Page 64 - Safari Serengeti: Tanzania Lodge & Tented Safari

• Population: 45,925,301 (estimate)

• Religions: Christian 82.5%, Muslim 11.1%, Traditionalists 1.6%, other 1.7%, none 2.4%,
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• Time zone: Kenya is on East Africa Time, eight hours ahead of U.S. EST. When it is 6am
in Washington D.C., it is 2pm in Nairobi.

National Holidays: Kenya

In addition to the holidays listed below, 05/01 Labour Day/May Day
Kenya celebrates a number of national
06/01 Madaraka Day
holidays that follow a lunar calendar, such
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you will be traveling during these holidays,
please visit www.timeanddate.com/ 12/12 Jamhuri Day
holidays.
12/25 Christmas Day
01/01 New Year’s Day
12/26 Boxing Day

Historical Overview of Kenya

Some of the earliest humans roamed the land now known as Kenya. Since those primordial
times, groups of people from all over Africa and the Middle East have migrated through or into
the area. As long as a millennium ago, the Swahili language, which blends Arabic with African
Bantu speech, had developed as a common tongue in this region. The aristocratic Hima moved
in prior to A.D. 1000, establishing large kingdoms and introducing cattle herding. Bantu
peoples followed, including the Kikuyu, who remain the largest single group today.

Arabs sailed south from the Middle East to become a dominant presence in the coastal region
as early as the 11th century A.D. In Arabic the country was called the land of the Zenj, or
“black people.” For centuries, the coastal area was divided up into city-states known as
the “Zenj states.” Mombasa, one of Kenya’s major cities today, originated as one of these
city-states.

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in the 15th century and dominated the coastal region for a time. In 1729, the Arabs regained
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latter half of the 19th century, Britain had become the dominant power, drawing the borders
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Decades of colonial rule bred resentment among native Africans. In the 1950s, Kikuyus played
a prominent role in the Mau Mau rebellion, which was one act in the drama that culminated in
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Though he had been involved in the Mau Mau rebellion, he established moderate, pro-Western
policies and was acknowledged as Mzee, “the wise old one,” by his own people and many

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