Found While Cleaning House

The physical counterpart (i.e. dredging the bottoms of our storage spaces to clear out superfluous craps) to the emotional work I'm currently doing recently uncovered some gems from my trip to Kenya in 1996. Where one of the two national languages is English (the other is Swahili).

From various menus:

OXTAIL SOUP: Made from Oxtail power, wheat Flour, fine salt, vegetable fat, herb and spices, milk powder, yeast, beef cubes, etc. (what is the "etc", after all that? For that matter, why just the power from the oxtail? Why not the meat, too? I know there is some . . .)

LUMB STEAK: Goes with dee Todi Sauce vegetable and tarnished with tomato onion (15 min) (what is ANY of this???)

MINESTONE: Italian Soup made from vegetables, Macoroni Cubes of the Beef, little Gravy—intercontinental (No, it's MINE STONE! Hands off!)

CREAM CHICKEN SOUP: Made from Stocks of Chicken Fresh, Celery cubes of chicken, pepper, plus cream, salf, flour, very nice Try it. (I said TRY IT.)

Also this information: there were both old and new 1 Kenyan shilling pieces. They were completely dissimilar. In Nairobi, you needed the new ones to operate the pay phones. In Mombasa, the second largest city in the country, you needed the old ones.

And one morning I had coffee that was so black it turned gray when I added milk.

And on our last morning there (I was traveling with a friend from Lewis and Clark, although we'd both graduated by that time), we were awoken by banging sounds. Looking out our window we saw two men straddling the top of storefront of an almost-demolished building, hitting at it with hammers. Well, it's a way to keep employment numbers up.

Ian and I are planning a trip back to Kenya this fall. I wonder how it's changed. And I hope parts of it have stayed the same.