Nice !!
I've been spending 'rest times' (doc recommended I had a rest each day to try and recover quicker from a bug I picked up on my last visit .... but that's another story) .... so I've been using the time to sort through and label old Africa photos, some from 1968 !
The crocodile above is one from a visit to Kenya when I took my two youngest children; daughter S. was about 15 or 16 and son T. was 14. Daughter had been born in Kenya, but left at the age of six months; son was born in the UK, so really, neither of them had the African experience the two oldest daughters had, and as I had inherited some money, I decided to spend it on taking them to Africa !
My diary is stuffed full of all sorts of things; bills and receipts, seed pods, thorns, pressed flowers, etc. etc. This diary must have started a habit for all my future travel diaries are the same, full of bits and pieces, as well as words !
Joseph Adhiambo (whose photo is in the right hand side bar) had originally worked for us as a 'house-boy', and we had sent him to school, and he got a good job in Nairobi, in a tourist shop inside the Norfolk Hotel, and as I had kept in contact, he generously took three weeks leave from his job, to be our driver, guide, guard, companion and friend during our stay. It was so very kind of him.
According to the diary, we flew out on Air Madagascar, which I had forgotten. I have also forgotten (and I quote) .... "The plane touched down on Kenya soil (tarmac) and I burst into tears ! S and T must have thought I was crazy, but I was overcome with emotion at my first sight of Kenya through the plane window after 17 and a half years ..."
"Right at the front of the crowd in arrivals, with a face splitting grin, was Joseph, dapper in a smart business suit which was a bit different to his rags when we first met him in 1968. Hand shakes, greetings, hugs, laughter .... Joseph then went to get his friend Tony 'and some children' ..." (Tony owned a mini-bus) The children turned out to be seven of various ages ! Some were Josephs, the rest I never did identify. We piled into Tony's mini-bus, and I record that our luggage included a doll's house (again I'd forgotten this !) which we were giving to a school.
"Within minutes we had seen giraffe and zebra as the road borders the national park .... but at the junction of Uhuru and Kenyatta avenues, the mini-bus broke down ! Tony and Joseph pushed the bus onto the edge of Uhuru Park, and Joseph walked to where he had left his car ...." Welcome back to Africa !
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I have masses of photos from this trip with the youngsters, but it was pre-digital cameras and so I had what is now an old-fashioned SLR camera and a telephoto lens, to take photos. I got them all printed when I returned. I must get my scanner working, and convert them into digital images. Watch this space !
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