Today (actually typing this on 12th September, 2018 !) is the fifty year anniversary of when I first arrived in Kenya.
I've found two letters describing our journey; "... we left from Norwich station and took the train to Liverpool Street, where we took a taxi all the way to Heathrow ... " (must have cost a fortune !) ... "we had about 90 lbs of luggage each, so really the bus and tube were out of the question ..." We met up with two friends, fellow bird enthusiasts, who were also going out to the Kisumu area, and saw that they too, were each carrying a volume of Praed and Grant for their 'light' reading on the plane ! Each volume weighed in at around 4 lbs, so couldn't be packed when we considered they weighed as much as two pairs of shoes, the iron and a transistor radio !
"We left Heathrow on time, in a Super VC10, no less ! Its a very sumptuous plane" (Notice my excitement in this letter to my mother I started writing from Entebbe !) "We came down in Rome for re-fuelling at 10.30 at night, and then flew on above the clouds, through the night, passing over a fantastic thunderstorm with lightning flashes below us, and landed at Entebbe in Uganda at dawn for breakfast. It was a bit humid at Entebbe which is near Lake Victoria, but only 68⁰F. Some passengers left the plane at Entebbe, while the rest of us flew on to Nairobi."
" Just at the moment" (I continued the letter to my mother on the plane) ".. we can look down and see, through the gaps in the clouds, the Kavirondo Gulf, which is the bit of Lake Victoria near where we are being posted. We have picked out the town of Homa Bay, but the clouds are drifting about, and we can't see more."
"(Later) ... we have now arrived at Embakasi, the Nairobi airport. We had a long wait for our luggage to be taken off the plane; one handle had been ripped off a case, but nothing was lost, and there were no problems with the customs or health people. We were met by an African from the Ministry of Education, who has now dumped us on seats and said we are to wait for a mini-bus, which will take us to Kisumu, we think, but that's not certain yet; we may have to stay in Nairobi for a day or so to get work permits, etc. sorted out.
"Must post this now at the airport, having bought some beautiful Kenyan stamps. I'm sending your letter with an elephant stamp !"
(Posted 10.30 a.m., Nairobi time, 12th September)
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(Continuing from a letter sent to parents-in-law): "We were whisked off with our 90 lbs each of luggage, into town and taken to Brunners Hotel, on Muindu Mbingu Street, just off Kenyatta Avenue (do you know it ?) (They has stayed in Nairobi a few times when on holiday from Aden). There we had baths and lunch, and then the men were taken to the Ministry of Education for three hours. We were booked in for the night at Brunners, which I would describe as a rather faded colonial sort of hotel. High rooms, with lazily turning ceiling fans, and wide verandas opening onto an inner courtyard."
I remember that I went with H. (the other wife) for a walk along Kenyatta Avenue after lunch; a lovely wide avenue with very little traffic, and not many people about either. Some Maasai strolled past, wearing just a red blanket (nothing else at all !) and carrying spears. (Not a sight to be seen since the late1960's). There were several 'colonial' type elderly European men, wearing those wide legged baggy khaki shorts, and veldskoen with no socks.
This is Africa, I thought ! I'm HERE !!
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