by Shel Arensen | Dec 27, 2010 | Shel Arensen
Drinking the Wind: Memoirs of an African Odyssey by Jon Arensen Drinking the Wind traces the life of Jon Arensen who arrived on the African continent with his parents in 1946. Growing up in Tanganyika in the bush by Lake Victoria, Jon learned Kisukuma before he spoke...
by Shel Arensen | Jan 27, 2010 | Shel Arensen
It sounds more like a Mrs Pollifax mystery novel. Katharine Fannin, a surveyor’s wife from Kenya made an informal spying trip trhough Italian-held Ethiopia and was hosted by the highest government officials in Addis Ababa. Later she received commendations from...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 23, 2009 | Uncategorized
The Lion Roars at Dawn On a camping trip to Maasai Mara I had a new kijana as my camp helper to make the fire in the morning for chai. We slept in different tents. Early one morning I called to him to go make the fire. I heard the kijana getting up and the tent...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 22, 2009 | Shel Arensen
1909 Charles Hughes spent his honeymoon in Kenya as the writer and secretary for the great African Balloonograph Expedition. His bride Anna didn’t join him. She spent their honeymoon with her mother in Europe. The couple’s strange start to married life is entwined...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 21, 2009 | Shel Arensen
Author: John Cherry Adapted from a 1955 East African Standard newspaper article written by John Cherry. The article also appeared in Awaaz magazine and was submitted to Old Africa by Alif Din’s son Ehsan H. Malik from Nairobi. 1912 “I need a volunteer to inspect the...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 20, 2009 | Shel Arensen
Author: Jill Simpson 1946 We rounded a curve on the wet road, chains spitting mud into the air, and found a big fancy car stuck in a mud hole. We were on school holiday at our Mianzini Farm near Turi. My parents had left the house earlier in the morning to help...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 19, 2009 | Shel Arensen
1906 The Italian adventurer, Luigi Amedeo di Savoy, Duke of Abruzzi, spearheaded an expedition to explore, map and photograph the mysterious Ruwenzori Mountains in the heart of Africa. No stranger to harsh conditions, Luigi Amedeo began his life in a palace. At...
by Shel Arensen | Feb 19, 2009 | Shel Arensen
by: Dominik Kamonde Kitonyi 1967 As I drove the Land Rover through Uganda on the way to Kidepo National Park, I felt a jolt behind me. The trailer tyre hurtled past me and into the grass. I stopped to check the damage. The wheel had sheered off at the axle. I don’t...
by Shel Arensen | Jan 12, 2009 | Shel Arensen
Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes; Country in Transition 1896–1898 by Alexander Bulatovich, translated & edited by Richard Seltzer (Red Sea Press, 2000). Reviewed by Cynthia Salvadori Despite its bland title, this is the most important book on the history of eastern...
by Shel Arensen | Jan 9, 2009 | Shel Arensen
1886 Maasai warriors, armed with long heavy spears and terrible clubs, met Methodist missionaries, John and Annie Houghton, just outside the stockade of their mission station at Golbanti on the Tana River. A second group of Maasai joined the first on the open road and...
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