A day with my grandfather

During the 1960s it was common practice for children to spend some time with their grandparents.

I remember the days we spent with my maternal grandmother in Mutatiῖ village some 10 kms west of Kibichoi. My grandfather, James Karani Muhia, had two wives and he lived with the younger wife in Marige Shopping centre, 15km south of Kῖbichoi.

My grandmother was a great cook and, in the evening, we would sit around the fireplace sharing generous quantities of githeri (maize and beans) and rich tea served in her yellow mbirika (teapot) with a red spout as she regaled us with stories about her day on the farm and her animals.

I remember our forays into the pineapple plantation and the sugar cane where we left evidence of our activities which we would fervently deny when it was discovered by our grandmother. But she was a loving grandmother who believed we were angels.

Being the only boy in my family of four, I was my grandfather’s favourite. He would arrive in Mutati at about 7 am, with his Morris Commercial light truck which he had purchased in 1965 at a Police auction bearing the registration OHMS, later re-registered as KHL 296.

It still had the official Police Blue colour with a cream roof. I remember the wire-spoke steering wheel and the strange oval-shaped pedals with a non-synchromesh gearbox which meant you had to double-clutch in order to change gears, quite a feat!

After being served a cup of tea my grandfather would summon me to accompany him to his shamba (farm) in Kibichoi. The shamba was planted with coffee and subsistence crops. Having worked as a clerk (hence the name Karani) at Bwana Archer’s estate near the Coffee Research Station at Jacaranda, he had a good working knowledge of coffee husbandry.

As he supervised work on the shamba, my grandfather would relate his experiences at Bwana Archer’s estate and the relationships between Africans and the settlers. He emphasized education and hard work as the most important virtues for success.

At about 11 am he would drive us to Kibichoi shopping centre where we would visit a local hotel. As we gorged ourselves either on an omelette with a cup of tea or sometimes a not insubstantial portion of roast meat, I would be sworn to secrecy by my grandfather not to divulge this indulgence to my grandmother when we got back home. We had a man-thing and I did not let him down on this account.

Of course, when we got back home, he would complain about some stomach ailment and I did not disabuse my grandmother of that idea.

Spending the day with my grandfather riding in his truck was a great privilege and the girls were jealous of me but there was nothing they could do about it in a patriarchal society.

There was another reason why I was a favourite of my grandfather. He and my father’s elder brother Zacharia Njoroge were agemates and in fact, they were circumcised together just before World War I. They spent their “githunu” (the recuperation period) at Njuhi’s (my paternal grandmother) home.

My father had a great deal of respect for James Karani Muhia, not only because he married his daughter Esther Njeri (my mother) but because of the earlier relationship with his elder brother whom he regarded as his father.

I recall my father telling me about a piece of advice that James Karani Muhia gave him around 1962. By that time, my father was relatively senior in government for an African. But my grandfather advised him thus: “Gitau, ona ῦngitonga nginya ugure ndege, ndege iyo nomuhaka ikorwo na handu ha kugua”. Translated literally, that means, no matter how wealthy you become, even if you buy an aeroplane, it must have somewhere to land.

The coded message my grandfather was trying to send was that my father needed to invest in land as at the time the only land he had was ancestral land.

I have fond memories of my grandfather and although his words of advice in those days sounded somewhat pedantic, in my later years, they have proved to be invaluable.

For some strange reason, when I was recovering from my injuries in 2015, it was these very memories which put me on the path of writing about our collective history.

The memory of my grandfather helped me to discover purpose in life. The last seven years have been my best years yet.

I dedicate this story to my grandfather. Thank you James Karani Mῦhia. Continue resting in peace.