Let me take you through the most amazing panoramic and changing landscape in Africa. We are heading from Nairobi to Kericho in Kenya. Nairobi is busy with lots of traffic, but it’s nice and sunny around 25 degrees. We are in a 4 by 4, heading for the Escarpment. The soil is red, and the areas around are lush. Throw any seed and it grows in this wonderful soil, and food is plentiful, despite the modest lifestyle for most Africans.
As we drive along you see magnolia trees, proudly displaying their white or sometimes pink flowers in large gardens. Hibiscus plants strut their long stamens amongst graceful petals. The external walls are ornamentally dressed with bougainvillea showing off their purple and pink flowers.
The Africans, mostly of the Kikuyu tribe, are busy going about their business, and you see a lot of men walking briskly towards the city as you head out. Most of them are probably doing house work or working in offices doing menial tasks. Amongst them you see some with ties, on bicycles, and lots of Matatu’s heavily laden with passengers.
Heading to the Escarpment you see signs for Limuru, Naivasha and Gilgil and memories start coming back. The sight is awe inspiring and can only be appreciated if you see it. The Rift Valley below stretches all the way from Ethiopia and has various National Parks housing it, most notably Tsavo in Kenya and Serengeti in Tanzania. This geographical trench is 6000 km long!
As we drive down though a windy road with lots of trucks etc, memories remind us that this road was built by Italian POWs, with the landmark Church on the way built in 1942. The sight of those wonderful acacia trees with flat and shady branches with vast spaces of open plains is mesmerising.
You see Mount Longonot in the distance, in the valley standing majestically.
And within an hour you are on the plains, initially seeing Lake Naivasha, with the crescent Island within it, where part of the movie, Out of Africa, was shot. And then come the remnant signs of the still existing British presence, Lord Delamere’s farm and businesses after Naivasha.
Amongst all this relative African hustle and bustle, I am told there is an amazing golf club… was referred to as the European Golf Club…a legacy of the comfortable classes during the British colonial era!
There are the hills around Nakuru where the Hyrax live, an animal the size of a dachshund, and I think they thrive on the termite hills.
You see herds, farms, goats, children and truckers going about their business. Then you might see warthogs often mistaken for pigs.
And then comes the Gilgil toll, reminding us of the Mau Mau freedom fighters and the presence of the army garrison. The first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, was a Kikuyu, and one of the Mau Mau leaders.
Kenya got its Independence from the British on the 12th December, 1963, and it National Anthem in Kiswahili ( the National Language), is about a prayer of fairness, welcome and humanity.8
Road Services, as in the Western sense, do not exist, but there are many places to stop as you get into the plains. You might stop at the Roadside Jalaram Mandir, which continually feeds travellers for free. This was built by Gujarati’s and reminds me of a Sikh Temple that does the same on the road from Nairobi to Mombasa in Makindu.
You then head toward Nakuru, in the flat plains , a place where Richard Leakey discovered the oldest human remains, and was, for years regarded as the place the first man existed..the Neanderthal Man! Since then, there have been more discoveries of earlier ‘man’ around Central and West Africa.
So I am proud to say that where we come from, the cradle of civilisation began. Actually that word ‘civilisation’ is often used wrongly by the West, for the west in a superiority and condescending sense.
My grandfather , Bhurabhai Tulsi Sodha, came from India at the turn of the 20th century looking for better prospects. India, those days, was very poor and there were frequent famines if the monsoons failed.
The sight of Lake Nakuru is just incredible . You see the mirrored water in the distance , with tens of thousands of Flamingo birds, a memory that I have etched in my mind. It’s like a pink silvery lake.
African shops line the main road as we go toward Nakuru. They sell or serve kahawa (coffee), Nyama ya choma ( butchers), kinyozi ( barbers) and a host of little stores all specialising in everything… surely learnt from the Indian traders that were here in years gone by. You see tin roofs, and occasional mud huts in the distance.
And then we come past Lake Elemetaita, with hundreds of Jacaranda Trees…. Wonderful! You see many missionary schools, and the Church has done a lot for education and basic necessities for the local communities.
Christianity is the predominant religion of most of the Kenyans. You see mission schools, and one that comes to mind is the Little Sisters of Saint Therese.
Memories come back of my uncle Pratapfua and aunt Kanchanben Raja who lived in Nakuru, the capital of Rift Valley Province. They originally lived in Gilgil, followed by Camp ya Moto, Nakuru and finally settled in Kericho. Bless them, they are still there in Bolton, when they came to the UK in 1972.
