Off-Campus Housing

I stay a couple narrow blocks from the Indian Ocean. Our house is clay—one of many multi-story conglomerations of breathable, breezy rooms and balconies. My mtaa, my neighborhood, is part of “Old Town” Mombasa . Old Town surrounds Fort Jesus, the medieval-era Portugese stronghold, currently home to goats and homemade soccer balls.
Many of these streets are too skinny for cars. Skinny people in Kofias, Khangas, and more fashionable, less easy to describe, Muslim getups speak a fast, tonal Swahili. They often exemplify what many African historians see as a distinct, longstanding, culture that exists apart the East African interior (For nerds: Frederick Cooper, Slaves to Squatters, and Jon Glassman, “Sorting Out the Tribes.”).
Contemporary Kenyans on the coast and in the mainland seem versed in a set of characteristics that apply to coastal folk. Visiting Nairobi in 2008, some impromptu oral historians attributed coastal land displacement to former President Jomo Kenyatta’s cleverness. Kenyatta allegedly convinced the “very lazy” coastal Waswahili to give government Kikuyu their land in exchange for pilau, a rice dish.
Tonight, on the Kenyan comedy program “Churchill,” a stand-up comedian, hilariously dressed in short pants a lå Cosmo Kramer, proposed instituting a cultural exchange program in Kenya for animals. He discussed contrasts between Roosters and Hens from the Rift Valley and Mombasa, respectively.
Imitating a hen from Rift Valley, he dashed back and forth across the stage, evoking the imagery of Kenya’s superstar distance runners, most of whom come from Rift mountains. His Mombasa rooster slowly strutted, cocking its hips, unable to catch Rift Hen.
Rift valley rooster vigorously screams “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO,” while Mombasa rooster nonchalantly mutters, “coup, coup.”
Those working in the Mombasa restaurant where this show played were howling and wiping their eyes from laughter.