Nostalgia: The yellow directory was once the 'phone book'

Telephone directories were chained inside the ubiquitous red public telephone booths. They were used for locating landlines and directions of those listed there in. You must have been ‘someone’ tough to have your contacts staring back at people from inside that bulky thing.

Those negatively influenced by city council schooling tore some pages and not all contacts could be found.

With the earliest cell phones in Kenya costing upwards of Sh150,000, most Kenyans used telephone booths and the Postel Telephone Directory came in handy. Indeed, its slogan was, ‘Let your fingers do the walking!’

But the advent of affordable mobile phones that allowed users to save contacts in phone books, gradually killed the telephone directory, since even smart phones. Today, the Truecaller app in smartphones can even identify anonymous callers.

Google Maps on smartphones will give directions when you want to locate where Kanyam-Kago, Kajulu or Akala villages are in Western Kenya. In fact, some raia who never saw Moi as a president, have never used the yellow telephone directory since the internet is one endless directory in its own right.