A strange lack of smokers here

One thing that one usually notices when traveling or living outside the U.S. is how widespread smoking is. Certainly in Europe, we came across many smokers and situations (especially when eating out) in which we had little choice to come into contact with smokers. Maybe I should say that I was a second-hand smoker for four years while living in Switzerland! And that to kick the habit, I had to move out of Europe.

We really expected to find a lot of smokers here in Kenya. But there are very few, which is very surprising to us. Sure, cigarettes are sold everywhere, and they’re easy to get. At the checkout at the grocery store, they have those enormous overhead racks of every brand of cigarette. (Also at every checkout is a wide variety of condoms, so maybe sex is the habit of choice here instead.)

While I haven’t been extremely observant, I bet in our two months here, I could count on one hand the number of people I’ve seen smoking. Maybe here people do it at home instead of out in public. I remember in Zimbabwe 19 years ago, many people smoked, and I thought that in many parts of Africa, tobacco was a good cash crop to grow. Or maybe the anti-smoking campaigns have made strides in Kenya too.