close to right now. When I’m making completely irrational and illogical conclusions about how that massive head can be so empty when you whip out your check book for a $2 purchase, i’m probably biting my lower lip to stop me from saying ‘nice things’ about you and yours. In the short period it has taken me so far to write this, someone has called me once, and I ignored it. They called right back again. How bright. Since I ignored your initial call, i’ll pick up if you call twice. Only babygirl and close family get express call pickup from me all the time. Those other schmucks can wait, or i’ll call you back. I don’t like spending much time talking on the phone, especially not that gossipy chit chat to ‘pass time’. A telemarketer called me on my cell phone to offer lower rates on my long distance home phone service
Call came through at approximately 08:31:02 Zulu.
Call answered at approximately 08:31:07 Zulu
Call terminated at approximately 08:31:09 Zulu
I have more missed calls than anyone I know. As of this day, I have lifetime calls of 168:51:42 on my phone which I have had for close to 10 months now. This means I spend on average approximately 17 hours on the phone each month. I don’t know if this is too much based on the average cell phone usage in the United States, what I do know is that I spend way less time on the phone than baby girl. That and an assurance from this study that my cell phone habits will not skew my reproductive capabilities. I received a no-holds-barred invitation to be in on a phone conversation between babygirl and her close friends after err..uh voicing unfavorable opinions on spending too much time on the phone. We estimate she spends 30 hours each month. Now that will be quite interesting.
<\Rant>
Kenya Shines in San Diego Sevens Rugby
Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under Sports | 5 Comments
An impressive entourage of Kenyan fans from all over the country was present at San Diego’s Petco park for the USA round of the international sevens circuit rugby tournament. This is the fourth stop in the tournament which visits upon 8 locations worldwide starting in Dubai, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong, Australia, England and finishing up in Scotland. To say the least, our lads did not disappoint. The showing was strong, as they came out the gates with a 38-0 stomping over Chile and an impressive 19-7 win over Canada. Day 1 ended with a hard fought loss 19-12 loss to Argentina pitting them against a powerful England team for day 2. The Kenyan team, having to deal with numerous questions from the media of unrest in the country appeared focused on the task at hand, a good showing after a dismal result in New Zealand prior to arrival in San Diego was paramount as Kenyan captain Benjamin Ayimba put it.
Day 2 was quite a treat. In what is perhaps as bad a show of sportsmanship as there is, we are now learning that the English team refused to share a locker room with the Kenyan team forcing our lads to share one with the Fijian team. Unperturbed, the lads took the game to the Englishmen behind a vociferous fan contingent that urged on the Kenyan team to a 17-7 win. The Kenyans tackled well, which is critical more so in sevens rugby than in fifteen’s since it is largely man on man play. The tournament program referred to Kenyans as ‘Soft’ and ones tending to play ‘opportunistic’ rugby that capitalized on opponent mistakes behind a ‘prevent defense to use the gridiron term’. It continued that ‘any fundamentally sound team’ that does not turn the ball over should be able to defeat the Kenyan side with relative ease. The Kenyan team however, appeared more ‘fundamentally sound’ playing tight defense against a physically bigger English team and held them to one score while they themselves controlled the ball well enough on offense to score thrice (once in the first half, twice in the second half). All scores by the speedy Dennis Mwanja.
A semi-final meet with New Zealand’s vaunted All Blacks knocked the lads out 50-10 but they still have something to take home. The score, albeit lop-sided does not do justice to a good (not great) showing by the Kenyans keeping in mind they had overcome good opposition to earn a berth in the semis . The more experienced New Zealanders capitalized on lapses in Kenya’s kick offs thrice scoring after recovering the ball and racing to the try line without much defence from the Kenyan team. Two hard earned scores later and the half-time score was 33-0. The lads put on a spirited fight and scored twice in the second half. Incredibly, these were the first points conceded by New Zealand throughout the tournament. At the end though, Kenya was on the wrong side of history being made as the All Blacks earned a record 35th successive win with the victory. They moved on to win the tournament by beating a plucky and hard-tackling South African side 27-12.
THE GOOD
* Kenya played with a white arm band all tournament through signifying peace in the motherland after the election-fueled unrest witnessed in the country for close to a month.
