Herbal firm founded on old-age wisdom

By Kiundu Waweru

As a fast lane businesswoman working in the cutthroat real estate environment, Mrs Ruth Njoroge bought a farm in Kajiado, where she wound occasionally steal to for a quiet moment.

Around 2004, she decided to plant trees in the farm and the locals, who are mostly Maasai’s would help her.

They hastened to bring down the shrubs, and that is when Njoroge noticed the strange phenomenon. The locals would take great care with certain shrubs and plants, leaves and barks which they would carefully uproot and take home with them.

Ruth Njoroge sources herbs from Mt Kenya and Maasai land where it all began [Photo: Kiundu Waweru/Standard]

Njoroge sought to know why and the residents told her the roots were medicinal, and as a community, they use them to treat a host of illnesses.

"As an urbane Kenyan, I did not care much for herbs," she says, "but the more I lived among the Maasai, the more I got hooked." The locals would boil the roots and taking the herbs to them was normal.

"They would slaughter one of their flocks, just to get bones for soup which they boil with the herbs."

Njoroge says that at the time, she was suffering from arthritis and high blood pressure. She reluctantly started using the herbs that would later improve her condition.

Being religious and a Jew, Njoroge goes to Mt Kenya for prayers. In 2008, she was a top the mountain praying for the safe recovery of her brother who was admitted at the hospital, a victim of the post-election violence.

"I was feeling very desperate and as Mt Kenya is a holy and sacred place, as our ancestors believed the creator lived there, I beseeched God to intervene in my brother’s and the many ailing IDPs to recover."

Grandfather’s inspiration

While still at the Mt Kenya region, she met a very old man. The grandfather had an old pot from which he kept powdered herbs which he said they used while in the forest in their days as Mau Mau.

"I again got interested and I realised that around the area, there were so many old men who claimed to live long due to the herbs."

She got an inspiration. Here were men who lived before the Whiteman came to this side of the world armed with the conventional medicine.

"But does it mean they (ancestors) never felt sick before the coming of the Whiteman? How did our forefathers treat their illnesses?"

With this thought, she gathered the old men and they shared their knowledge of the herbs, and the diseases they healed.

A business was born. Formally a sceptic, Njoroge believed that herbs hold the key to healing Kenyans.

But she was not ready for the opposition she would get.

"People, especially the urbane and learned view herbs as "miti shamba" and many do not believe they have the healing power." She laments that Kenyans have wholly embraced the contemporary herbal products ranging from tea leaves to toothpaste, and mostly imports but ignore Kenya’s rich herbal history.

She blames this to the colonial government, which she says came up with The Witch Craft Act in the early 1900’s.

"The use of herbs was seen as witchcraft, criminalised and banned," she says, and that saw the new generation of Kenyans shun "age old wisdom."

Njoroge went on to register her business, Mt Kenya Herbal Centre. A conservationist and also a campaigner for "going green" Njoroge says she did not take it as a business, but as a way to prevail to Kenyan to adopt the use of alternative medicine and supplements in the modern health care system.

She says that to be registered under the Ministry of State for National Heritage and Culture, the herbs must undergo testing by a Government hospital.

In 2009, she courageously, accompanied by some of her patients and witnesses of the effectiveness of the herbs, presented a paper to doctors at the Kenyatta National Hospital titled, "Herbal Medicine and its role in contemporary healthcare systems".

Herbs for research

"The doctors listened intently, then recommended that our herbs could be used for research."

She sources the herbs from Mt Kenya, and also in Maasai land, where it all began.

She has branches in Nairobi, Thika, Nyeri, Nyahururu and Murang’a.

"We had other branches, but seeing the state of our economy, most Kenyans are not seeking treatment for some even lack food."

Some of her patients, whom we spoke to, say that the herbs really do heal.

Njoroge concurs, but says most people don’t believe this, even as herbal business is a dollar earner all over the world.