My flat in Nairobi – FULL of Original African Art!
I have been living in and out of East Africa since 1989. I first went there to visit a good friend who was working for an NGO (Non-Government Organization), and, well, I never left! I received a two-year contract with the then-KPTC (Kenya Posts and Telecommunications), to work with 16 young KPTC employees in an effort to built 20,000 magneto telephones for use in rural Kenya.
Working in post-genocide Rwanda. That’s (former) Zaire behind me.
After successfully completing the contract, I began working as the Kenyan liaison for a British telecomms company for a couple years. Then it was the time of “Black Hawk Down” in Somalia, and no lack of work for anyone who was interesting in getting into the humanitarian relief world. So I started working for NGOs like International Rescue Committee.
With IRC I was posted to Bardera, Somalia, as the administrator – and then just after the genocide in Rwanda I was promoted to Team Leader and transferred to Cyangugu, in the southwest of Rwanda on the Zaire and Burundi borders.
Signing the books in which I did the illustrations
Recently I ended a 16 month contract with VSF-Belgium (Veterinaires Sans Frontiers, or Vets Without Borders), where I was based in Nairobi, and traveled to Lokichoggio in northern Kenya, and south Sudan, in the position of Logistic Program Coordinator.
I have now worked in three war zones. In all of the places that I worked and traveled I always inquired as to the local art; no matter how dire the circumstances, there were people that would seek me out to show their wares. I am constantly amazed at how creativity and imagination cannot be suppressed even in the context of war, and man’s inhumanity towards their brothers.
