I greatly enjoyed the article about the origins of Nairobi's Biashara (later Bazaar) Street. We arrived in Kenya in 1968, and having initially gone out on a teachers 21 month contract, we stayed for eleven years and started our family who were born in Kisumu, and latterly Nakuru.
So it became essential to find a source of baby stuff in Nairobi, and a missionary friend recommended Toddlers Bazaar in Biashara/Bazaar Street. What an Aladdins cave of goodies ! We bought secondhand cot, baby seat, pram and a bright green plastic baby bath ! But for me, the joy of Toddlers Bazaar was that they had shelves of secondhand paperback books …. living initially out in the bush 50 miles beyond Kisumu, I was starved of reading matter …. so our three monthly trips to the big city had to include a visit toToddlers !
There I stocked up on old and tatty Agatha Christie's, books about the Australian aboriginal detective Bony, and scores of ancient and well thumbed Blackwoods Magazine, with its faded pink covers …. I must have bought fifty or more old paperbacks on each visit (and if any reader of this was the person who donated the books to Toddlers, then 'Thank you' most sincerely …. you saved my sanity !
On one visit, I had borrowed a double baby buggy from a friend, to push the three year old and our one year old daughters around town …. and managed to run over the toes of Joy Adamson in Bazaar Street …. she was furious, but George, who was with her, just laughed !!
Happy days ….
*100 with its wonderful cover showing ALL the previous issues, right back to *1. There's an article of Editor's Choice of the top 100 stories published since the first issue, and an explanation as to location of the photos David sent in ....
*101 an article on rugby in Kenya (not my thing !); another about the Heritage Trust, and an interesting set of photos of old Mombasa. I love all the old photos that keep turning up in my favourite magazine.
*102 an extract from a book called 'Kenya Kaleidoscope' by Agnes Shaw, which I was prompted to buy, and to my shame haven't read yet ! An article concluding those about Tom Mboya and his funeral. And a letter for the 'Only in Africa' page from yours truly ....
"A Kenyan 'Ty Bach' - Welsh for the small house !
The
first Kenya house we lived in, newly arrived in 1968, was beyond
Kisumu; an old dilapidated house (c.1920) in a school compound.
There was just a cold tap in the kitchen, but no loo anywhere. The
head teacher knew we were coming, so had organised for one to be
built for us ... outside.
It was the usual long-drop, in a
small building, with thatched roof and wooden door. The door was 5ft
tall, to allow light in at the top. The door handles were
wooden cotton reels; there was a loop of string and a nail to secure
the door on the inside. When the head inspected it, she said we
must have a 'sit-down' seat, so the school fundi was
shown a European loo in one of the modern houses, and copied it in
wood. He made a cube like box, two feet tall, with a small,
square hole cut in the top; a throne fit for white bottoms; made of
rough wood, still with the bark on, and the hole jagged and full of
splinters!
This edifice was fine during the day, (after we had
requested some sand-paper) but we hadn't anticipated problems of
night usage. It quickly gets dark by 6.30 p.m. on the Equator.
At first, we had only one paraffin hurricane lamp, and a night
trip to the loo necessitated leaving one person in candle-light in
the house while the other went outside.
Bright
lights in the tropics attract moths, bats and beetles, so how to
prevent every creature from yards around entering the loo and
fluttering around the head of the person seated in contemplation?
One needed the light to check there were no snakes being disturbed in
the small house, so what to do?
Every
question has an answer! Solution: put the lamp down on the ground
ten yards away from the choo (after
checking for those snakes), and then leave the door wide open!
(And hope no student was walking past and could observe the
sight of a brightly illuminated mzungu sitting
on a box with pants around the ankles!)
*103 Articles about riding zebra's; Buffalo Springs pool; origins of coffee, and Thika in the 1920's, from a letter written in the 1920's by Elspeth Huxley.
*104 Articles on a plane crash in Mt. Longonot; one on the naming of Lake Rudolf in 1888; and this FANTASTIC photo of an elephant on the back cover !
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