What a surprise ! Kisumu on TV !!

A good friend messaged me to say Kisumu was going to be on TV, featured in one of my favourite programmes, Who Do You Think You Are, which take a 'famous' person and investigates their genealogy.   (Available on iPlayer in the UK for, I think, about four weeks).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08zj63p/who-do-you-think-you-are-series-14-4-adil-ray

It was so interesting to see the streets and people of Kisumu again .... many of my friends have no idea what the town is like, and its attraction for me .... so I hope they watched this ! I have no idea who the personality was who was featured .... never heard of him .... but his mixed Pakistani and African heritage was most interesting.  

Most genealogy in UK and USA etc is done by following a paper trail of certificates, censuses, newspaper reports, etc., but this doesn't apply to the non European communities; for them, the oral records are everything, and so it proved in this programme.   The oral 'records' and conversations linked his grandmother back to Uganda, and to the Kabaka of Buganda !   

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I am still niggling away at the history of that mysterious little bit of land in the north west of Kenya.    See  http://luolaughter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/an-annoying-puzzle.html

I have looked at several old maps I have, and think I may have part of the answer, but still need some more investigation.   It seems it might be to do with the distribution of land back in the days of the British Empire.   Before 1902, what we now know as the west of Kenya was considered to be Uganda; the rest was the East Africa Protectorate, the border being a line very roughly from the north of Lake Rudolf (now called Turkana) straight down to roughly Namanga on the Tanzania (Tanganyika) border.   Various re-alignments were done on maps in the 1920's, (that little lump of land was still not part of Kenya) until 1933 when Kenya was the shape we know it to be today, but still excluding that little piece, which wasn't included on maps until 1961 !   I have absolutely no idea about the politics of all this.  Why anyone would actually want that little piece of dry, arid, inaccessible desert I don't know, but as its still 'administered' by Kenya, I suppose there must be some reason.   I have contacted friends in Kenya to see if anyone knows anything about it.   I don't expect to find out much from them until after the election on 8th August.  

Its interesting to note that at one time, Israel was going to be created as a homeland for the Jewish people in what is now western Kenya.   But that's a whole different story, which I might find out more about another time !

Cholera !

I heard today from a friend in Kisumu that there is an outbreak of cholera in the town.   I wonder how this started .... the towns dubious and poor water supply can't help, and nor can public meetings and gatherings pre the election which is in about ten days, on 8th August.   

The year we spent living in Kericho, in the tea highlands, was also an election year, and there was a cholera outbreak in the town.   A few (white) people I knew panicked and flew back to UK; we stayed but made sure the children only drank water we had boiled, and I made the bread and all the food we ate, rather than trusting it to our 'staff' !!   (Sorry, but Europeans always had 'staff' .... it gave Africans employment, and I think we treated them as equals.   But I had young children, and didn't want there to be any risk to them.)  I had always made sure our staff had soap and the means to keep their latrines clean ... but you never knew who else might use them.

  

It is SO easy to pick up dysentery and other similar illnesses, as I knew well on my return from Kisumu in the spring this year when I came back with dysentery.   I had been eating three or four times a week in the slums, and although food and African tea was always piping hot, you never knew if the plate or the spoon was really clean ...

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I have also had an update on how Sylvanus is progressing.   He is slowly, slowly making progress; one of his leg ulcers has healed, and the other is taking longer, but is improving.   His greater family are (hopefully !) going to sign him up for NHIF .... a Kenyan health insurance scheme which will cost them about 500 shillings per month (£4).   So little for us, such an enormous sum for them.  

An annoying puzzle

You know how you get little niggles and questions that ought to be simple to sort out, and they aren't ?   And they get bigger and bigger in your mind, and you can't leave it alone  .... stupid, I know !

Well I've been trying to find the answer to something ALL day (it has been raining heavily most of the day, so I had a good excuse !)    Maybe one of my ex-pat friends who read this, or anyone .... can tell me the answer.

