Do colonial houses represent a grandeur age we need to recapture?

NAIROBI: A number of Kenyans responded to our story on colonial houses last week. Paul Too from Kericho wrote, “I would like to draw your attention to two interesting structures in Kericho County. The first is a colonial house that is in Kimasian High School near Londiani.”

“The house is in a bad state but its beauty is not lost. The second is Kipchimchim Catholic Church near Kericho Town. Apart from its unique architecture, it may be one of the few churches with frescoes. The paintings must be over 70 years old and they remind one of classical Italian art.”

Joshua Mugo wrote, “I have one such house. It’s located in South Kinangop; Githabai Ward in Nyandarua. It is in very impeccable condition given its age.”

Philip Waweru, the headmaster of Mkungi Secondary School in the same county reported that there is a colonial house in that school that still bears the bullets of Mau Mau War. I shall do my best to see these houses and must thank the keen readers.

Apart from being potential tourist attractions, these houses open up an interesting economic debate. Why were those houses so big? How come the new land owners after uhuru never built such big houses? It has been joked that Kenya was the officers mess to use the military term. After World War I and II, the Britons who got land in Kenya were high ranking in the military, with titles such as captain, colonel, major and general. I have not come across a house formerly owned by a sergeant in Kenya. These titles have been corrupted by the locals and sound very funny.

The military hierarchy might explain the size of the houses. It also happens that Kenya attracted a number of Britons from upper class, educated at Eton and other elite schools, who had lots of money and could afford elegant houses. That is how titles like Lord ended up in Kenya.

A book “British East Africa” written by Somerset Playne and Holderness Gale published in 1908 gives great insights into attractions to Kenya before land lottery after the wars. One attraction was big game hunting. The book contains photos of mostly dead animals. The cameras of those days could not take animals in motion-explained Andrew Nightingale, the owner of the only copy that I know of. You got a copy please contact me, I got some disposable income.

Happy Valley

Another interesting entry into that book is labour wages, which were paid according to your tribe. The Swahili were paid more than the WaKikuyus. Wages stated if one got posho (meal) or not. The currency appears to be rupees. Nightingale explained that tribe was a proxy for experience and ability to understand instructions.

Some observers argue eloquently that the size of the houses indicated the owners felt they were here to stay. It is also possible that, they wanted freedom and found lots of land unlike the British Isles which were already crowded. The Happy Valley crowd wanted to escape the social constraints of their time.

Historians could debate overnight over what brought these men and women to Kenya. But they might have been following a well travelled path. They had been to India, China (remember Hong Kong), South Africa, Canada, USA and many other places. They were attracted by adventure, economics and some say the urge to “civilise” or light up the Dark Continent, Africa.

Enough digression. The colonialist practiced large scale agriculture, whether it was wheat, sheep farming or dairying. That maintained their lifestyle, though some did suffer economically because of adverse weather and fluctuation in price of commodities.

My discussions with some of the former employees of Wazungus seem to suggest that they knew one day they would leave the country. It is possible that once India, the crown jewel of British Empire gained her independence in 1947, the settlers or colonialists must have realised it was a matter of time before they leave.

I find it curious, that lots Afrikaners had settled in the former white highlands. The Kenya Gazette of 1961 shows the list of jurors with names such as Jacobus, De Wet, Van Straaten, Van Der Merwe, Botha, Kluger, etc.

The workers informed me that Afrikaners left before Britons. What did the Afrikaners know that Britons did not? A good example; Wilfred Nunn farm was formerly owned by an Afrikaner, De Wet. About 5km from his house we found a grave with a Tombstone inscribed, “Anna Maria Cornelia Crous born 1884 died 1940. The writing is in Afrikaan. Who was that? Crous is a common Afrikaans or Dutch name.

Curiously history teachers rarely talk about Afrikaners in Kenya. But they talk about the Great Trek, the Dutch landing at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 and the Boer wars. They are fascinated by Shaka the Zulu and his horn military strategy. Now am told lots of descendants of Afrikaners live around Eldoret.

Afrikaners even had a Dutch Reformed Church in Nyahururu which was sold to AIC. The cemetery next to this church has lots of people with Afrikaner (Boer) names. Even the current Ndururumo High School was formerly called Jan Van Riebeck School.

What is in no doubt is that by 1963, the Britons and Afrikaners lost power. Some stayed on and became part of the new country. It is hard to recognise them because we think they are tourists. Others like Kenneth Wilfred Nunn left for South Africa. He lived long enough to see South Africa under the black majority rule. He died in 1995. It would have been great to hear the story from these settlers, what drove them to Kenya, what were their dreams, how they reacted to coming of uhuru and after.

The Government subdivided the former big farms into small plots after uhuru and settled those who had been displaced when colonialists took over their farms. Interestingly, just as Britons had given land to veterans of WWI and II, the Kenyan government gave Mau Mau veterans land, but they had to pay for it-perhaps the precedent used in Waitiki farm.

Fast forward to 2016, more than half a century after Mzungu left. Why have no such big houses been built? A visitor to former white highlands from Soy, Koru to Nyandarua shows that these houses have had no competitors or equals. The houses and their grandeur often strike you, as if they were planted from outer space by aliens.

It is all economics. The small pieces of land inherited from mzungus were too uneconomic to make profits and allow the new owners to invest the surplus. The new farmers, without the benefit of technology, struggled most of their lives. If you look at the photo above, you will notice some grass thatched houses in the background.

Is it not paradoxical that after uhuru, we seem to have done worse economically than those who lorded over us? It becomes sadder. The generation that got land from the government has passed away. Their children are subdividing that land, making it even less uneconomical. The only people who prospered were those in formal employment, they educated their children and most of their pieces of land are intact.

The huge farms where cattle, sheep and horses once roamed free are now replaced by zero grazing, in one generation. I’m not praising colonialism, am being realistic. Could this be what happened in Britain so that they started looking for new places to settle? In Kenya, there is no more empty land, unless in the arid north, which is hard to get, thanks to devolution. Luckily, Britons had all the land available in many parts of the world, never mind how they got it. And they got industrialised.

For us, we can either get another planet, or become realistic. We cannot keep subdividing land and expect the same productivity. Could we one day return to a more grandeur period, when farms were big and economical? When we can build houses to compete with colonial ones? That would need very bold policymakers. The countryside is in a sorry state, despite devolution. The countryside has stood still, frozen in time and prospects. In the former Happy Valley, illicit brews and early pregnancy are common. Few are happy.

The alternative to farming is to get industrialised, so that more men and women leave the land and have it consolidated. If we do not take such bold steps, old colonial houses will remain reminders of a period when things were grandeur just, like the Roman ruins.

VISION 2030

Hoping that I will not annoy anyone, we still can learn something from these settlers or colonialists; they left the comfort of their homes, and came to start a new life. They did not have benefit of modern technology, but they came, opened up the interiors, what Arabs had not done for 1,000 years and planted the seeds of modernism which we have not been very good in watering. Unfortunately there was collateral damage from displacement, to subjugation.

One other interesting research could focus on whereabouts of the former owners of these houses after uhuru. Did they prosper? How about their children and great children? How are they comparable with the new land owners? And what did we do with our independence, particularly on the economic front?

My submission is that 53 years we have not yet confronted the economic question, the same we confronted the political question and came up with the new constitution. Want evidence? When did you last hear anyone talking of Vision 2030?

—The writer is senior lecturer, University of Nairobi. [email protected]