As you pass though Nakuru you are going uphill toward the other side of the Rift Valley, with more greenery, flora and even occasional Chincona trees with their classical white peeling bark, used for extracting quinine or I stand corrected. The temperature is cooler , and soon we go past signs of Molo, and take a turn for Kericho, as the road carries onto Kitale.
The people of the Rift Valley and beyond are the Kalenjin, taller and slimmer than the Kikuyu, and the second President, Daniel Arap Moi, came from these parts.
Molo, a small trading town, is surrounded by green fertile land, and arable farms. You see miles and miles of corn, and occasional posho mills. The soil is turning from dusty to pink and is richer. The temperatures are much more bearable. The road is great, with trucks, buses, now all heading uphill toward Kedowa, my mothers maternal home (Liladher Narbheram Tejura clan), my birthplace, and where we lost our mother.
Kedowa is still a half a dozen houses, off the main road by the railway station. We go and see the house, where I have memories of school holidays, at my grandmothers. Both my Mamie’s, my mothers sisters-in-law , showered upon us a lot of TLC. And so my Mami, in Leicester, is a legend…..She tells me that she hid Jomo Kenyatta when the British were looking for him during the fights for Independence!
I am ambivalent about Kedowa, because of the sad loss on Kantaben, my beloved mother, when I was around 9 years old, so quickly move on toward Kericho. We sees signs of Londiani, where memories come back of time spent with my uncle Baludas Chandarana and aunt Kasifai Chandarana during some holidays.
The main tribe that lives around here is the Kipsigis, tall, lanky, and soft. In my opinion, their language, Kipsigis , is also the most pleasant, soft language that I know. ‘I am fine’ in Kipsigis is ‘Me Sing’! And ‘what are you up to’ is Yamune with a long stretch!
Kavita, my daughter initially sees miles of a vista of green and calls it the Green Carpet of Kericho. And this is the home of the best tea in the world, Brooke Bond Tea.
Kericho is also known as the Kashmir of Kenya, a place of outstanding natural beauty.
The sun is out, although most outsiders would say its unusual, it always rains in Kericho! It’s temperature is around 20 degrees and the air feels like natural air conditioning. The place is around 6000 feet above sea level, higher than Ben Nevis, the highest in the UK!
This side of the Rift Valley has produced some of the greatest ling distance runners, notably, Kipchoge Keino, the first African to win a gold medal in his category in the Olympics in 1968. Another notable one was Ben Jipcho.
I think of Joginder Singh, the famous international rally driver also came from these parts.
Being near the Equator, the weather here is almost perfect all the year around, and am proud that I spent the first 19 years of my life in this wonderful place. Kericho’s population has grown from around 10000 in the early 1970,s to perhaps ten times as much. There are new housing developments, the town is buzzing, and I visited familiar places, like Puran Singh Square, named after one of the founders of this town, and one who is revered by many Sikhs around the world. The Gurudwara in his name has visitors from all over, doing service to local communities in the best tradition of the faith.
My grandfather, Bhurabhai Tulsi Sodha, was an early settler, and set up with his sons B Tulshi and Sons after moving from nearby Lumbhwa and Sondho. Our shop where I worked every school holidays and weekends is still called Tulsi’s. The African owner tells me that his grandfather, before he died, said call your shop Tulsi as it has a lot of luck attached to it.
I visit my primary school, Highland Primary, and the headmaster allows me to do an assembly, and we tell the children to aim high and build aspirations. And they show eagerness and all ( nearly 200) want to shake hands, and in uniform.
We innocently ask the Head whether they do their homework, and about ten per cent do not, mostly because they are street children , possibly of single parents, and those with HIV, and they have not had any food! Don’t worry that has been now been partly resolved. I feel proud that I taught here as a voluntary teacher before coming to the UK, and remember the transistor radio the school gave me as a gift.
There are many memories of Kericho, but one that stands out most is the perfect social cohesion that existed between all communities and religions. The clans that I can remember were the Morzeria family, G M Mistry who owned a hardware store, CC Rupa, HL Sodha, Chandarana, Mohan Singh Chadha ( I think the famous film director, Gurinder Chadha, of ‘Bend it Like Beckham’ fame, is connected here). I could go on…
I wish somebody can articulate or reinvent their shared values that created this heaven on earth.
For me the fondest memory is the natural air conditioned air, and the surrounding landscape. And, of course, the amazing work and contributions that the Sikh Community, under the observance and vision of Sant Puran Singh and Bhai Sahib ji, and followers from
Birmingham and all over the world.
has done to the local African Community
All this which belongs to the last person who feels and sees it.