Look at this map of a bit of N. W. Kenya:-

If you have a decent modern atlas, you will see this little bit of desert and dry bush (which I've indicated) is supposedly 'under Kenyan administration'.    Why ?

Does it belong to Kenya, or South Sudan  to the west, or Ethiopia to the east, all of which it shares boundaries with, or perhaps even Uganda to the south-west ?   

I have googled; looked in my massive 1970 Atlas of Kenya published by Survey of Kenya; checked in a modern atlas .... all to no avail.   

The ground to the west of it is part of S. Sudan, a district called Namorunyang .... see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namorunyang_State.   But it doesn't seem to include this little snippet of land .... 

Maybe I need to wash the dishes and have an early night !!!

No sex, thank you, we're voting !!!

This amused me today on the Kenya news:-

"Kenya’s main opposition leader Raila Odinga has called on his supporters not to have sex on the eve of the elections on August 8.

The National Super Alliance party candidate said on Monday in his local Dholuo dialect at a rally in Homa Bay in western Kenya that his supporters should only have intercourse after the results are announced.

This pronouncement follows a similar one in June when he explained that 'when you are going for war, sex is a bad omen.'

This is a common belief in many parts of Africa."

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I wonder if the British election result a few months ago would have been different if Britain had been so instructed then !!

The Welsh language and Timbuktu.

There, that title attracted your interest, didn't it !


I was talking today to a friend in Talgarth, after we heard on the news that the Welsh Government is going to promote the Welsh language and create more Welsh medium schools, where every subject is taught in Welsh.  

We were saying that even children in schools in Wales who have compulsory Welsh language lessons from nursery up to 18 years don't use it in every day conversation with their friends.   Its a nice idea to try and preserve the language in this way, but it is fraught with problems.   Parents who are not Welsh speakers but who live in Wales can't help their children with homework.   And what sort of Welsh is going to be taught ?   North Wales Welsh is very different to South Wales Welsh.  

An example of the difference between North and South Walian usage would be the question "Do you want a cup (of tea)?"  In the north this would typically be 'Dach chi isio panad?' while in the south the question 'Dych chi moyn dishgled?'  would be more likely.    

My friend was saying she would like to see the WAG funding the translation of all the Welsh poems, books etc from the past so that they are available to more people.  Also historical documents.  She imagines it must be really hard to research a Welsh-speaking family's family tree because so much stuff in the past (before England started making laws about it) was written and recorded in Welsh.   

So for historical purposes, and cultural reasons, yes, its good and necessary to keep Welsh alive, but I'm sorry, I am of the opinion its mostly irrelevant for every day useage.   How many people go around speaking Latin to their friends ?


Now for Timbuktu !      I've been reading this book .... 

Its "a fascinating interweaving of past and present ... " as the dust jacket says.   Timbuktu has for hundreds and hundreds of years been a centre of learning; I believe it had a university from the 11th century, but not quite as we would know a university.   There were many centres of learning within the city, where various subjects such as astronomy, plants, medicine, mathematics and others were written about, in an old form of Arabic.  The ancient manuscripts which were studied have never been stored in a 'library' but in family homes, some of them with great care and reverence in chests, and others much less so.  Over the centuries, the sand and heat and insects have wrought havoc with many of the manuscripts, which are and can be such a valuable source of learning.    More recently, al Qaeda destroyed by burning many hundreds of them, BUT fortunately hundreds of thousands were hidden away and looked after by the families who had had them in their care for generations.   It is estimated that there are something like 700,000 of these manuscripts in the city !

So what has this to do with Welsh ?   It seems to me that both the Welsh language and the ancient form of Arabic used in the Timbuktu manuscripts are clues to the past of both countries, and their culture.  So much of the past could easily be lost and I do hope that Welsh academics are translating old Welsh documents into English, for future generations.   (They may be doing this for all I know !)   In Timbuktu, manuscripts are now being appreciated and translated (many of the translators are women !)  AND it is so important for youngsters in Wales and in Mali .... and other parts of Africa ... to be taught about their past and learn from it.   

