Your podcast discovery platform
Curious minds select the most fascinating podcasts from around the world. Discover hand-piqd audio recommendations on your favorite topics.
piqer for: Global finds
Ciku Kimeria is a Kenyan author "Of goats and poisoned oranges" - (https://www.amazon.com/goats-poisoned-oranges-Ciku-Kimeria-ebook/dp/B00HBBWPI6), development consultant, adventurer and travel blogger (www.thekenyanexplorer.com). She writes both fiction and non-fiction focusing on African stories that need telling. She has worked on diverse pieces for various international and local publications including Quartz, Ozy, The East African etc. She has travelled to 45 countries – 16 of them in Africa. 153 countries to go and 63 territories!
"Of goats and poisoned oranges" has been extremely well received in Kenya and beyond. It tells the story of a Kenyan middle aged power couple and their complicated marriage. The novel explores issues of greed, revenge, betrayal and murder. It runs from the 1960s to 2013. It has been described as “Wicked, funny, poignant, wacky, human, a big ball of fun and danger”, “A unique and captivating book”, “Fun and intriguing”, “Impossible to put down once you start reading.”
She recently moved to Dakar, Senegal from Kenya to work on her second novel. She also works at as the Africa Communication Manager at a leading global strategy consulting firm.
She holds a B.S. in Management Science from MIT with minors in Urban Planning and International development studies.
The Sudanese Holiday Resort That Was A Front For Spy Operations
It reads like a movie script and is actually being made into a Hollywood film called Red Sea Diving Resort.
The only thing was, unbeknown to the guests or the authorities, the Red Sea diving resort was entirely fake. It was a front, set up and run for more than four years in the early 1980s by operatives from the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. They used it as a cover for an extraordinary humanitarian mission — to rescue thousands of beleaguered Ethiopian Jews stranded in refugee camps in Sudan and evacuate them to Israel. Sudan was an enemy Arab country, and it had to be done without anyone finding out, either there or at home.
Under the cover of being a diving and leisure resort on the red sea, the resort lured hundreds of visitors to the location while offering first rate facilities, water sports, wonderful dives in the ocean and amazing food and drink. Even the Sudanese International Tourist Corporation that leased the land to the European entrepreneurs had no idea that this resort, located by an oasis deep in the desert, was not what it appeared to be.
In its four years of operation in the early 1980s, the resort moved its operations from naval rescues to airlifts. As news of the operations reached the Jewish population in Ethiopia known as Beta Israelis, more undertook the perilous journey from Ethiopia to Sudan in the hopes of making it to Israel.
The Ethiopian Jews belonged to a community called Beta Israel (House of Israel), whose origins are shrouded in mystery. Some believe they descended from one of the so-called 10 lost tribes of the ancient kingdoms of Israel, or from Israelites who accompanied a son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon back to Ethiopia around 950BC. Others think they fled there after the destruction of the first Jewish Temple in 586BC.
More than 14,000 Beta Israelis made this 500 mile journey by foot, with more than 1,500 of them getting killed along the way.
In 1985, evacuations had to come to an end after they were discovered.
