There’s a giant question mark hanging over the African continent, with little explanation for strikingly low Coronavirus case and death numbers in central, west and eastern Africa. News outlets and the WHO have warned of ‘rapid rises’ in cases in Africa, predicting the continent as the next epicentre of the pandemic but in truth, the figures are still low (with South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt accounting for more than half of the continent’s cases overall).

A later peak has been mooted as one reason why Africa hasn’t been as hard hit as other continents yet, in spite of the fact…

A recent announcement that the UK Foreign office and DFID are to merge will hopefully offer better value for money for the British tax payer.

As a trailing expat spouse, opportunities to work locally in Africa are dependent on procuring a costly work permit, however there is a loophole, work at an embassy in a ‘local hire’ role and you are officially on home turf. Here is the account of a typical day at work through the eyes of a fictionalised ‘Liz’. (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 1999)

The Accommodation Officer

“My back-up generator is out of fuel and we are hosting a dinner tonight, so if you could arrange for a driver to deliver diesel and a spare canister of cooking gas to our house, then my wife…

Now that the pandemic has run for over four months with a continued lack of answers or solutions, we are all having to mine inner reserves of resilience to cope, however, I wonder if I’m better equipped to do this than my teenage children? I fear I am. Have we, as parents, failed to give them the tools they need to deal with this period of uncertainty, where norms of life have been cast aside?

For us, normal life pre-pandemic comprised of diaries fit to burst with work commitments, travel, socialising, shopping and instagrammable moments. For kids, between schoolwork and…

A tribute to Kenya’s world-class safari businesses. Let’s hope they are able to get back up on their feet soon…

The Camp Managers

Semi-retired Geoffrey and his wife Lynn sigh behind pasted- on smiles as they wave off a group of camera slung guests, leaving amid a flurry of dust in an open-sided Landcruiser. The vehicle is driven by Jonathan, one of the highly qualified Masai safari guides whose real name is Komeyicin.

Lynn wonders if the departing guests have noticed she’s engineered a very early transfer to the airstrip for their bush caravan flight. Time spent on a searing hot runway without shade is nothing to what she’s been put through over the past seventy-two hours.

What with the demands for a…

There is a sense of reawakening in Nairobi this week. The level of traffic in the city is creeping back to normal levels. Yesterday I managed a ‘dine-in’ coffee at one of the city’s chains, albeit solo and wearing a mask.

Restaurants can re-open as long as staff undergo bi-weekly Coronavirus testing, the number of diners is limited and tables are set more than 1.5 meters apart. …

Amid a slew of negative news stories relating to Africa, here’s a glimmer of hope for the continent. While community transmission of Covid-19 is proven to be taking place with no country on the continent escaping infection, African countries are not being as hammered by the virus as other countries.

To date, from the 54 countries that make up the continent combined, there have been over 99,977 cases reported, 3,095 deaths and 39,336 recoveries ( Africanews.com)

While it can be argued that testing has been low and tallies less reliable in developing African countries, there is also no evidence that…