About a Boot (a Bata Boot)

I am shopper. Not a Julia Roberts/Pretty Woman with big shopping bags, big credit card and big hair kind of shopper, but rather a determined one – if I am on the hunt for something, I tend to take my time, track it down and boom, buy it.

However, over the past year, I have found myself tearing into Nairobi, tearing to the Mara, back to Nairobi and out again, with not much time for retail therapy… hmmm… perhaps I should speak to my bosses about this? Anyway, the point is, on each Nairobi visit, while stuck in that (endless) Nairobi traffic I find myself hunting down that four letter red sign, which I have seen since my childhood travelling throughout Africa.

One simply must look the part when clambering around a building site and feeling on top of the world because of those endless views below, no? And to look the part in Kenya, one simply must own a pair of Bata Safari Boots…

So what makes the Bata Safari Boot so typically African? Is it because it hails from the wild continent? Nope, Bata was born in the snowy Czech Republic. Is it because Bata is the newest fashion label on the block? Nope, it’s been around since 1894 – a grand old dame. Is it because Bata is a small mom-and-pop-shop? Nope, the Bata family employs over 50,000 people in 70 countries. Is it because Bata is new to Kenya? Nope, Bata arrived on Kenyan shores in 1939, and has even set up a nursery school in Limuru where children of the workers at the Bata plant attend for free…

So what is it?

It is, as Mwenda wa Muchemi a writer at Kenya’s Business Day, so eloquently states: “Whether dominating the view on an overhang billboard or perched patiently on a shelf waiting for a suitor, Bata’s Safari Boot is an undisputed Kenyan icon. Wherever it travels, it easily conjures up the image of Kenya”. And we all know that Kenya is the birthplace of the safari – a truly African experience of endless skies and magnificent animals; where you suddenly realize that Africa has silently crept under your skin… She sure did with me.

So as I sit here, in the south, planning my next trip to Nairobi, I will be ready to dive out of the traffic and spend a little time on Kenyatta Street or Kimathu Street or Mama Ngina Street (or in any of the other 37 Bata stores in town) because I just know there is a pair of duck-egg blue Bata Safari Boots with my name on them …