Did you know that one of Kenya's principal exports is cut flowers? In fact, Kenya ships out flowers every day to be sold in Europe's flower markets.
And even though the best quality flowers are exported, you can't drive anywhere in Nairobi without passing flower vendors along the way. I'm very lucky to have a friendly flower vendor named Paul just around the corner from me. He delivers flowers to me once a week at the Embassy; I always get compliments on the fresh flowers on my desk. Plus I buy bouquets from him to have at home. By watching him assemble my bouquets, I've even picked up some flower arranging tips from him.
Recently, I visited a flower farm in nearby Naivasha, about a one hour drive from Nairobi. I expected to be surrounded by buds of color throughout the tour. But the flowers are picked so regularly that we mostly only saw brown dirt and green leaves. This is the only photo of blooming flowers that I was able to get, featuring my friend Nashwa:
After touring the fields, we moved into the factory where the flowers are prepared for shipment. This picture shows a factory worker measuring each rose stem on her marked board to ensure they are the correct length.
This worker is arranging roses with filler flowers into a bouquet before boxing it for shipment.
At the end of the tour, we each received a free bouquet to take home for ourselves!
No comments:
Post a Comment