Kisses from Kenya
Kisses from Kenya is a social podcast hosted by Brendan and Vuyanzi, two Americans living in Nairobi who see the world through different identities, but share a love of fun chats and tender honesty. One is a gay white American, the other is a Black American, both learning what it means to live far from home while carrying everything that shaped them. Here you will find candid conversations about identity shifts, contradictions, and the odd freedom that comes from living beyond the USA but never escaping it. It is funny, thoughtful, occasionally chaotic, and always grounded in lived experience. Kisses from Kenya is produced by Democrats Abroad Kenya, but this channel is a social space for personal stories and reflections. Nothing said here represents the official positions of Democrats Abroad Kenya, Democrats Abroad global, or the Democratic Party. New episodes weekly(ish) on all Podcast platforms and YouTube. Stay with us as we explore what it means to love, live, vote, and reinvent ourselves a long way from home!
Episodes
EPISODE 25: Foul Play
Dine Out for Democracy is happening, the U.S. has struck over 90 coastal targets in Iran after Trump ends the ceasefire, and the World Cup host nations just got knocked out of their own tournament in spectacular fashion. Oh, and Trump personally called FIFA to get a red card suspension overturned. Because of course he did.
In this episode:
- Opening conversation - Dine Out for Democracy lands as...
EPISODE 24: Outbreaks, Obstacles & Opening Nights
New York moves to remove barriers to voting, Ebola is back in the headlines, and Brendan has a conversation about sexuality with his gentleman that does not go the way he planned. This week has range.
In this episode:
- Opening conversation - a new bill in New York targeting voting barriers: what it does and why it matters for Americans abroad
- Whose America Is It A...
EPISODE 23: Off the Market & On the Move
It's birthday season, Vuyanzi is taking herself off the market again, and Democrats Abroad Kenya just hosted the first-ever Democrats Abroad AGM on the African continent. No big deal. Brendan explains why Nairobi was the right place to do it - and what it means to bring that kind of gathering to this city.
In this episode:
- Opening conversation - birthday shenanigans and ...
EPISODE 22: National Treasures & Hidden Transgressions
Janet Jackson is a national treasure and this is not up for debate. From there: New Orleans gets a new mayor, Vuyanzi reckons with having outsourced her cooking entirely, Brendan emails a CEO with full Karen energy, and someone slept with a parliamentarian. It's that kind of episode.
In this episode:
- Opening conversation - a not-so-new revelation and what i...
EPISODE 21: Still on the Charts, Still in the Streets
Michael Jackson is back on the charts - 17 years after his death, breaking records ahead of his 30th Anniversary concert. Meanwhile Tanzania blocks an EU delegation from investigating election violence, and Brendan has a point about who gets policed and who doesn't that is worth sitting with.
In this episode:
- Opening conversation - Michael Jackson's comeback fro...
Episode 20: Your Vote Matters - That's Why They Want to Take It Away!
This one is personal. Brendan and Vuyanzi go deep on the Voting Rights Act - the gerrymandering, the protests, and what it means to watch voter suppression unfold when your parents and grandparents grew up in the segregated South. Some conversations you have because you have to.
In this episode:
- Whose America Is It Anyway? - the Voting Rights Act...
EPISODE 19: Death, Data, and Desire
This one starts somewhere tender. Vuyanzi opens up about losing her sister during Covid while she was in Kenya - the distance, the grief, and the network of people who showed up anyway. Brendan shares his own experience losing his uncle in 2021 after making the move. It's a conversation about what it means to grieve from far away, and it earns everything that comes after it.
In this...
EPISODE 18: Who Made These Rules?
It opens with a debate about Uno that is somehow also a debate about culture, community, and who gets to make the rules. From there: Virginia redraws its districts and Black women take it across the finish line, abortion rights get enshrined, New York taxes the rich, and an LA teachers' strike that nearly happened reminds us what happens when people organise. Oh, and Pope Leo. Brenda...
EPISODE 17: Helpless from Here
This one starts mid-conversation - which is exactly how the best ones always do. Vuyanzi is sitting with the weight of having a client whose family is caught in Lebanon: the helplessness, the guilt, the strange expectation that life just carries on regardless. Brendan picks it up from there, and the conversation goes somewhere real before the news even starts.
