FEW GENERAL TRAVEL INFORMATION

GEOGRAPHY

Kenya lies on the equator and shores of common borders with Tanzania and Uganda, which makes up the region of “ East Africa”. Kenya is 582,650 sq km (224,962sq mi) includinig 11,230sq km (4,336 sq mil) of water; roughly the size of Texas or Spain.

The  Great Rift Valley

The term ‘rift valley’ was introduced by J.E. Gregory speciifacally for the Great Rift Valley. This is the visible part of continental uplift when continental plates push together forcing the land  up and then the middle parts lag behing and  fall back. There are disagreements over the age of the Great Ritf, but between 20-30 million years is good. It’s appromately 6,000 km (3,700) in length and runs from northern  Syria in Southewest  Asia to central Mozambique in East Africa.

Great Rift is  segmented into;

1.     The Lake Rudolf and Ethiopian section

2.     The Gregory or Eastern Rift (east of Lake Victoria)

3.     The Albertine or Western Rift (L. Tanganyika-Kivu-Edward-Mobutu)

4.     The southern Rift-L Nyasa and slits to the south

PEOPLE AND LANGUAGE

There are 42 tribal ethinic groups,each with their own dialects though most people in the country speak swahili and they own tribal language. English is also well spoken. Both English and Swahili are the official language spoken. In the major towns, young people like any other country, young people have developed they unique language called ‘Sheng’ which is a slang. It’s more of Swahili but with different ‘swagger’ as the youth will say. It’s a mixture of local language to international; swahili,kikuyu,kamba,luo

 which mostly have major influence in it to french. Example. Kumanga is actually swahili and french mean to eat. “Ku” is swahili part and “manga” is actually supporst to be “manger” but due to french complication in pronouncing it, youth end up with kumanga. Sheng is dynamic and varies from one neighbourhood to the other.

CLIMATE.

Kenya enjoys a tropical climate. It is hot and humid at the coast and hot and dry in L.Victoria, temperate inland and very dry in the north and northeast parts of the country.

The average annual temperature for the coastal town of Mombasa is 30.3 C maximum and 22.4C minimum, the capital city, Nairobi( altitude 1,661) 25.2C maximum and 13.6C minimum, Eldoret (alt.3,085) 23.5C maximum and 9.50C minimu, Lodwar (alt.506) and the drier north plainlands  34.8C and 23.7C minimum.

Over the country there are two rainy seasons:

·          The short rains which occur from late october through Novemer.

·          The long rains which occur form late March to early June.

The month of July and August are the coolest monthss and are often overcast especially in the morning. From  December till mid March are the warmest time of the year.