I am horrified that in Kenya, English and to a lesser extent Kiswahili are the languages of choice in schools and nowadays in the homes.   There are over 60 languages spoken in Kenya, but many are dying out and being allowed to die out.   I met a Luo family in Kisumu last year, where the children are taught in English at school, their well-educated parents speak English in the home, and the children cannot now speak to their grandparents, who have a wealth of ancient lore and history and knowledge which is being lost.   That's taking modern education TOO far.   

Africa, particularly countries like Senegal, Mali, Sudan, Egypt, the Swahili coast of Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and so on, have a very rich ancient culture which we are only just beginning to find out about; how much knowledge has already been lost I wonder ?   Oral knowledge in countries where there was not a custom of writing is just as important as written knowledge.   We need to preserve both.

Violence possible in Kenya presidential election, EU warns

Recent news item from Associated Press:-  

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - It's "no secret" there are concerns about possible violence in Kenya's presidential election next month, the head of the European Union's election observer mission said on Monday.

A decade ago, post-election violence in Kenya left more than 1,000 people dead and 600,000 displaced from their homes. It was arguably the worst upheaval the East African nation had experienced since independence from Britain in 1963.

Violence next month would create a situation "where everybody loses," Marietje Schaake said as the EU observer mission launched.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is seeking re-election against a challenge by opposition leader Raila Odinga, whom he beat in the 2013 vote. Kenyatta supporters have accused Odinga of planning violence if he does not win. Odinga has dismissed those claims, and his supporters call them a ploy by Kenyatta's supporters to win votes.

Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, were on opposing sides of the 2007 post-election violence. They were charged at the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating the violence. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, while the ICC prosecutor blamed unprecedented witness interference and bribery.

A government report into the 2007 events found that deep-seated historical injustices, especially linked to land, sparked the violence as well as unrest in the 1992 and 1997 elections.

Currently Kenya faces deadly clashes over land in Laikipia county, where more than 34 people have died since late last year as herders have occupied ranches while claiming rights to land their ancestors occupied before colonialism. The ranchers say politicians are inciting the semi-nomadic herders to take over the land, even though the military has been deployed to remove the herders.

Goodness me, I really worry about the forthcoming elections, having friends in Nairobi and in western Kenya.   

Only in Africa (3)

Going back in my mind to the late 1960's, I remember our first camping trip to the coast of Kenya.  Did we do a beach holiday like the other ex-pat teachers ?   No, we did not !  Being keen on natural history, and especially birds, we decided to go to Mida Creek and the Arabuko-Sokoke forest area, to camp just above high water in the mangrove swamps.  

One morning, I went for a walk along a forest track by myself, and being very quiet, I saw on the path ahead of me a golden-rumped elephant-shrew !    An extra-ordinary animal .... 

(picture from Google)

Much bigger than an English shrew - about 8 or 9 inches in length, plus tail, it was just running along the path towards me, with its extremely long snout whiffling from side to side.  Of course, I didn't have a camera .... but the memory of seeing it stays with me, especially as its the only time I ever saw one.

However, its not the elephant shrew or the birds that are my 'only in Africa' moment.   The next day, we went for a walk along another narrow track .... this is Africa, remember, with very little population in the 'bush' away from the metropolis of Mombasa .... and we were startled to hear faint sounds, not of birds, but Eine Kleine Nachtmusik  wafting through the trees !  Mozart in the jungle ?   

A little further on, the music had stopped and we were accosted by two barking but friendly dogs who appeared out of the trees.   They were soon followed by an elderly (white) man who came to see what or who had disturbed his dogs.   He greeted us like long lost friends, and invited us in.   (It was always the way in Africa to invite in unexpected visitors  for anything from a cup of coffee, to a meal, or to stay for a week or more !)   

So there we were, really in the middle of nowhere, being invited into the home of a strange Scandinavian man, who lived alone with his dogs in a ramshackled house.  HOWEVER, after a drink, he took us to see his music room.  A large separate building, roughly the size of a generous double garage, with a few comfy chairs, and an enormous array of speakers, arranged around the room, and all connected to a turn-table, on which he played LP vinyl records !   He seated us in the centre of this room, so that we would get the best balanced sound from the speakers, and proceeded to play more Mozart !

