By Kipkoech Tanui
His earliest memories are etched on the vast savannah plains of Maasailand where he grew up clad in a shuka, herding his family’s livestock.
The pristine culture and traditions of his community, as he grew up in the idyllic throb of rural life, shaped his boyhood and moulded the future man who would act in the highest levels of public service.
A flicker of nostalgia flickers across Prof James Kiyapi’s face as he reminisces the eventful journey from his humble upbringing to the high echelon of his leather swivel chair from which he handles the Medical Services Ministry administrative docket.
Prof James ole Kiyapi during the interview at his office. |
"All that life prepared you to be was a moran, a total man, who won’t flinch because of pain, hide under the bed in case of a raid, or flee from a lion in the plains while grazing livestock," says Kiyapi.
Climb up
He was a last-born and he recalls living through hardship like having to climb up the roof of his mother’s manyatta on rainy days to plaster it with a mixture of cow-dung and red ochre.
"The cow dung helped seal the roof from rainwater and as messy as it is, we were assured of a good night’s sleep. This had to be done everyday during the rainy season to prevent leaking,’’ he says, but quickly adds that his greatest joy lies in the fact that he has given his mother a decent home. "I survived many temptations to take the easy route out of school and become a moran.
On reflection, he adjusts his glasses, and speaks as if letting out a secret: "I adjusted to being a moran only on weekends."
Today, over four decades later, the Medical Services Permanent Secretary and academic per excellence looks back, first with pride at his life in moranism.
Despite admiring moranism, he marvelled over the magic of books, especially prompted by his elder brother’s ability to discern words from black and white paper.
Samson, for that was his brother and mentor, regaled him with stories from books and though it sounded mythical and magical, he began wondering if his life would, like for the rest of the village boys, end up in cattle kraals, night song and dance in manyattas under the warm gaze of the African moon.
As school beckoned, though he had never seen one since the nearest was in Kilgoris where his brother was a boarder, he started pestering his father, who himself had interacted with a white man and ‘tasted’ the joy of reading and writing.
Mzee Daudi Kapurr Kiyapi, who the PS believes had gone up to Standard Four in the colonial era, was a secret chronicler and when he died his sons stumbled on his secret diary. It was an account in Kiswahili, replete with dates of the milestones of his family’s history. It was from this dog-eared book, old but still a family treasure, that his children came to know of the exact dates of their birth, the date and day of the week he had married each of his four wives. It also helped retrace the family’s circuitous migratory pattern, which was a way of life for the Maasai, when the professor of Forest Science was born in 1961.
Kiyai as a young moran. [PHOTOS: MOSES OMUSULA and COURTESY] |
Through the book they had never known existed when the old man lived, they can pinpoint the part of Uasin Gishu (which is now in the heartland of the Kalenjin community land, but was originally a Maasai name) where the patriarch once lived. It may be this bond with history that lured the Permanent Secretary to Eldoret, first as a student of Forest Science at Moi University in 1985, secondly as a lecturer and departmental head in the university, and finally as a resident of the town to date.
Good seasons
The PS, who prefers the name James, recalls: "In good seasons milk flowed in plenty and Osupuko village where I was born, in Transmara District, was a small ‘Canaan’, especially as meat and blood were in plenty."
But that was just the rosier side of life, for in the early stages, scarcity of food ravaged Kapurr’s large family. His father’s ingenuity pulled in the Kisii neighbours to whom he leased land in exchange for part of the yield.
Young Kiyapi had his first lesson in practocal agriculture as he watched the farmers till his father’s land and reap big returns.
The agricultural interaction also lessened perennial clashes between the two communities on the common ‘tribal border’.
But hunger still stalked sometimes. he recalls: "It was only hunger that stole the joy of my youth. It still touches my heart to see children go through this, and worse still fail to get an education," he says, for the first time looking bitter during the long interview.
"That is why in January we adopted a young Maasai girl from Magadi. She walked to us as we went on a tour and asked us if we could take her to Nairobi to school. We were touched, today she is in a boarding school with our last-born girl,’’ says James.
He has also adopted his sister’s daughter, Mayiani, whom he says is now a nurse.
"We have six children, four biological and two adopted, but we do not like this distinction, in our culture they are all our children. It soothes my heart to see them mingle and grow up. My niece-daughter is now a nurse and has transformed her mother’s life,’’ he said.
At this point I ask him about his wife. He sits upright, as if his attention is recalled afresh and describes her in poetic words. He says she is the gem in his life, she who has ‘mothered’ someone else’s kids, and he responds, with one name, the one they used in courtship all the way to the altar when he was a university student in 1986 — "Lucy my wife and friend!"
She saw him wade through cow-dung fields on the way to school, saw him wrapped in a shuka headed to Alliance High School. Later in life, she would see him toil on forests, this time doing research on soils, trees and nature. For her, the man from Maasailand was back to his roots, in his birthright element scouring the ground for a living — to change the environment around him.
