A Lifetime of Love and Letters
In Kenya the postal history can be traced to early years of the 17th century characterised by thw invasion and seizure of Mombasa by the Portuguese who then sent correspondence to the outside world from 1610 onwards, via ship to Arabia, India then overland in Europe. According to the Kenya Posta website , the earliest recorded letters from inland Kenya date around 1848. These were letters written by white missionaries and colonisers who would send native runners to the Coast for onward transmission of their missives bearing regaling tales of their exploitation and conquests back home. Thankfully we are past those ridiculous times and the Kenyan post has been a lifeline for many wananchi. I trace back my earliest memories of handwritten letters, postcards when I was 6 or 7 years old in the early 80’s. My mother received far in between handwritten letters from my grandfather in Uganda during the difficult times of civil unrest. Having left for Kenya in the early 60s for ...