Only in Africa would you find Mozart, miles from civilization, in the middle of mixed miombo/mangrove woodland !

An interesting survey !

I found this a few days ago in 'The Standard' newspaper.   Its an interesting picture of (probably) city life in Kenya.

Wife beating seems to be quite OK !  Even for the women concerned ..... 

"Despite the tough economic times, the poorest people in Kenya (73 per cent) are living happier lives than the richest (72 per cent).     


(Do these figures work out ?   I'm hopeless at maths/statistics !)



One in six Kenyans — 16.7 per cent — think it is justifiable for a man to beat his wife, while nine in 10 citizens have a problem with homosexuals and would mind if they lived next to them, a new survey shows.   11 per cent of women do not have a problem being battered by their husbands, saying it is justifiable. This figure is just half the number of men (20 per cent) who think it is not wrong to beat their wives, a punishable offence according to the law, which is believed to be on the decline due to increasing education levels in the population. 

The survey further indicates that while a minority of Kenyans would have a problem living next to unmarried couples, supporters of a different political party or people living with HIV, 87 per cent would have a problem living next door to drug addicts.

 And if you love the bottle, please note that “seven in 10 Kenyans (70 per cent) would not be happy living next door to heavy drinkers of alcohol,” notes the survey. Out of the close to 40 million Kenyans, 1.2 per cent of adults are considered binge drinkers according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), meaning there could be some 39 million unhappy neighbours in the country. 

But in what could be an encouragement in the fight against HIV/Aids, the survey found that only 16 per cent of Kenyans would have a problem neighbouring those who live positively. Stigma has been one of the greatest impediments in the fight against the virus and while 16 per cent is still high, the same survey notes that this is lower than the African average which stands at 23 per cent. 

Interestingly, more Kenyans trust their neighbours more than their friends and just eight per cent think it is okay to give or receive a bribe despite the choking corruption levels. 

Three in 10 (31 per cent) have complete trust in people of another religion, while two in 10 (22 per cent) have complete trust in people of another tribe. "

A delicate matter ....

I read today that girls in Kenyan schools are to be supplied by the government with free sanitary pads !    About time too .... teenage girls miss on average a week of school every month as they have no money to buy pads, so stay at home.   

This obviously puts girls at an educational disadvantage, which is an Africa-wide problem.   Half of the population earn less than $2 a day, IF they have a job, so buying pads is not a choice.

Perhaps it might be better to encourage and demonstrate the method to make re-useable, washable pads ?   Why not supply the girls with kits to make their own pads ?   

http://sewinpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/feminine-cloth-pad-tutorial.html

Update on Kuki Gallmann

I weep when I read something like this ...

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/jun/18/who-shot-kuki-gallmann-the-story-of-a-kenyan-conservationist-heroine

A beautiful land, being destroyed by a combination of its own people, the climate and politics.

Only in Africa (2)

Is it polite to talk about what in Wales we call the 'Ty Bach' ?    (The small house .... the tiniest room ... in Swahili, the choo).  

The first house we lived in, in Ng'iya about 40 miles west of Kisumu, was a very old dilapidated house in a school compound, probably built about 1930.   There was water laid on to a cold tap in the kitchen, and another in the bathroom, but no loo.  The head teacher of that school knew we were coming, so had hurriedly organised that a loo should be built for us ... outside, in the garden. 

It was the usual long-drop, pit latrine, hole in the ground type, in a 'mud-hut' kind of building, with thatch roof and a creaky, roughly made door, with cracks between each plank. The door was about 5ft tall, to allow light to shine 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 had to have a 'sit-down' seat, so the school fundi (carpenter) was shown a European loo in one of the modern houses, and instructed to construct a similar one for us, in wood.  He did; he made a cube like box, about two feet tall, with a small, hard square hole cut in the top ... and there it was, a throne fit for white bottoms .... made of rough wood, still with bark on, and the hole jagged and full of splinters !

