Juliet's Kenya Days blog

Letter from Judy to Nanny & Grandad 2 May 1975 –

Yesterday was a bank holiday so we went with two of the Alliance School boys to Kinangop – a mountain at the southern end of the Aberdares. Moses has relatives there (you quickly get used to all the biblical names here) so we could leave the minibus with them.

We started from a high plateau at about 8,500ft which could have been anywhere in Scotland or Wales and climbed up through very English type woodland; at about 9,000ft we reached the bamboo level and then it became very African. We were accompanied by a dozen or so little boys who rushed ahead clearing a path for us. At about 9,500ft we came to giant heather about 5ft high and little stunted trees hung with festoons of lichen. The clouds began to come down so we went back down after that but found it an interesting walk. We hope to do a bit of climbing so that we will be fit enough to climb Mt Kenya later on. We stopped at the village for a little while – the children there had hardly seen a white face and were fascinated and terrified at the same time – Graham played a pretend catching game with them and you could have heard the squeals miles away, but they kept coming back for more. This area was European farmed until Independence and now it is settled by previously landless people who farm the area as a co-operative. We were shown the pyrethrum (the main crop at this altitude) drier and tank for keeping milk cool. These things were as primitive as could be but perfectly effective for their purposes and were used and looked after by the 150 farmers in the co-operative. The big European house had been turned into District Offices – the Head Man has a tiny stone-built hut and the rest live in the round mud and thatch huts they are used to. We drove back on a new road with a tarmac surface with magnificent views over the Rift Valley and Suswa and Longonot, two volcanic craters which lie in the valley.

The bliss of being on tarmac after bumping, rattling and sliding over dirt roads for miles is indescribable. We came through Limuru on the way back – one of the big towns of Kenya with perhaps a dozen two storey buildings and a railway station. One forgets living so near Nairobi how little other urban development there is here.

Letter from Judy to Grandma and Grandad 2 May 1975 –

It was a bank holiday yesterday so we went for a trip about 40 miles out to our nearest big mountains. Two boys from school, Moses and Peter, came with us as they know the area and could show us a path to take. At about 9,000ft we reached the level where bamboo grows and had to push our way through great tangled glades of bamboo stems – we were fascinated by them and brought some back. It grows 12 or 15ft high and the stems vary from greenish-gold to orange-red and then turn light brown when dead. About a dozen little boys came with us and pushed ahead clearing the way for us chattering ten to the dozen in their own language. They wore an amazing variety of tattered and torn clothes – one had a European type anorak whose sleeves had been torn out and they mostly had more hole than seat in their shorts and bare feet of course. It is very cold at that altitude when the sun goes in and they all seemed to sniff a lot but they were a very cheerful little bunch and could climb like monkeys. We climbed nearly 1500ft but then the clouds began to come down so we retraced our steps – going down hill was even worse than going up and Graham was reminded of Grandad Cole’s stories of coming down Vesuvius ! We were shown around the village where we left the car and saw the pyrethrum drier (pyrethrum is a white daisy a bit like chamomile which is used to make insecticides and is the only crop to grow well at this altitude).