User:Celtickenya/sandbox

The Republic of Mahali is a tiny former British colony nestling between Kenya and Tanzania. It keeps itself to itself: no wars, no interestingly despotic leaders, no photogenic famines, with those very visually appealing starving children – in short, nothing at all to get it into the Western news. Tourists go there only very occasionally, and usually only when their safari driver has taken a wrong turning in either the Serengeti or the Maasai Mara.

In 1858, John Speke passed through what would become part of modern Mahali, whilst he was busy ‘discovering’ Lake Victoria. He was not complimentary about the area. It is believed a local chief stole his favourite boots, which can sour a man’s opinion of a place.

It’s a mixture of dust, greenery, and faded white buildings high on a hill over-looking the five miles of the eastern shore of Lake Victoria it claims as it's own.

The capital city, Kokote, was established in 1896 as a military camp by Col. Rupert ‘Rogue’ Bartlett, and it was planned as a town quite well by some nameless functionary of the Colonial Government in 1902. It grew to be a small and pleasant place, linked by ferry to all the other important lakeside. The tragedy for the place was that it didn’t get even a sniff of hint of a branch-line from either of the two East African railways, and so never really prospered as its founders might have hoped. The only serious road before independence in 1964 was that to Kisumu, Kenya. It was exactly equidistant between excellent and awful postings for the Colonial Service – neither a reward nor a punishment. Nobody really wanted to go there, but nobody really minded being sent, so long as there was something better in the offing after a few years.