I spent 15 of my first 17 years in Africa, with missionary
parents.
I always loved Africa, and still do. That is the background
for the
images I do of African subjects. I came to the US in 1965
after graduating
from high school at a mission-run boarding school about 50 miles from
Nairobi.
Prior to that (up until 1960) we lived in the (then) Belgian Congo, in
the foothills of the Ruwenzori range that runs between Congo and
Uganda,
but had to evacuate and move to Kenya when Congo gained independence
and
became politically unstable. I was in the 8th grade. My
father was
born in Kenya in 1910 at Rumuruti, among the Masai, where his parents
were
missionaries. He returned as a missionary in 1933, and he and
my
mother were married in Kenya in 1942. His father came to
Kenya in
1903, and married my grandmother there in 1906.
A few shapshots from the family albums:
Mom and Dad (hamming it up) preparing to embark on
their honeymoon.
Yours truly and guardian, early in career.
With 65 lb Nile perch. (the big ones are around 200
lbs) We lived for
several years on the shore of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. Picture
taken
in 1964, I was 16.
