NAIROBI, KENYA (FEBRUARY 25, 2016) -- They might be few in number, but members of the Guyanese community in Nairobi, the capital city of this East African country - Kenya - assembled at the Sugarcane Restaurant, a Caribbean food restaurant incidentally owned and operated by a Guyanese, to partake of an indigenous Guyanese dinner in celebration of Mashramani Day on Tuesday February 23.
Led by the Guyanese Community’s matriarch in Kenya, Mrs Yvonne Muli who first came to Kenya in the Year of the Floods (1961), they included the consummate Chief Executive Officer of arguably Africa’s most successful mobile phone company - Safaricom, Mr Bob Collymore, and first generation Guyanese-Kenyans, Court of Appeal Judge the Hon Justice Agnes Murgor, and topflight lawyer Mr Cecil G. Miller.
The star of the evening, and the person who made it happen, was Ms Kathleen Creavalle a full blooded Guyanese who first came to Kenya as a UN worker in 2002, fell in love with the country and in 2007 married one of its sons, Mr Chris Getonga. For the Mashramani evening she was draped in a shawl top that displayed Guyanese flag colours. As the director of Sugarcane Caribbean Food, she attributes most of her success to her Kenyan husband.
The Restaurant is situated in the upscale Garden City Mall on Exit 7 off Thika Road Superhighway in Nairobi. It has been open two months now, and among those who would have patronised it in the short time it has been in existence is the country’s president, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta and the First Family.
The Guyanese and their friends assembled at the Sugarcane Restaurant at 7 p.m. Kenya time, which was 12 noon in Guyana, where a large Guyanese flag was on display and were treated to a cocktail of cassava puffs, salt fish cakes and pholurie, to the background of calypso music. Ms Creavalle explained that as a citizen of the Guyanese Diaspora who has lived outside of Guyana for more than 30 year, “Opening this restaurant has connected me to all my Guyanese roots, the culture and the food.”
Mr Kenneth Mclean, who has been in Kenya for two years working for AMREF Health Africa introduced the Guyanese menu, more so to their non-Guyanese friends who had come to support them. The guests were then led to dinner by Mrs Muli and Ms Creavalle as they swayed to the beat of Guyanese folk music for the buffet dinner of mixed vegetable salad, cook-up rice, methem, chicken curry and roti and puri, pepperpot, and plantains.
Story telling is very much part of the Guyanese culture, and living on Mother Continent was no exception by the Guyanese. Opening the bat was Guyanese Community’s matriarch in Kenya, Mrs Yvonne Muli who explained that Guyana was a country made up three counties, terming it the land of sugarcane and many waters.
“We are not very many and when you see a Guyanese anywhere, you feel very good, and you want to make yourself known to them,” said Mrs Muli, whose Kenyan husband the late Hon Matthew Guy Muli was a Judge and later Kenya’s Attorney General. She was at one time a Director of the country’s national carrier, Kenya Airways - The Pride of Africa.
“Kathy has made a bold step forward. We have all been here for years, not that I did not try, I tried but I did not have the amount of courage she has … and here we are today celebrating Sugarcane. Kathy, it is a great big venture and we wish you all the success in the world. I have not seen so many Guyanese together in one place.”
Mrs Muli was accompanied by her daughter, the Hon Justice Agnes Murgor, who is a judge of the Court of Appeal in Kenya, and son-in-law and prominent Kenyan lawyer Mr Phillip Murgor. In a separate interview she explained that her husband was instrumental in bringing a Guyanese lawyer, the late Cecil Miller who became Kenya’s Chief Justice.
Though gone, Mr Miller through his Kenyan wife has left a legacy in his son lawyer Mr Cecil G. Miller who is making waves on the Kenya’s legal landscape. He is the Managing Partner of the law firm Miller and Company, with offices in Nairobi and Mombasa. He was present at the Mashramani Dinner accompanied by his wife, Mrs Amina Miller.
