owaahh Author

A man, a pen, a keyboard I mean, bananas, and mugs of coffee. This is a labour of love.

The Mogadishu Airport Raid

One year and two months after Operation Entebbe, West Germany carried out a similar hostage rescue mission in Mogadishu, Somalia. They boarded Flight 181.

10 Most Bizarre But Intriguing Patents Owned By Kenyans

By Chris Orwa and Owaahh. The idea behind patenting is to make sure you own the rights to something if it ever becomes a commercial success. But most ideas never make it past the design phases. Some, however bizarre, get patented. Patent Information from Strathmore University CIPIT and Directory Patent.

The Brain-Eating Bear that Haunted the Nandi

Sometime in 1925, a six-year-old girl disappeared from a village in Uasin Gishu. She was pulled violently through the fence of thorns that surrounded the village. The bloodied thorns suggested that chances of finding her alive were certainly nil. If they found her body, they would find her scalped and her skull cracked open. Chemosit, …

From ‘Shifta’ War to Al Shabaab: Why Kenya is her own worst enemy

When Kenya faced an insurgency problem in the 1960s, it tormented a people into submission. When it faced another in the 21st century, it secretly recruited their children to fight its war. The plan failed miserably, bringing Kenya to war with itself.

How salvage from a World War I Naval Battle ended up at the Kenya Railway Museum

If you have ever been to the Kenya Railways Museum, chances are you have walked right past an unassuming dining set. Unknown to many a viewer, that is the Wardroom Dining Set that was salvaged from a German warship that lost the Battle of the Rufiji Delta.

Did Ernest Hemingway Really Marry a Kamba Girl?

Celebrated American writer Ernest Hemingway made two trips to East Africa, one in the 1930s, and the other in the 50s. On the second trip, he fell in love with a Kamba girl named Debba and married her (and her sister) in a traditional ceremony. Apparently.

Lord Egerton’s Castle: A Monument to Unrequited Love

No love story in colonial Kenya is as tragic as that of Lord Maurice Egerton, the fourth Baron Egerton of Tatton in Cheshire. When he died in Njoro in 1958, he had never married. His lifelong bachelorhood was not by choice but rather the result of two refusals by the woman of his dreams.

How Kenya almost became the New Zion (Israel)

Lost within the Kenyan story are proposals that would have redefined history. Three of those plans stand out: the establishment of a freed slave settlement, a Jewish settlement in the Mau Plateau, and a responsible government under a white settler minority.

When Kenya had a really ugly flag

Before Kenya had its current flag, it had a flag that was so poorly designed that the lion in it looked like it was in the middle of a sad dance. Whoever put that lion there had either never seen one, or had a poor memory. Or had let his three-year-old have a go at it designing the colony's flag.