Karen wrote a section about Licence Plates. I wrote a section about Death Announcements. More INTERESTING and FUN cultural info and differences about Kenya to come!

1) License Plates

License plates are colour coded and pretty interesting. A yellow license plate is the standard issue. Most of the alphanumeric strings seem to start with 'K' for Kenya. A blue license plate has something to do with the Kenyan government. This fact came courtesy of Frederick, Karen's safari guide in Amboseli.

A red license plate means a diplomatic vehicle. The codes on the plates include 'UN' for the UN or 'CD' for general diplomatic missions. If you are in downtown Nairobi you literally see a diplomatic plate every two minutes. At a nice restaurant you see even more. Jokes aside, there are lots of UN vehicles in Nairobi because much of the work in the Sudan and Somalia is headquartered here.

2) Death Announcements

Death announcements here are quite different than those in North America. First of all, the death announcements don't necessarily happen right after the death because often times the family has to save up enough money to transport the body to the part of the country where the family is from and save for funeral and burial costs, so you will often see a death announcement several weeks after the person has actually died. Secondly, (Karen reminded me of this difference that I am now used to) is the way that the announcements are placed. They are usually several pages in each day's newspaper and in full colour with a large announcement and photo of the person. They are a very well-read section of the newspaper. Below is a scan of a typical announcement. The Promotion to Glory thing confused me at first – thinking it was a job promotion or something... I guess it could be seen as that!