This edifice functioned perfectly well during the day, (after we had requested some sand-paper) but we hadn't forseen the problems of night useage.  It gets dark very suddenly on the Equator, at about 6.30 p.m.   At first, we had only one paraffin hurricane lamp, and a night trip to the loo necessitated leaving one person in darkness in the house while the other went outside.   

Now, bright lights in the tropics attract moths, bats and beetles.   And there was the problem; how to prevent every creature from yards around from 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, yet one didn't need to be invaded by hundreds of moths and beetles.  What to do ?

Well, every question has an answer .... so the solution was to put the lamp down on the ground about ten yards away from the choo after checking for snakes, and then leave the door open !    (And hope no student or anyone else was walking past and could observe the sight of a brightly illuminated mzungu sitting on a box with pants around the ankles !)  

Another update on Sylvanus

I have today sent approximately 11,400 Kenya shillings to pay for more treatment for Sylvanus; this is about £86 which I have collected from very kind friends.   I have sent this money to a trusted friend in Manchester who will be back in Kisumu at the end of the month.

By coincidence, I heard yesterday from Kenya that Sylvanus is improving; he apparently had two tropical ulcers on his leg, one of which is completely healed now, and the other is improving.   He has had/is going to have further tests at the local government hospital (which have to be paid for) to see what other treatment he may need.  

Compared to private medicine  in the U.K., £86 seems like a very small amount, but treatment at the Pandipieri clinic is good, although small amounts have to be paid towards the cost of drugs and dressings.

My heartfelt thanks to my friends who have donated to the care of this elderly man they will never meet, but who is overwhelmed with gratitude to his unknown English friends.

Nyasaye ber !!  

Old Africa magazine for June/July 2017

My favourite magazine has arrived - it comes air mail from Kenya.   This edition is special - it contains an old photograph I persuaded a friend of mine to submit !   

(Some of my wax print patchwork squares under it !)

Here is the photo from my friend .... I know EXACTLY where the building is, having walked past it dozens of times in the past, but it would hardly be fair to enter the competition, now would it ?

But seeing the success my friend has had in having his photo printed, I'm very tempted to enter one or more of my old photos, or maybe for the pages of contributors anecdotes - my story about the liver flukes !

We'll see .........

Only in Africa (1)

I bought a small piece of liver today for supper, with some bacon.  I don't like liver that much, but its supposed to be 'good for me' !   When I lived near Kisumu, I used to occasionally buy cows liver and make pate, which I do like, and cooking my liver and bacon for my meal I was reminded of the first time I bought Kenyan liver.

One day I cycled the three or four miles to the nearest market, on a Friday, when they killed that weeks cow, right there, in the market butchery.  I had an arrangement with the butcher to keep the fillet steak for me, as this was the least tough beef.   Sometimes it was necessary to go elsewhere in the market and buy the cabbage and bananas first, if they hadn't finished killing the cow !   (It doesn't do to be too squeamish in Africa).

On that particular day I saw the butcher had some liver on his stall (open air, flies included) so I bought half a kilo as well as the fillet.   I made some more purchases and then cycled back to our house, to get the meat into the (paraffin powered) fridge before it started to walk back home by itself !  Because of poor refridgeration we had to eat any fresh meat that day or the next.

Early next morning I went to make the pate, and in cutting up the liver, and removing the big tubes, I noticed some white things inside the tubes .... being married then to a biologist, I recognized the 'things' as liver flukes !   What to do ?   I wasn't going to waste the chance to make some pate, and there would be no more fresh meat for a week .... so I cut the liver up small, and ran a thumb nail along each tube to eject the flukes !   I think there were something like 20 or 30 of them by the time I was happy there were no more.   I dumped them on the cement path outside and stamped on them to kill them .... and got on with making the pate, which was delicious !

It doesn't do to be too squeamish in Africa .... 

My secret addiction !

