In Bomet, where the green hills should smell of tea rather than improvised barbecues, a hotel has made the headlines not for its TripAdvisor reviews but for its decidedly alternative menu: pan-fried flamingo meat. Yes, that's right, the elegant pink dancers of the lakes, transformed into stew for unsuspecting customers.
The dramatic twist came with an undercover operation led by the director of public health, Leonard Lang'at, who, instead of catching waiters without chef's hats, found himself faced with cooked pink chickens and others fresh from the supplier. A gastronomic offering that even the worst fusion restaurants in Nairobi would not dare to propose.
The hotel owner was arrested, with an official statement from the county government citing “serious public health concerns”. As if the real problem were not eating a flamingo — the symbol of Kenyan tourism — but the possibility of stomach ache. In fact, according to the authorities, there have already been over 3,500 recent cases of intestinal pain caused by contaminated food in the area.
Lang'at took the opportunity to raise a warning finger: “Anyone who handles food must have a food hygiene licence”. Put like that, it sounds like advice, but it sounds more like a last-ditch warning. Then, to make sure nothing was left out, he pointed out that cancer rates are on the rise in the county and that this is also due to mursik adulterated with illegal chemicals: the fermented milk that is so “locally authentic” but which risks ending up on the WHO's blacklist.
The crackdown continues, and hoteliers know it: better to serve a menu of goats and chickens — or tilapia at most — than to explain to the judge why there was the pink shadow of a flamingo that danced on the water yesterday on the tourist's plate.