While Japanese poetic genres were undoubtedly known to some poets and critics in East Africa from the work of the European and North American scholars and translators in the early 20th century, there was little if any local activity until the 1990s and early 2000s. Even now, the hotspots of haiku activities in the region are haiku clubs in Nairobi, Kenya, secondary school clubs in the Nairobi suburbs, and a haiku contest conducted in conjunction with a poetry festival in Kampala, Uganda.