Kenya's favorite national meal a victim of chaos

By C. Bryson Hull

NAKURU, Kenya (Reuters) - If there is one thing Kenyans of any political stripe can agree on, it is nyama choma.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the Kenyan tradition of meeting friends over a piece of slow-roasted goat meat, beer and ugali -- a maize flour cooked to a soft cake -- is as entrenched as the rise and set of the sun.

But the eruption of violence and unrest around the disputed presidential election of December 27, combined with the annual Christmas break, put parts of Kenya into a nyama drought for three weeks.

In Nakuru, the trading gateway to the breadbasket of Kenya's Great Rift Valley where goats are abundant, butcheries were bare for the period save a bit of ng'ombe -- beef -- borrowed from suppliers, nyama choma sellers said.

"The beef is just a little, too. We still don't know when the goats will come back," said Valentine Achieng, cashier in the butchery at Nakuru's Chamber restaurant.

The lack of goat -- known as mbuzi in Swahili -- came as violent Kalenjin gangs in the Rift closed roads stretching across the centre part of it as they attacked and drove off members of the Kikuyu tribe in the area.

That choked transport for days, until police began accompanying fuel trucks that pass through the Rift heading toward western Kenya, Uganda and beyond.

The goats, coming from the north part of the Rift, didn't get police escort, butchers said.

With no pieces of goat to choose in the butcheries, customers dwindled despite the presence of beef and chicken -- since Kenyans say those are a distant second choice.

"Mbuzi, not even a chicken. Mbuzi," restaurant patron Joe Kang'ethe said when asked what meat he prefers. He said he was eating beef because he had no choice.

The dry spell began to break over the weekend, and customers came to their favorite nyama joints in the usual numbers.

"These are the first goats we are seeing in days," said Kenneth Wakapisa, a meat carver at Nakuru's Garden Villa, a typical nyama choma joint known locally by the Swahili word for a thatched roof - makuti.

"There was trouble with transport and there were not as many customers as today," Wakapisa said as he carved goat ribs at a table side. "There were not many customers like today."

It looked a typical weekend day, with plates of goat being hungrily consumed and hawkers wandering selling ties, socks and handkerchiefs to customers for the work week.

"Kenyans need their nyama," Wakapisa said.