Spoilt Animals
Most of the animals that Nyandarua farmers owned were inherited from the British colonists who owned the land before them. The farmers purchased the animals through the Cooperative…
The Hero Sheep Shearers
The Shearers worked all day long, for a week or two until all the sheep of our Settlement Scheme had had their annual haircut. Like I mentioned earlier,…
Homesteads
Majority of farmers who bought land in Nyandarua were not wealthy people. They had just come from under colonial oppression that had limited their opportunities in education and…
Main House
With those villages dotting the Nyandarua landscape, the new land owners figured they could construct their houses the cheapest way possible, giving their families inexpensive accommodation, as they…
Kitchen: Eating and Warming
To keep the Main House clean and smoke free, families built a detached kitchen not too far from the Main House. Some families constructed their kitchens in the…
Fire Never Goes Out
Our fire never went out. I want to believe the fire we lit in our house in the late sixties when we moved to Nyandarua is the same…
No Unattended Homesteads
The fact that fire never went out in our homes also tells you our homes were never left unattended. You could not lock up a Nyandarua home and…
Granary – Ikumbi
This was the other very important building in a Nyandarua homestead, and every family had one. Be it made of mud walls, timber or iron sheets depending on…
Latrine
Wherever human beings live, a toilet is as important as where people eat and sleep. Every home in OlKalou had a latrine at the furthest corner of their…
Clarion Call for Water
I still have hope that God will send Nyandarua a hero or heroes who will address the water problem once and for all. Politicians usually have an agenda…