Movie and the Mall

Ajali previously posted about going to the movies, which was a lot a fun. I’m not a movie person, but Ajali and the girls are all for going to the movie….if they could be there daily they would, ha! There is actually another movie they want to see, so maybe we will go again before Making it back to the states.

We have been to a few malls here in Nairobi and right outside of Nairobi as well. All of the malls and almost, if not all shopping area and strip malls have some type of security as you go in as well as parking you need to pay for. Even if the grocery store is in the shopping center, you are paying. No validating parking here! Security looks under your vehicle with mirrors, may look in your trunk and often opens the doors and rolls down windows to look inside. No need to get out. This particular day the mall was very busy, as the next day was a Muslim holiday, Eid. There are many in Kenya who celebrate, including A LOT of Somalians. I hadn’t realized how many Somalians were here until this day at the mall. It actually reminded me of my time living in Minnesota. Not sure why I didnt think lots of Somalians would be here, I mean, after all, Somalia borders Kenya lol. Our driver told us that many families come hang out at the mall to celebrate the holiday the day before. There were lots of family’s eating in the food court, and one particular restaurant was very busy. It was called “Chicken Inn”. Sanaa and I decided we needed to try that place before leaving Kenya because it MUST be good since so many people were there! Fried chicken is our jam!

One thing I noticed at the mall was that there was so many kids/teens/young adults posing for pics and taking selfies. Is this what we look like at home??? Am I just getting old??? I mean, adults having their toddlers and young children stand by vehicles in the mall, pics by stores where new clothes are, teenagers striking poses in the middle of the walkway lol. I mean, there was so much of it going on I told Ajali he should take pics…and he did sneak a few in ha ha! They aren’t the best shots, but he tried. We didnt want to make it extremely obvious. It was one of those things you just had to see.

One thing I really like about the malls in Kenya is that many of them have a grocery store attached. This was helpful because our girls were wanting yogurt often for breakfast and it was expensive at the hotel, so we would buy some at the store as well as water (to drink and brush our teeth) and milk- for my attempt to make Kenyan tea in the hot kettle in our room (to save a little bit of money). There were two guys doing caricatures in the mall as well. They cost about 500 KSH (a little less than $5 USD) so we had the girls get one done. As you can see there were people watching them have their drawings done.