A New Home for My Stories: The Global Mzee
Views: 0013
For many years now, this blog has been a place where I share whatever happens to catch my attention, from the serious to the frivolous. I’m grateful to everyone who has read along and, from time to time, left a comment.
I have now started something new: a Substack publication called The Global Mzee. Over the years, several people have suggested that I find another outlet for my writing, one that might reach a wider circle of readers. Substack, which is designed for exactly that kind of writing and makes it easy for readers to follow along, seemed like a good place to do it.
Mzee is the Swahili word for an elder, a term of respect I first heard as a boy at a petrol station in Mombasa, when the attendant used it to address my father. Having turned eighty this year, I suspect it might now fairly apply to me.
The Global Mzee will be home to longer essays about my life across India, Kenya, England and America: growing up in colonial Kenya, arriving alone in England at sixteen, my working years, and the family stories I wish I had asked my own parents about while I still could. Part of my purpose is to set these things down for my children and grandchildren. But I hope they will interest anyone curious about a life lived across several countries and eight decades of change.
Two essays are already up:
- Why “Mzee”?, an introduction and why I am writing now
- The Strike I Remember: Mombasa, 1954, a revised and expanded version of my recent post on education in colonial Kenya