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| Shop at Kazuri Bead Factory in Karen |
Rarely do you get something free and uplifting but as we explored the tall bougainvillea hedge-lined back lanes in the beautiful and old colonial neighbourhood of Karen, on the outskirts of Nairobi, we came across a corner house that runs free tours of its little workshop that makes colourful little glazed beads for necklaces, bracelets, earings and such like. The Kazuri Bead factory is run entirely by, and for, disadvantaged single mothers around the area, giving them a livelihood that they can be proud of. Started by an English lady this fashionable brand is now marketed and sold around the world.
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| Amazing plaited hairstyle |
Its shop is chockfull of colourful stock that you can wander around with no abolutely no pressure to buy anything. The charming shop assistant we met there explained how long it took her to make up the most striking plaited hair style that we had ever seen.
Also near Karen, closer to the Ngong hills, is a well laid out and equisite collection of arts and crafts from all over Kenya housed at Utamaduni. The rooms here are full of beautiful, but more expensive, selections of wood carvings, masks, Masai necklaces and bracelets, leather shields, jewellry, flamboyant cotton prints, wall hangings and furniture all arranged neatly in rooms both downstairs and upstairs. We got so engrossed in examining and caressing the beautiful carvings and other artifacts that we missed out having coffee in the little cafe next to it before it closed for the evening.
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| Furniture, art and crafts at Utamuduni |
The overwhelming, universal and inherent drive for mankind to spend time and resources to produce beautiful artifacts for others to admire and desire never fails to amaze me. Kenyan art and handicrafts definitely does not fail to attract the art lover or just souvenir hunter with its ingenuity, variety, skill, technique and uniqueness.
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| Karen's Colonial Shops |
One last stop of ours was the old colonial shops at Karen where the original English settlers set up shop. These faded reminders with wooden facades and peeling paint still cater for the European expatriates in Karen and you can still buy Marmite and Roses Lime Marmelade there. The shop owners however now are Indian expatriates who keep the shops well stocked with products that you would find in any English high street. The cashiers sit protected behind iron-barred security and count their wads of well worn Kenyan Shillings. The expatriates still breeze in and out for their familiar provisions and chin wag with other expatriates while their local Kenyan house-help subserviently scurry back and forth to chauferred cars and four-by-fours with baskets full of shopping.
