Elaine

Elaine
Barnett
Elaine Donner Barnett came to Tanganyika as a young girl in 1946. Later she married John Barnett at Kijabe, Kenya in the 1960s, with then vice-president Daniel Moi attending the service. She worked at Rift Valley Academy for over 40 years. She currently lives in Naivasha, Kenya.

 

1946 In those days one could not always plan ahead and purchase ongoing tickets and connections. After our ship the Gripsholm docked in Alexandria, Egypt on a Saturday night, my father and some other missionary men disembarked and tried to clear the trunks and drums full of household...

 

Being only three years of age on this epic voyage to East Africa via ship, my childhood memories are sometimes confused. I know we stopped in Naples, Italy, but remember nothing of the stopover except the visible evidence of World War II. Large, rusted hulks of bombed out ships were...

 

January 1946

A well-traveled ship, the seaworthy freighter Gripsholm would be our home for our trip to North Africa. High cranes and derricks covered its deck with little room to accommodate extra passengers as it crossed the Atlantic Ocean. As a three-year-...

The world was at war in 1942, the year I was born. Allied forces were fighting to suppress a dominating dictator and to defend America against foreign forces. During this time of turbulence, I, Betty Elaine, was born to a young preacher’s family, joining my older brother Calvin in Middeboro,...

            Looking out over ‘my’ three-acre property here above Lake Naivasha, my daughter and I recently recorded the sighting of three juvenile Greater Spotted Cuckoos. It had been many years since I’d seen one out on the dirt road to the Maasai Mara. Being avid birdwatchers – a long time...