Wax prints !    I have been addicted to these colourful and so typically African materials for fifty years, and have been buying and collecting scraps of them for most of that time.  When I lived in Kenya in the 1960's and 70's I bought lengths of kitenge material to make dresses, blouses and skirts for myself, and little dresses for the children, and mens shirts also.   (And the trousers I'm wearing at the top of my blog). 

Looking through and sorting old photos, I am surprised by how many of them have people in them wearing these prints.  

     

               

Most of these fabrics are now printed in East Africa, or Zimbabwe, or Ghana; some in Java, some still in England, but they have spread all over Africa, and are made in various qualities, with China now coming into this lucrative market, but with a poorer quality (and therefore cheaper) cotton material.   It does mean there is something for everyone.   Many of the designs have been around for over 50 years, in various colour-wise, and modern fabrics often have up to date political messages.   Obama was popular on some pieces of cloths !  

The bag in which I carry my stuff to the office each day is made of wax prints squares, and I have recently bought a book about the origins of wax prints.   I even use the scraps I have collected from a friend in Kenya for patchwork pictures, and have recently started on an African patchwork quilt !   I am addicted !

  My work bag which I bought a few years ago in Kisumu.

Magie Relph has produced this book; her shop in Yorkshire sells African prints that she buys in bulk every year on trips to Mali, Zimbabwe, Ghana and so on.     http://www.africanfabric.co.uk/ 

  

And finally, one of those accidental photos showing African print at its best ...

Did she purposely pick red flowers to match her dress ?

Thought for the day.

I was throwing out various papers, and found this I had written on the back of a bank counterfoil.   
"In the past, Africa was islands of people in a continent of wildlife.   Now this is reversed ...."

Sad.

(It might be a quote from some book, or something someone said to me ....)

The Lunatic Line

.... just a quickie about something I spotted today ....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4559154/Kenya-FINALLY-replaces-Lunatic-Line-built-British.html

The old railway from Mombasa to Nairobi, and then from Nairobi to the lake, which terminated in Kisumu, was great fun to travel on.    In the 1960's, the dining cars still had linen table cloths, and REAL hall-marked silver cutlery, and an air of colonial elegance .... but the trains soon deteriorated and the cutlery disappeared ... as eventually did the railway to Kisumu.   

Pendeza Weaving

On many occasions I noticed this sign by the road as I went by tuk-tuk from Nyamasaria back to Kisumu, and occasionally wondered what it was, but the trees by the road were tall and somewhat overgrown, and I couldn't see anything, so stupidly I assumed it was just one of the defunct signs we see everywhere in Africa.

Now, with the aid of Google, I've found this   http://www.pendezaweaving.com/management-and-founders    and have discovered that this weaving workshop started in Nyalenda catholic centre in the early 1980's !   I now WISH I had called in to see what was going on, and to see their weaving.      They spin and weave the cotton grown in Nyanza, and have expanded to another workshop nearer the lake at Bondo,   It would have been good to go and buy some of their products to bring back to Monmouth, for sale through our office and at the market stalls we have each month in town.

They make cotton/wool shawls (as above), cotton baby blankets, floor rugs, various items of clothing, and are now starting to use water hyacinth fibres.

Watch the youtube video !    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW7gs13odGk

I've got it working !

My scanner ... and here is one of the first pictures I scanned.

This is Ahmed, reputedly one of the oldest elephants with the biggest tusks, in Kenya ... somewhere I have photos of the animal when it was alive, up at Marsabit, a mountain in what we used to call the NFD ... the northern frontier district !   (A very pre-independence, colonial name).  When he died in the 1970's, his skeleton was put in the National Museum in Nairobi.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               And here he is, in the flesh, so to speak !   He was protected under a special Presidential decree by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and had armed guards near him, day and night, as those tusks would have been worth a bit.   There were two other slightly younger elephants always near him, sort of companions.   It was interesting very slowly approaching him through the bush, but as I say, the askari's were there to protect us as well as the elephants.       

It wasn't until I saw his skeleton in the museum on my 1996 trip with S. and T., that I realised just how large he was.                                                                  

Kenya, 1996 .... my diary of that visit !

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 !