In 2010, I told my husband that shave ice was a viable business in Nairobi. He was skeptical and asked reasonable questions. I just also happened to be right. 😛
16 years later, Hapa Shave Ice is open in Lavington and Nyali. Our kids have watched us build it from scratch: the early mornings, the syrup-making, and the floor mopping. I love that they have been watching us try to make entrepreneurship work and I hope they will internalize that if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.
I started this blog for the same reason. The thing I wanted did not exist, so I made it.
There isn’t an updated guide to family life in Nairobi written for families who actually live here. Yes we all know and love Karura forest. But you can’t go there every weekend. What else is there to do? The content online that exists is aimed at tourists or people who need the city explained to them. That knowledge has been living in WhatsApp DMs for years but I think it belongs somewhere more findable.
Here is what you will find
- School holiday guides with KES prices
- Family road trips we have actually done
- Restaurants we keep going back to
- Recipes that work with what you can buy locally
- A guide to getting Kenyan citizenship, which I have been meaning to write for years
I grew up in Honolulu and have called Nairobi home since 2010. I have two kids in school, a shave ice shop in Lavington and one in Nyali, and the blog reflects all of it.
welcome!
Angela