In this episode:
- Opening...
EPISODE 16: Mixed Signals
Things get personal this week. A kiss changes everything - or does it? Vuyanzi shares a moment that has her rethinking her whole approach to dating, which opens up a bigger and messier question: do you go looking for something serious, or do you wait for it to find you? Brendan and Vuyanzi do not agree, and it gets interesting.
In this episode:
- The big debate - "try...
EPISODE 15: War & Politics
Sometimes you laugh because the alternative is crying. This week Brendan and Vuyanzi sit with the weight of global conflict, the strange experience of being American abroad when the world wants to talk about U.S. politics, and a PSA that needs to be said: please do not move to Kenya just because you heard it's cheap.
In this episode:
- Opening - Vuyanzi reflects on possi...
EPISODE 14: The Strength of Women... According to Who?
From Brendan's VCR days watching The Color Purple to Vuyanzi being told she was "arguing" simply for using her voice - this episode gets into the gap between celebrating women's strength and actually letting women be strong. Two generations, two very different lenses, one conversation worth having.
In this episode:
- Deep Dive - The Color Purple a...
EPISODE 13: When They Go Low, Do We REALLY Go High?
Michelle Obama gave us the mantra. But in 2026, Brendan and Vuyanzi are asking the harder question: is going high actually costing us something? As the late Flint City Council Member Eric Mays put it rather memorably - when they go low, we go lower. Is he onto something?
In this episode:
- Whose America Is It Anyway? - the queer community's reaction ...
Premiered on 16 Mar 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 7: Celebrations & Complications
Christmas trees in 35-degree heat. Eggnog at the Equator. A goat that knows exactly what season it is. Vuyanzi and Brendan dig into what the holidays actually look like when you're far from where you started - the homesickness, the relief, the reinvention, and the complicated joy of celebrating queer identity abroad du...
Premiered on 23 Mar 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 8: Left, Right, Center
In Kenya, the driver sits on the right, the traffic comes from the left, and nothing you learned at home quite prepares you. Vuyanzi and Brendan use that disorientation as the entry point into a bigger conversation: what happens when the political and cultural assumptions you built your life on get quietly, thoroughly flipped?
<...
Premiered on 30 Mar 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 9: Morals to Morale
What's the difference between morals and morale - and why does living abroad make that question suddenly urgent? Brendan and Vuyanzi connect the FBI's fear-based collapse, press freedom under attack, and the cultural standards you didn't know you'd inherited until Kenya quietly rewrote them.
In this episode:
- Whose America Is...
Premiered on 6 Apr 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 10: Home Away from Home
They're back. After a longer-than-planned break, Vuyanzi and Brendan return to find the news cycle hasn't waited for anyone - and neither has the question of what "home" actually means anymore. 2026 opens with a lot to catch up on and one big question at the centre of it all.
In this episode:
- Whose America Is It Anyway? -...
Premiered on 13 Apr 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 11: Has the Sky Fallen Before?
Is what's happening in America truly unprecedented - or have we been here before? Vuyanzi and Brendan pull back the lens on patterns of injustice, the centering of whiteness in political outrage, and the question of who gets to be shocked. Fair warning: the cynicism is showing, and we're not sorry.
In this episode:
Premiered on 20 Apr 2026 Kisses From Kenya
EPISODE 12: Is the Grass REALLY Greener?
Is the grass actually greener on the other side - or does it just look that way from here? Brendan and Vuyanzi sit with the uncomfortable feeling that the right seems energised, emboldened, and utterly unbothered while everyone else scrambles to keep up. Plus: what a four-day work week in Pakistan and the Philippines tell...
Two Americans living abroad explore race and queerness in global contexts, and what identity looks like when you move to East Africa. Welcome to Episode 1 of Kisses from Kenya, a Democrats Abroad Kenya social podcast exploring Blackness, queerness, culture, and life as Americans in Nairobi.
In this first episode, hosts Vuyanzi (a Black American living in Kenya) and Brendan (a gay American living in Kenya) unp...
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