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Remembering marvellous Michaela Denis This is of course an AI generated image because all photos of Michaela are still protected by copyright. It is, however, not so different from the woman I remember, and true to my admiring childhood vision of her. She was, when not in bush clothes, very glamorous. I walked down Delamere Avenue (as it was then known) one day, with my grandmother, and towards…

A Acuminate: When referring to a leaf, narrowing to a point, often forming a “drip tip” which channels water off the leaf and down to the ground below. Acute: Sharply pointed Alternate: Leaves arranged alternately along the stem or branch (as opposied to opposite) Apex: the tip of the leaf Attenuate: gradually narrowin Axil: the angle between the leaf stem and the branch B Berry: Fleshy,…

Dingoes and tourists are not a good mix – but if we are to avoid tragedies such as the death of a young Canadian girl on K’gari Island recently then maybe we need to change tourist behaviour.  Because it’s a lot easier to “train” humans than it is animals. Wildlife has become a major factor in tourism; the ONLY factor with some countries.  We flock to the safari lodges of Africa and India for…

A witchdoctor (centre) and his two apprentices, circa 1958 A fine yet all but impenetrable veil separated Mombasa’s sunny exterior from its darker dimension.  Impenetrable, that is, to club-going commonsensical colonials like my parents whose spiritual needs, such as they were, found satisfaction in the churches they had built at either end of Fort Jesus Road; the catholic church almost in the…

The Oceanic Hotel, built on the cliff ovedrlookiing the Mombasa seafront, with a Union Castle ship coming through the malango and into Kilindini Harbour. The hotel, long gone now, was built in the late 1950s and I used to play in the scaffolding. My home was nearby. I was very young when I first went to live in Mombasa but I still remember my first impression of the seafront. We had moved down…

The siafu came, like all true horrors, at midnight. They came stealthily as they always do, determined of purpose.  The leaders made their choice and the long columns followed, obedient as automatons, the scouts ahead and to the side, the stalwart marshals vigilant along the side of each column, keeping the foot soldiers in line.  There would have been several columns.  I didn’t see this for…