As the 1970s decade came to a close and the 80s rolled in, majority of farmers in Nyandarua had completed repaying their government loans and were now bonafide land owners. Most of their children had completed their education and were now working, with some helping out their parents financially. This gave the parents a chance to improve their living conditions. Beautiful homes started replacing the mud and timber houses the Pioneer Parents hastily constructed in the mid 1960s and early 70s when they first moved to Nyandarua.
Today, most compounds now have the original mud house that is either occupied by workers or is used for storage, with a beautiful mansion standing next to it, clearly marking how far the Pioneer Parents have come. Even the Pioneer Parents who did not construct brick houses, own beautifully constructed timber homes. Most compounds also have more houses built by the now grown sons who are raising their families in Nyandarua as they proudly take their position as the next generation of Nyandarua farmers. Even the sons who have jobs in the big cities, majority have their families living back home in Nyandarua, visiting them over the weekends, public holidays and month long stays during their annual leave from their jobs. The rest of the sons and daughters who live in the cities with their families, they have also constructed houses where they bring their families over the weekends and during holidays.
It is so refreshing to visit homesteads that are now bustling with activity, with multiple families living together as they work the land side by side, with my generation caring for the now aging Pioneer Parents. Some homes we knew growing up with a lone mud or timber house, a granary and a latrine, now resembles a mini shopping center with a minimum of three Main houses, three granaries and three kitchens for each family, and a few Kiumbu’s for their young adult sons. That is heartwarming to see.
It must be so gratifying for the Pioneer Parents to witness such growth that they could only have imagined when they stepped into that strange land in the mid 1960s. In those harsh, uncertain circumstances, barely two years into the country’s independence, they were not even sure of their own survival in those new Settlement Schemes they were pioneering with strangers. But they hang in there inspite of the hardships and uncertainty, and the frontier they pioneered became home to them, and us, their children and grandchildren.
And now, for the aging Pioneer Parents to witness their grown children truly “own” Nyandarua and value it as home, they must sleep soundly at night finally realizing their sacrifice of decades ago was not in vain. They have passed the torch to this second generation who are already proving themselves worthy of that sacrifice. I am confident the flame will keep burning because some third generation Nyandaruans are already carrying the torch alongside their parents.
There is hope, lots of hope for this beautiful County that lured our parents from their Gikuyu and they never looked back. Neither will we.
