THE MOTHER OF ALL KARENS

The name 'Karen' has become synonymous with self-entitled White women who pick on minorities, especially Africans, to get their way. Colonial Kenya had one Karen who boasted a 6,000-acre home and 2,000 servants on her coffee farm at the foot of the Ngong' Hills.

Karen Blixen's memoir, 'Out of Africa,' was made into an Oscar-winning romantic film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Blixen's farm was a prototype of the British colonisation of Kenya, in which the best land was reserved for White settlers.

There’s a Nairobi suburb named after her now. But it's not just the name that has stuck. Unlike other suburbs that reverted to African names after Kenya gained independence, life in Karen still has the whiff of colonial exclusivity and snobbishness, as African Stream’s Wambura Mwai found out.