When you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you realise that the little things add joy to everyday life. The Christmas period, despite the long hours of darkness, is filled with Christmas lights and decorations, both modern and cultural.
Despite the cold, tourists still visit these countries for their magical winter wonderlands and magical Christmas markets, besides so many other activities and beautiful, picturesque backgrounds. After a much-needed tour in these winter wonderlands, you get a cocktail of symbolic souvenirs inspired by folktales, cultural beliefs and modern ways of living and finding meaning to life.
So, as we take stock of the year in Kenya, we have a lot of little things to be thankful for and to leverage on. We have the sun all year round and beautiful tropical landscapes. We have a long coastline with white sandy beaches and palm trees. We have wildlife such as lions, leopards, zebra, buffalo, giraffe, elephant, rhinos, hippos, and much more in this incredible biodiversity.
Our Afro music, is upcoming, needless to say, we have our Sauti Sol. While still taking stock, we also have many tribes with different cultures that can translate into cute little symbolic items to be sold.
I recently had the privilege of sightseeing one-day tour of Copenhagen city. There were options of tours to choose, from the urban to the classical route and being a lover of culture and all nice things, I chose to do a classical tour. The classical tour provides an original renaissance tour of Copenhagen.
You tour Copenhagen’s Cathedral, the Round Tower, Rosenborg Palace, and more, and hear all about Denmark’s Monarchy.
You also experience the beauty of the Nyhavn entertainment district with the canal in between surrounded by colorful 17th and 18th Century houses. Another exciting part of this tour is to see the little mermaid, from the classic folk tales of Hans Christian Andersen, then over to the Lego shop with kids and the magical 180 years of Tivoli amusement park. Finally you can take a walk down the famous City Hall Square, which is one of the main squares in Copenhagen.
This is where the famous shopping street, Strøget, begins. And it’s the place of many celebrations from sport to music.
What is interesting is after all these tours, you will find many souvenirs that depict all these experiences, and more. You will find little mermaids in the form of fridge magnets, you will find Hans Christian Andersen magnets and statues, you will find royal guard statues and magnets, you will find replica model houses of the colorful houses in Nyhavn, you will also find images and souvenirs of the bike culture of Copenhagen.
At the end of the tour, as you make difficult choices of what souvenirs to buy, you can grab the Danish Street food classic grilled hot dogs topped with creamy sauces, fresh pickled cucumbers and crispy fried onions.
Anytime I do any of these short tours, I ask myself how different we can do things in Kenya in the quest of development, and unchaining poverty, especially from those gifted in the arts and technical skills. In the case of the city of
Copenhagen in Denmark, the little things, just like the big things, make serious business for them. There are several social media pages filled with tourists sharing photos from these and more experiences. Gifted artists, designers, urban planners, diasporas and curators should be highly considered by the Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary, Dr Mutua and county governments. It’s not too late for us to develop our policies, systems and cultural capital for better tourism experiences.
As we plan for 2024, our leaders can think of how to bring to life archaeological treasures, culinary activities, festivals or events, entertainment streets, historic or heritage, sites, monuments and landmarks, museums and exhibitions, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, religious venues, temples and churches. While they’re at it, our gifted artists can make souvenirs depicting all these beautiful little and big experiences, and price them accordingly.
Over to you our dear leaders and a Happy New and Ambitious 2024 to you, my dear readers!
The writer is a communications researcher and scholar, currently Pursuing Peace and Development Work Studies in Sweden. [email protected]