* It is always good to see the large contingent of Kenyans at the Park and support for all things Kenyan. I am compiling a post on this to document the various initiatives.
* San Diego is beautiful and Petco Park hosted a wonderful incident-free tournament.
THE BAD
* Beverages are unbelievably expensive at Petco park. Additionally, limited variety on such beverages makes you wonder who the target really is at the ball park - die hard, obscenity yelling, potbellied baseball fan?
* Having a group from New Zealand perform a variation of native dances prior to the Semi Final meet between Kenya and New Zealand on the field was badly received, and rightly so, by the Kenyan fans. One close to me actually remarked that we should have brought out a few Maasai dancers to also showcase our dancing abilities? Such performances do give the impression that a team is being given a slight over another - this was a bad time for such a show.
(Re)Creation of Kenya - San Diego take 1
Posted on February 9, 2008
Filed Under Sports, African Affairs, Entertainment | 4 Comments
“God created Kenya to assist rugby take over the world. What’s your excuse?”
That was one of the more colorful captions on a fan t-shirt as sunny San Diego readied to host a contingent of Kenyans from all walks of life most of whom reside in the US. There were at least 7 other countrymen on our flight into Lindberg Field (Airport) in San Diego, and a few others we met at the car rental office. Even before we hit highway 5 to the city of Del Mar, where we will be staying for the next few days, we had already met about 20 fellow Kenyans. We arrived a bit late, our flight in was delayed and San Diego, is unseasonably cold. There are events lined up throughout the weekend. We all seem to agree that there is a lot that needs to be done, and are willing to do our part. At one of the events last night there were Kenyan flags, t-shirts, outfits and camaraderie was witnessed all over the place. Today promises not just good old rugby but also a chance for us to meet and talk to our fellow countrymen and hopefully help alleviate some of the strife in Kenya.
Aside: I talked to an individual whose family resides in Kisumu who lost his mom when her house was torched by attackers. His pain was visible as he narrated his ordeal and what his family has had to go through for the last few weeks. This, to me, makes the issue very real, and underscores the importance of banding together for these types of events for a good cause. He talked about his pain, more so against certain ‘Kikuyus’. You can easily see how the conflict in Kenya can and will affect friends far away from the conflict. What happens in Kenya, truly does not just stay in Kenya. There are very real victims and stories to be told out here as well.
We are headed to Petco park today. More stories and pictures as well as soon as I can figure out my new point-and-click.
Initiatives for Change
Posted on February 4, 2008
Filed Under Information | 4 Comments
I sat in on a discussion last night amongst Kenyans in my community trying to make a positive contribution to help alleviate the situation in our country right now. Beyond prayers and decrying the tribalism evidenced at home at previous meetings, there was also a deep sense of purpose. The idea was to champion a cause under the banner of ‘A Tribe Called Kenya’ whose purpose is pretty self-explanatory if you ask me. The consensus was that negativity will flourish unless concerted voices of reason do something, and that something be done quickly. I am heading to San Diego this week for the rugby tournament and will attempt to chronicle the events as they unfold. I have been there once and blogged about my experience here, I imagine, the camaraderie will be even more so heightened by the situation in the country. Various initiatives are being brought to light as a result:
VUMA Kenya – An initiative by young professionals and well wishers to assist the disaster efforts of established disaster relief agencies by raising funds.
One Nation One Party – Initiative in conjunction with Virgin Atlantic and Capital FM to raise money for the Sadili Kibera Kids and Kenya Redcross at this year’s USA Sevens Rugby Tournament in San Diego
Additionally, appeals are out for folks in the Dallas, Fort Worth (Texas) areas for any clothes (new and/or used) to be donated to IDP camps in Kenya. Anyone in this area willing to donate can contact me via my contact page or email MagaidiAfrika[at]Yahoo.com
On another note: good take (IMHO) by the LA Times in their editorial of the situation in Kenya, the killing of legislator Mugabe Were and what it portends for democracy in Kenya
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Magaidi.com is the journal of the African kid. A diary of sorts, a collection of musings and a discussion point on the way forward for the motherland.
