Moving from Kenya to the U.S. | The Culture Shock I Wasn’t Ready For

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]Hey guys, welcome back to the part two of culture shock that I experienced moving to the US. The next one, and I think it's a very important one, is the language barrier.

[00:00:13]Yeah, that's a very big struggle for people and you wouldn't understand it.

[00:00:17]This is something that I say that you wouldn't understand until you're here.

[00:00:20]When you move somewhere, if you don't speak their language, especially if they speak a completely different language, they you you you never quite stop being a tourist, you know, and especially if you're living there, you don't want to be a tourist. You don't want to get the prices of a tourist. You don't want to get the the lifestyle of a tourist. You want to blend into the culture. You want to learn the culture. I love whenever I'm traveling somewhere, even for a vacation, I love to learn the culture of people. I love to learn how things work around the place. I love to learn why people do things the way they do things.

[00:00:52]I love to learn about why they say this the things the way they say them because that's how you truly get to enjoy a culture. That's how you truly get to enjoy your country. Now, it's very easy to learn a new language and learn a new language and memorize a new language and all that and speak a new language. Which is why when people go to the Arab countries, most of them don't even speak English. They speak Arabic and so you have to learn Arabic. So when I was living in um Oman, I oh my god, Oman is a beautiful country. Oman is the people are nice. I have to go back. I have to go back to Oman to visit. It's beautiful. Anyways, when I was living in Oman, I learned Arabic and all that stuff. Okay. And so now it's very hard when you're moving from a country that speaks the same language as you speak back home, except a different way. Now, very quickly, Kenya was colonized by the British. So the English that we speak is British English. So of course we don't well we don't speak it as deeply as the British speak it. But we pronounce things somewhat the same way as they do which means our T's are very stressed upon and other things. All right. Americans don't speak American don't speak British English. Now this is American English. They speak differently. Now here's the thing. It's let me speak to the Kenyans for a second. It's like speaking Kikuyu from Kamu and then going and hearing a Kirinyaga person speaking Kikuyu. It's Kikuyu. What they're speaking is Kikuyu, but they they speak it in a different accent that makes it sound like not Kikuyu. And if they're speaking fast, you can't understand them. And let me also say it's also like speaking Swahili in town versus speaking Swahili in the coast. Two different accents and it's hard sometimes to understand each other.

[00:02:36]Like you could go to the coast and I'm talking going to the I'm not talking about Diani where tourists go and so people know how to speak with people from the town. I'm talking go deep into the coast you know like go away from the tourist places and get into there and they speak a Swahili you don't even understand. You're like, "Wait, hold on.

[00:02:52]What did that mean again in school?" You know, because they're speaking a very clean um they're speaking a very clean Swahili that is mostly almost very Arabic, you know, and very gosh, sometimes I don't even understand what they're saying, you know? They're using this everything they you learned in the dictionary in the cami. They're just like vazara bar like the you know but in in in in town in Nairobi we just say we just mix soil in English and shen we come up with new words we come up with everything you know and so it's it's the same it's the same difference when you get here you realize that the English you know is not the English they know because they name things differently the verbs are the same from a linguistic perspective the verbs are the you know, the doing words or, you know, I'm walking, going. But when it comes to the nouns, that's where and that's the that's the bane of language, the nouns. When you're learning a new language, you learn what things are. You learn what a window is because everything you talk, now I'm getting very um teacher like um because I'm very I like linguistics, but everything you talk is always a description of something something noun.

[00:04:10]You're always talking about a noun.

[00:04:11]You're always talking about yourself, which is a noun, or you're always talking about school, which is a noun, and everything that you're describing it is always a noun. Descriptive words, which are adjectives, are the same.

[00:04:24]All right? And adverbs the same, but the nouns different. Okay? Some of them.

[00:04:30]Now, if you don't get the nouns right, you could be talking about a completely different thing. Okay? It's just like in Kikuyu. M A I it's my which is water.

[00:04:42]And it could also be my which is poop.

[00:04:45]If you say it wrong, it could mean something completely different. It's the same thing. You come to the US and you are from the British uh influence of English and you get here and you say something like the boots. The boot is shoes, but the boot in Kenya is the trunk of a car, right? And the you say like I want to open the bonnet. Let's talk about cars for a second. I want to open the bonnet of the car. And the bonnet in Kenya is the hood of is the front of the car, right? And in America, it's the hood of the car. So if you say open, get it from the boots, people are like, "What do you mean?" And they're not pretending. They're not pretending to not understand you cuz you have an accent. They don't understand what you're talking about because you're using different nouns than they are. You have to start learning to change the words. And it's very, very hard. And people don't understand how hard it is.

[00:05:31]I want people to understand me even when they're not paying attention.

[00:05:35]and and the language barrier is so hard when you're moving from a country with British influence because you know English you just name things differently and now you have to relearn all these things they say differently you have to learn them over again so that you can get by easily without thinking too much you know it has to be natural so now you go from saying boot to trunk without thinking about it and it's not easy it sounds easy but it's not easy and and and you can choose to say boot and they can you can spend 20 minutes figuring out what boot is and I just don't want my conversations to revolve around me defining things. I want my conversations to just flow, you know, original brands here. If something is Calvin Clay, Gucci, Chanel, all those things, all those brands that you know of, if something is a brand, it's an original brand because there's laws that is out to seek the fake brands and get rid of them. And you could be arrested if you're selling fake brands. It's a crime to sell fake brands in Kenya. You can never be too sure. You can really never be too sure if the Calvin Clay you have or the Gucci is real or not because they're not even going to hide. Some of them hide it and you're wearing Abbyas or Calvin Clay but the CNK have been switched so you don't even remember.