Batting in second (story telling) was Mrs Wandia Seaforth, a Kenyan who lived in Guyana for seven years from 1973 to 1980 and is married to a Guyanese. She talked of what life was like in Guyana for an African in those early days. She was accompanied by her daughter Ms Wakio Seaforth. She explained how Guyanese people were interested in Africa and wanted to give their children African names.
She worked at the University of Guyana Library. Her Guyanese husband Mr Herbert Seaforth, a retired UN employee, who also started Xanadu, a boutique hotel in Kikambala, Mombasa (on Kenya’s Coast) was unfortunately not able to attend, but food was sent for him!
Batting in last was Mr Herbert Seaforth’s sister Professor Waveney Olembo, who is married to a Kenyan, Professor Olembo Jotham. She has now lived in Kenya for 41 years but said that she is still Guyanese, born in Guyana and ‘stolen’ from Guyana. She talked of the significance of Mashramani Day.
She left the diners in stiches when she talked in Guyanese dialect to prove that she was still very much Guyanese. “I born in Guyana, I bred in Guyana, I have been in Kenya for 41 years but I still Guyanese,” she said.
“I had to renounce Guyanese citizenship in order to get Kenyan citizenship and on that day I cried so much, I could not be consoled,” she explained. “But then when I went to Guyana again and I reached the immigration desk with a Kenyan passport, they saw this African passport and the immigration officer nudged his colleague, then he said what is the purpose of your visit, I said I was born here.
“He said, ‘Oh! You a Guyanese!’ bang.. bang.. and on that day I tell you the tears I shed before when I had to renounce Guyanese citizenship, that made up for it all. I was still a Guyanese, I could land any time, I could stay as long as I want, I could work if I want… anything.”
Attending this momentous occasion included Mrs Michelle Kanaiya (nee Doobay) a Guyanese from Essequibo who was accompanied by her Kenyan husband Peter who she says that they met when both studied in New York. She has now lived in Kenya for 25 years, and the revelation of the evening was when Mrs Yvonne Muli observed that when Michelle got married, it is she (Muli) who acted as her Kenyan mother and gave her away.
Also in attendance was Grenadian Mrs Charmain Smith, wife of Guyanese Dr Jimmy Smith who is currently the Director General of International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered in Nairobi. Dr Smith was travelling out of the country, and was unable to attend.
Sugarcane Restaurant’s chef, Mr Silbert Deshong, a Jamaican, observed that he has operated restaurants in New York, South Carolina, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and Trinidad before he became a restaurant consultant. A mutual friend, Ms Maria Wilson (now a Judge in Trinidad who lived in Kenya for several years), informed him that a Guyanese lady in Nairobi, was starting a Caribbean Restaurant and needed help.
“I have been here two months now, so I took this restaurant from ground up and I can say it is very successful,” said Mr Deshong. “The (Kenyan) President and his family came by and I literally cooked for him, so he had a wonderful meal and he enjoyed it since several members of his extended family come on a regular basis. Kathy is Guyanese, I am Jamaican and we decided to put this thing together, so here it is.
“So this is the National Day of Guyana and everybody was here tonight, and I am happy to say they had a great time, they loved the food and I am happy about that.”
When asked how she got into Caribbean food business, Ms Kathleen Creavalle said that she loves entertaining people in her home by cooking for them and that is how the concept got into her, but to implement it she got hold of the best restaurant consultant in Kenya, Ms Fathiya Jeneby and brought a Jamaican chef to train staff on Caribbean food.
She envisions the restaurant to be a place of cultural exchange and plans to have monthly events showcasing Caribbean culture. The Mashramani Dinner was the first of many planned events.
Speaking last was Mr Chris Getonga: “I want to thank my wife Kathy for bringing a taste of Guyana and the Caribbean to Nairobi, and Kenya, and putting us on the map. The whole world knows Caribbean food - now Kenya will know Caribbean food.”
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