President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday encouraged Kenyans to celebrate Boxing Day in the own diverse African way devoid of foreign trappings.
He dismissed the opening of gift boxes associated with Boxing Day as foreign culture irrelevant to African culture.
The President was speaking at Bomas of Kenya during the launch of Building Bridges Initiative.
Boxing Day is celebrated a day after Christmas. It is the day white people open their Christmas gifts, from relatives and friends.
“As a country, let us have a Maasai family visiting the coastal region to see those big fish and families from Busia visiting people in Kisumu to learn and celebrate diverse cultures,” he said.
He urged Kenyans to start doing so from this Christmas season.
Earlier, Tanzanian Foreign minister Palamagamba Kabudi, who represented President John Pombe Magufuli at the occasion, asked Kenyans to shun negative ethnicity.
Kabudi told of a family from Kiambu that migrated to Tanzania and one of their sons was appointed a Cabinet minister by President Julius Nyerere.
“They settled in an area with coffee plantations and one of their sons, namely James Mungai, who was on a master's degree programme in Canada, was picked by President Mzee Julius Nyerere as a minister while still abroad,” Kabudi said.
He told Kenyans that Tanzanians identify themselves with regions and not with tribes, noting that his mother who lived in the Rift Valley region could be a Kipsigs from Kenya.