[00:06:51]It's like it gives you that Mandela effect. You don't even remember if where the K was to begin with, you know. But there's a lot of fake brands and you got to do what you got to do. You know what I'm saying? It's it's good quality shoes but fake brands. But I think it's smart because people will buy things for the brand and so that's why they do it because you will just buy it because it's Adidas. So they make good brand shoes. The good thing with Kenya is whatever they're making is always so long-lasting. So longlasting.

[00:07:20]Like it's very good. Another thing is, wait, it's getting dark outside and my phone is against the window, so I'm getting darker by the minutes. But another thing I want to talk about is customer service here. The customer service in the US is extremely nice. Extremely extremely nice. Extremely thick. like like to the point where you're like creeped out by it, you know? Good morning. How can I help you today? Are you having a good day? That's great.

[00:07:58]What What do you want to order today?

[00:08:01]>> You know, awesome. That will be $12.

[00:08:05]Oh, you too. And you're laughing and whatever. And you're like, "What? You could confuse it for friendship. You could confuse it for attraction. You could confuse it for anything if you didn't know." You'd be like, "Damn, people are so nice here." Majority, the majority of the people here are actually nice. You think in Kenya, I know you're going to say, "Customer service in Kenya is also nice." Kenyans give you their personality, but nicer version of them.

[00:08:29]Like I worked in customer service at some point in Kenya, and I was nice. You know, you're trained and paid to be nice, but it was never to where I feel like I'm performing. It was just good morning, welcome to blah blah blah, you know, like it was my personality and nicer. But here it's a performance. It's so nice to wear it. You don't feel like it's real, you know? That's another shock that I found. I was like, "What the hell is like for the first time you're like, [laughter] I'm fine." Like, I mean, it's a good morning, but it's not that good of a morning. The other one is family setting. Like the way like here, if you have a boyfriend, you tell your family that you have a boyfriend early on. Like as soon as you have a boyfriend, if you're close with your family, you tell your family you have a boyfriend and no one's panicking. Where I grew up, if I tell you the number of time I've gotten a beating because of a boy, Lord God Almighty.

[00:09:29]But that's just the different cultures.

[00:09:32]You are supposed to be married to get out of home from back we had like these are things of the past where a woman was supposed to be married to leave home and all that. But nowadays, women got empowered. Thank you, Jesus. Women work.

[00:09:44]Women drive, women do whatever the hell they want and they decide when to get married and to who. And that is the best thing that ever happened to women because no one gets to decide that anymore. And you can actually just date whenever you want to date, right? I hope so. But I So here you can have your husband over at your mother's place. You can kiss your husband in your parents' home. Well, not like throat kiss them, you know, like not just like eating each other each other's mouth, but you can cuddle, you can whatever around your parents and no one is panicking.

[00:10:17]>> In Kenya, I think it's a taboo.

[00:10:20]Like I I think I don't even think so funny. And also there's so many rules.

[00:10:28]Oh, I don't know. Your your parents can't sleep in the same house this all that stuff. here when the parents visit they stay in the same house and when you visit you stay in the you stay in the same house everyone stays in the same house and it's just fine you as a couple could have boundaries about your what you're going to do and what you're not going to do but no one stopping you from doing them it's all about respect it's not about rules in Kenya it's more like a traditional law than it is respect you know it's you're basically forced to do it there's no way out and when you go to visit your family here in the US you they cook for you they could make you things husband and cooks and cleans and all that stuff. And kind of maybe the men nowadays are starting to lean more into that, but usually they don't. Usually when you're visiting the family, you're the one that's going to be cooking. Like you stay there for like a week and your mom is still cooking and serving you like you're a guest. No way.

[00:11:18]But in America they do it. They just do it as family, you know. Also in America there's no the other thing is in America there's no culture of there's no um culture of providing for your family when you make it in life or like when you leave home and now you have to give back to the family that doesn't exist here. Everyone for themselves once you're an adult you're responsible for yourself and when you get wealthy unless you do decide to give back to your family it's not recommended. No, no parent is expecting you to give back unless there's a lot of trauma stories there. But in Kenya, almost most of the parents are expecting you to give back home. Luckily for me, my dad is the most amazing man I have ever met. And if I went back to heaven and I had to come back again in life, I would come back as his daughter. He told [cheering] me when I make it that I'm I should work on me first. Like I should build myself first.

[00:12:07]My dad told me even as you're moving to the US or you're going anywhere in life, do you first and then do us and you don't have to do us. Luckily for us, God has blessed us with the things that we need such that I'm not in any stress to like provide for my family right now.

[00:12:24]Okay guys, we have come to the end of the video. Thank you so much for staying with me through this video. It has taken so long. It's already night time since I started it. The video is longer than 2 hours, so I have to do a lot of editing to cut to cut out parts that I was just blabbing and then post it. Thank you so much for your support. My other videos have been getting thousands and thousands of views, and I have new subscribers. Welcome [cheering] to the family. Until next time.