The journey resumes on February 3. Not the comfortable one, with a driver and air conditioning, but the hot, humid, crooked, unexpected one, made up of detours, silences, contradictions, and a few revelations that come when you least expect them, between a bump and a song blaring from the car radio.
The second season of the Podcast on the History of Italians in Kenya, conceived, scripted, and narrated by Freddie del Curatolo, returns with new episodes and new stories. These stories are minor only on paper, partly because they are more recent and therefore lack the evocative patina of time, and partly because in reality—as often happens in Africa—they have been decisive for our field, without ever ending up in school books, not even in Watamu.
As in the first season, there will be weekly episodes, every Tuesday, on Spotify (Italiani in Kenya) and on the YouTube channel of malindikenya.net. Voices, documents, memories, direct and indirect testimonies. And above all, that narrative thread that does not absolve, condemn, or celebrate, but tries to understand and make itself understood. Which are the most difficult things to do.
If the first season brought order—or at least tried to—among pioneers, missionaries, adventurers, settlers, prisoners, dreamers, luxury failures, and accidental winners, the second season broadens the view. It digs into the margins.
It goes into the details that are usually skipped because they disturb the picture postcard. It tells the story of Italy in Kenya when it stops telling itself well and Kenya wants to stop being just an exotic backdrop.
It is not a nostalgic podcast, nor is it accusatory or celebratory. It is rather a human inventory, at times ironic, at times ruthless, often melancholic. Because the history of Italians in Kenya has never been a linear one: it is made up of colonial illusions, second chances, missed redemptions, and forced coexistence that over time has taken root.
This season also avoids shortcuts. It does not simplify. It does not sugarcoat. It does not use Africa as a metaphor or Italians as positive or negative heroes by default.
It tells the stories of people. With their choices, their mistakes, and their stubborn ability to stay, even when they had no intention of doing so, or when it would have been easier to leave.
The trailer, online from today, is just a taste. The rest will come, episode after episode, with the calm necessary to listen to stories that have never been in a hurry to be told, perhaps because they were waiting for Freddie.
From February 3, every Tuesday.
Same voice.
Same dust.
New questions and a few sung answers.