This year’s “Kenya Grand Nyama Choma” is up and once again, the Kenyan Disco grou
p – ”Sound of Blackness” has risen to the occasion. As per the poster, the event takes place on Saturday the 26th of June at the traditional Fittja Beach and everybody has been invited.
Apart from the successful children’s BBQ that was organized by the Kenyan group, M.A.D (Making A Difference), the July 26th Chama Choma will be the first major Kenyan Nyama Choma this summer and probably the last this year unless new plans come up.
I haven’t received the pictures from the MAD BBQ but I hope to connect to the leadership next week and report on this very encouraging event. An agent told me that Paparazzi Keegan was there and I hope he will come in handy with the images. Back to Nyama choma.
On June 6th, Africa Renaissance, a new group in Stockholm, organized a Nyama choma at Fittja Beach which was well attended although the crowd was mixed up and one had to use a lens to trace Wakenya.
Akina Mwaura, Makan, Sundy, Caroline, Jane, Ross (from Uppsala), Marky, Man Opash, Trubadur, Odero and others were there but still, it was nothing compared to what Kenyans are used to.
The music was a cocktail of tunes to reflect the nationalities that were represented although Wakenya could not complain because they were well taken care of. I saw Wakenya dancing in circles to the rhythm of both Mugithi and Mayaka so…
What was missing was the typical Kenyan Party flavor reminiscent of traditional Nyama chomas during the summer and this too was not a misnomer because the thing was not meant to be typical Kenyan. Of cause, there are some Wananchi who later complained that Nyama choma had been hijacked although they could not explain whether Wakenya had patented the word “Nyama choma” which was used for mobilization.
Some Kenyans did not even know that the thing was not a pure Kenyan past-time and only noticed that something “was wrong” when they discovered that they could not put names on several faces they were bumping into at Fittja.
To admire the Kenyan nationalism, kuna ndugu moja who came to ask me why there were several “foreigners” at the Nyam chom. He thought that anything with the name “nyama choma” should be purely Kenyan. I enjoyed him that the strangers were not actually foreigners but Kenyans who were new in Sweden. He was a bachelor and when he spotted a Ugandan cutie shaking her stuff provocatively with the kilos packed in an extremely short trouser, he abandoned my explanations and zoomed in her direction. I don’t know what happened later.
The June 6th Nyama choma was an African treat although the idea may have been borrowed from the Kenya Fittja tradition. It is for this reason that the 26th July treat by Sound of Blackness may be interesting to Wakenya especially those who have been starved of a collective outdoor Kenyan activity.
Another angle is that many Kenyans could not attend the June 6th Nyam chom because it was organized on a busy day. It was a Friday and a Swedish national day while many students of Kenyan extraction were also graduating. Several student parties had been thrown here and there and this tended to split the Kenyan crowd in different directions.
Regardless of the circumstances and the politics, one certain thing is that this summer is not passing without a Kenya Nyama choma and kudos to Sound of Blackness.
Okoth Osewe
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