Not for Sale

In the US, outside of commercial establishments, things are presumed to be “for sale” only if there are signs explicitly indicating their availability. We discovered this is not the case in Kenya where there are numerous signs letting you know that things are “not for sale”. We assume this means that everything else is “for sale”.

This is made more humorous because of the inclusion of contact information for the person who is not selling the aforementioned object. You know, just in case you’d like to discuss the fact that you can’t buy it. We imagine these conversations to include the standard greetings [Kenyans love greetings]:

Not Seller: Habari yako? [Translation: “Your news”; Meaning: “How are you today”]

Not Buyer: Nzuri sana. Na wewe? [Translation: “Very good. And you?”]

Not Seller: Nzuri sana. Habari za nyumbani [Translation: “News of home”]

Not Buyer: Nzuri tu, mke wangu ni mgonja [Translation: “Good only a little, my wife is sick]

They will go on with greetings of work [kazi], children [watoto], lifestock [ng’ombe, kuku, mbuzi, etc] until they run out of “news” at which point they can get down to not doing business:

Not Buyer: Nyumba yako kwa Diani siuzi? [Translation: “So your house in Diani, it’s not for sale?”

Not Seller: Ndiyo, siuzi. [Translation: “Indeed, it is not for sale”]

Not Buyer: Haya basi, kwa heri. [Translation: “Ok, well, goodbye”]

Not Seller: Kwa heri. [Translation: “goodbye”]

Interestingly, Kenyans love greetings but they are very brief with the goodbyes. Of course the above conversation is all theoretical but if we get really bored [which isn’t very likely], we may call just to practice our Swahili.