Once in a while, dad would give us some money to go get our photo taken, close to the ferry, during the day, when he was at work. On the material day, the photo-taking day, we (my brother and I) would bathe thoroughly and oil our skin with Vaseline. Never mind that the Mombasa Coastal heat would already be melting our skins off. We probably looked some deep fried sausages that had been left in the oil too long. We didn’t care. We felt good and we were going to be ‘beaten photo’; that’s colloquial for having our photo taken.

When we were convinced we looked photo-worthy, we would run all the way from home to the photographer’s studio. The photographers had these small studios/ cubicles with broad sheets that had imprinted images. We would pose as they took our photos. We would try various photo-worthy styles such as holding our sachet of peanuts close to our mouths or pretending to be astronauts.

It would take the photographers several days to process the analog photos from their negatives/ film. We called it ‘washing the photos’. On the material day, when the photographer had promised the photos would be ready, we would eagerly go pick our two copies of one photo and a film negative. Allow me to answer that question that is forming in your mind – yes I have x-ray vision so I can see the question forming in your brain -; no we didn’t (I don’t think the world had) have digital cameras…

The rest of the chapter are in my first book that will be published in July or August 2020.

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