by admin | Mar 6, 2012 | Only in Africa
When living outside Naivasha on the edge of the Rift Valley in a somewhat lonely and rugged place, we didn’t have too many wild animals, but we did have snakes. One morning Ezekiel, our mpishi and the chap who totally ran the household, rushed in to say Jezebel, one...
by admin | Mar 1, 2012 | Only in Africa
Jaldessa Diko, the Boran station Mnyapara (foreman) during my service with the Provincial Administration in Marsabit in the early 1950s earned his nickname of “Sasa Hivi” meaning right now. Jaldessa was out to please everyone, and if ever I told him that I required...
by admin | Feb 14, 2012 | Only in Africa
In l957, my husband Jobst was building a boarding school at the small settlement of Chimala on the Great North road between Iringa and Mbeya. At the time we lived in Tukuyu, the Headquarters of Rungwe District and about 70 miles from Chimala over a mountainous,...
by admin | Feb 6, 2012 | Only in Africa
My uncle Alec Roberts’s accident is well documented in both the Lancetand in our family history records. In those days when cattle were long horned, they had to be dipped every week against East Coast Fever, a deadly parasitic disease for which there was no...
by admin | Dec 28, 2011 | Only in Africa
On the eve of World War 2 I joined the King’s African Rifles (KAR). At Isiolo a thorn-bush covered hillside to the west had been set aside as a field firing range where the troops used live ammunition. One unit set out the targets – white six-inch square steel plates...
by admin | Dec 12, 2011 | Only in Africa
During the Queen Mother’s visit to Kenya in the late 1950s they flew the Royal Standard from the flagpole at the entrance to Government House. One day the person in charge of raising the flag made the mistake of putting two ends of the rope through the grommets on the...
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