Nairobi, July 30 -- Manoah Esipisu, diplomat, former government spokesman and former High Commissioner to the UK, doesn't answer questions so much as wander through memory and history, building his own scaffold of stories.

You could call him the chief priest of nuance, but you won't. It would be undiplomatic.

Ask him about his career and he begins with an egg race in Kakamega. Somewhere between a Reuters newsroom, the Rwandan genocide, Commonwealth summits, State House, Buckingham Palace and cancer research, you catch on that this man isn't recounting a career; he is showing you how a public servant is made. You are no longer in the restaurant; you are in the kitchen, watching the sausages being made.

We meet by the swimming pool at th...