Books published by publisher New Africa Books

Between 1913 and 1989 some four million South Africans were forcibly removed from their homes to enforce residential segregation along racial lines. This study records and interprets the memories of some of the Capetonians who were relocated as a result of the infamous Group Areas Act. Former resients of Windermere, Tramway Road in Sea Point, District Six, Lower Claremont, and Simon's Town narrate their experiences. The work shows how different - even conflicting - versions of popular memories are historically significant for individuals and communities, and for the professionals and academics who work with them. Most important, it demonstrates how the sharing of oral histories and memories allows people to rebuild a sense of self and community.

"This can't be happening to me!" Those were Cam's first thoughts as he sat across the desk from the doctor and heard the word "cancer." Cam traces his journey of faith as he revisits his own sermons to find strength to face the difficult days that followed. Cameron (Cam) Arensen was born and raised in a missionary family in East Africa. Responding to his own call to Christian service, Cam spent over 40 years in pastoral ministry, serving churches in Alaska, Kenya, California and the United Arab Emirates. Cam is married to his high school sweetheart, Esther Ruth (also a child of missionaries), and they have two sons and five grandchildren. The Arensens are retired and living in Bend, Oregon.

When Joan Booth and her sister Cicely came to Kenya in 1922 to help their brother Eric with his new ranch in Rumuruti, they had no idea the adventures they would encounter. Travelling by ox cart from the railway station at Gilgil to Eric’s farm on the edge of the Pesi Swamp, they soon found themselves building houses and nursing livestock. In the midst of her new and challenging life, Joan still had time for her painting and illustrating. Her watercolour of the Rumuruti landscape graces the cover of this book, and she created the first elephant head logo for Tusker lager in the late 1920s. The original Tusker label showed an elephant’s face head-on with large tusks and ears back. Joan’s version lasted until the early 1960s when it was replaced by the silhouette of an elephant’s head. Joan also drew the Mt Kenya image in 1932 that became the logo printed on the paper wrapping for Co-operative Creameries butter. When her brother Eric married Phyllis Armitage, Joan returned to England, but she came back to Kenya after Phyllis died to care for his young daughter Celia. She took Celia back to England for several years until Eric remarried. In England Joan had a deep spiritual encounter and devoted much of her time to working with the Oxford Group. Joan sailed back to Kenya in the autumn of 1952 with her sister-in-law Violet Armitage and found her adventures weren’t over yet. The ship they were travelling in sank off the coast of Mozambique and on arriving in Kenya they found the Emergency had just been declared and Joan had some harrowing experiences during those unsettled times.This book tells Joan’s story in her own words. She understates the experiences she went through and would not think of herself as a heroine. However, by persevering and working hard in difficult circumstances, Joan made a great difference in the lives of many.