Welcome to Old Africa

your window into East Africa’s past.

Old Africa books

Old Africa books are well-told stories in the same tradition as the shorter pieces

our readers have come to enjoy from the pages of Old Africa magazine.

Old Africa magazine seeks to tell the story of East Africa’s past through well-written stories and vintage photographs. Founded in October 2005, the first issue featured a story about the Royal Navy’s ill-fated attempt to launch a naval presence on Lake Rudolph (now Lake Turkana) and an account of the Kedong Massacre. Since then the magazine has published stories and photos from Kenya’s diverse ethnic groups – African, Asian and European – to preserve East Africa’s history. 

Boers in Eldoret and Goan Exhibition in London

Boers in Eldoret and Goan Exhibition in London

At a lunch attended by Kenyan oldies last week, talk turned to the early settlers in Eldoret. Why were there so many South African Boers there? The first to come were the Van Breda brothers, who built a grass hut on the Uasin Gishu plateau in 1903 and started to grow...

My Doll Becky

My Doll Becky

One of my early recollections is when my parents, George (Hap) and Betty Donner gave me a special baby doll named Becky. Becky was the size of a two-to-four-month-old baby. Becky had blue eyes with long eyelashes that closed when I laid her down. Here body was soft...

Playing Pretend in Tanganyika

Playing Pretend in Tanganyika

When my big brother Cal was home from boarding school, my younger sister Marlowe and I enjoyed playing ‘pretend’ in very creative ways. Being quite young when we’d left the USA for Tanganyika, our memories of America were dim at best. I recall wearing hats and...