I started off by walking a distance of about 25 kilometres two way to visit a colonial house that used be rented by nuptials for honeymoon. It’s a beautiful house set on a hill, with the great mount Kenya directly facing the most important windows. It’s in the normal colonial style, wooden floors of the ground, with black paint , and white wash for the huge windows.
There is a separate kitchen, with a chimney coated black with soot, and a sagging bamboo ceiling. The reason for my visit was, I’ve been simmering with this brilliant idea to feature colonial houses in my area, even though a few people have told me it’s not really something they wish to read about.
“Would you imagine if someone came, took your land and your neighbour’s land too and moved you to a small plot and made you his servants? Then on the same spot you had your house he built his own magnificent mansion?”
So when I heard about the one that was converted to a guest house, it caught my interest, up until that Monday . I was received by a rather, thin man, he told me he was man of God, and said he knew what I wanted from him but I would be disappointed.
He gave me a comprehensive history about the Presbyterian Church, his family, and gave me a tour of his library, which included different Bible translations and home remedies. He initially thought I wanted to request to host a wedding, possibly mine at that compound, so when I told him I was a journalist, he quizzed me and asked for my opinion on a lot of things, saying his daughter has recently graduated from Mass Communication School and it would be nice if we met since he could tell ‘even though I don’t have a lot of flesh on me, I something on my neck”
Seeing I had no story- the house is now a family home to him and his family, a minister’s manse- I walked back and went out to sniff out more stories, but first I sat and ate the supply of plums I was carrying, the sun piercing to my very marrow.
I had seen some farmers harvesting onions and I decided to pass by, it was a large crowd of workers, with some happy young men calling out to me, ‘hey, someone wants to talk to you’ so when I started towards them, they began to disperse . I sat to talk to one woman, who wanted to know my family tree, later I found out they were relatives of my grandmother through marriage and polygamy. We had a nice chat, the owner of the onions said I needed to show them where to market their products, since I obviously know more than them. I did some rare quick thinking and said, of course when I write about farming, I am passing on knowledge, so at some point I might have a marketing article. He invited me for their Onion Farmers Association general meeting.
As I left, they offered me onions to cook. I could only carry a few, and they thought that was not very appreciative, were it up to them, I should have carried a whole gunia. I think they were happy about the pictures I took of them and promised to bring them print outs.
I rushed through the rest of the week, doing more interviews and planting peas along with garlic, since my aunt, a seasoned horticulture farmer suggested it, even though what I really wanted was to wait for my sweet potatoes to grow, then I plant some hot pepper.
As the week came to a close I was fatigued, really worn out and I dozed off while chatting with my friends, that was embarrassing.
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