All hail the flag

Odd moment: I'm walking out of the Kibera slum a few days ago in the middle of a crowd of several hundred people. Suddenly, a whistle blows faintly and everyone for about 100 yards in every direction comes to a halt and stops talking.

I look around in puzzlement and notice, in the courtyard of a police station to my right, a tattered Kenyan flag being lowered from a flagpole that's only about 10 feet high. Once it's down, a policeman blows a whistle and everyone starts up again.

What a strange and affecting moment of ceremony. Ironic, too, since this patriotism is on display in Kibera, where anti-government sentiment runs high. I ask someone next to me what would happen if people kept walking during the flag-lowering. "You'd be arrested for failing to show sufficient respect for the national flag," he says. So much for patriotism.

In some Nairobi movie theaters, they play the national anthem (accompanied by footage of a Kenyan flag waving in the wind) before every showing. Presumably no one is watching to report you if you don't stop slurping your Coke, stand up and take off your hat. No different, I suppose, than the U.S. national anthem being played before sporting events back home, but strange that patriotism goes on display in a darkened movie theater.