Lunch at For You Chinese Restaurant – Valley Arcade
Our awesome group won a lunch at our last Storymoja Festival Meeting. Ms. Makena promised us a lunch and we had it on Sunday afternoon. We met at For You Chinese Restaurant, a gorgeous restaurant tucked away at Valley Arcade, Nairobi. If you get a chance, check it out!
We ended up in the older restaurant because the new one was packed. That’s Sunday Afternoons for you! Everyone is out for lunch.
I was late!…Typical! I’m kind of sad to say that I’ve slacked lately on my timekeeping. I found three of the group members already settled, they’d been waiting…..but it turned out okay. Ms. Makena came soon after me, and we got right into ordering food. I was starved.
You know the shyness drops away at the sight of food. We all had a choice, and there was the general consensus to order something you won’t get at home. Lol, this is the reason we ended up with a platter of rice with cashew nuts. Food on the table, everyone got to talking about what they expected of the Storymoja Festival. Over sweet & sour chicken, beef and ribs, everyone asked Ms. Makena a lot of questions about the Festival and what to expect. Ms. Dawn Makena is this year’s 2014 Storymoja Festival Producer. She’s so passionate about the festival, it’s easy to get pulled in to her enthusiasm. She shared with us her hopes, and the kind of response she wanted to see from the interns. She shared with us her experience working at the UK Hay Festival earlier this year. She urged us to get even more involved and keep working harder to sell tickets. We need to learn every little detail about our guest speakers. We don’t know our duties yet, but it’s good to be familiar with who is coming, and what they do. The festival is a four weeks away, and the main goal now is to sell tickets, and build awareness. So, all y’all reading this, the Storymoja Festival is upon us, #GetFestivalTickets. Pay through ticket sasa and you receive it at the gate. Holler at an intern if you know one (Me, right here), and we’ll get you that ticket.

I lost the photo with Tabby and Me at the hotel, (Sob), so imagine us sitting around the table, with everyone else. We had a great time, talked, laughed, and speculated on what we’re going to be doing at the Festival.

Ms. Makena hinted a Huge Present for the intern who sells the most tickets. She wouldn’t give us a hint. We did promise to sell the tickets more…lol. That’s incentive for you!!
I got lucky. Ms. Makena had Mathew Shenoda’s Poetry Book – Somewhere Else. I got to borrow it for a few days. I promised to post a short review. Mathew Shenoda will be coming to the Festival, so if you’re a fan, don’t miss him. All in all, it was a fabulous afternoon! Thank you Ms. Makena for the lunch.