Oldest PCEA building in East Africa in dire need of rehabilitation

My education started in 1961 at Kibichoi Primary School where I was admitted to Standard One. In 1964, my father decided to transfer me to a boarding school because his work required him to be away from home frequently.

Thus I was admitted to Thogoto Junior School in Kikuyu. The school was run by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) and was in transition from being a girls’ intermediate school.

Initially, it was one of the original Mabeere schools run by the PCEA for girls who had discarded cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and adopted Christian values.

Thogoto Junior School (current day Musa Gitau Primary School) was headed by one Ms Fanny Cluness from the highlands of Scotland and she ran a pretty tight ship. We were the pioneer pupils in the school and it was regarded upmarket.

Right next door was a small chapel known as the Scott-Watson Memorial Church, named in memory of the pioneer missionaries, Dr Clement Ruffel-Scott and Thomas Watson.

The church was completed in 1909. It is built in neo-Gothic style, with galvanised corrugated heavy gauge iron sheets to the walls and the steeply raked roof.

Windows are of wooden casements, some in clear glass and others in stained, depicting different holy sacraments, while doors are of timber boards hung on pointed arched frames, typical of this era.

The inner walls and the ceiling are panelled in tongued and grooved timber boarding. All the timber members are of exotic cedar wood and are, therefore, impervious to termites and other wood pests.

The church was often referred to as the “House of Cedars” for this reason.

I’m told the entire building, save for the cement screed floor, was fabricated in Scotland and shipped to Mombasa as a completely knocked down kit, then transported by rail to Kikuyu and assembled on site.

The church is the oldest PCEA building in East Africa and is gazetted as a national monument.

Dr John William Arthur had earlier, in 1907, established the Kikuyu Mission Station and the church became a pivotal part of the mission on completion, two years later.

One of the many Africans who were influenced by Dr Arthur was Jomo Kenyatta, who was a student at the mission school. Dr Arthur would later play a vital role in the establishment of Alliance High School by the Alliance of Protestant Missions in 1926.

We would hold our annual Christmas Carols service at this little church, all dressed up in costumes, angel wings et al, borrowed from the Alliance High School. The church would look splendid, decorated with Christmas trees, flashing lights and all manner of tinsel and glitz. 

I was in the choir, not I suspect, because of the quality of my voice, but more likely to make up the numbers as our entire school had more than 100 students. I cannot help but remember the beautiful soprano of Rhoda Ondeng, who sang many of the solo parts.

Today, she is Rhoda Ondeng Wilhelmsen, an internationally acclaimed opera singer based in Norway.

I was rather disappointed when I visited the church this week to find it in a derelict state, although I noted there was a recent attempt at redecoration, which seems to have floundered.

This is a monument that is steeped in the history of our country and can be fairly described as the cradle of our education system. Although we should not be held hostage by our history, it defines who we are today as a country.

We need our children and future generations to know and understand their roots as citizens and what past generations have sacrificed for us to reach where we are. This way future generations will be able to play their part as the baton is handed over from one era to the next.

National monuments fall under two categories: Those that are owned and maintained by the State and those that are protected by the State but owned by other institutions. This church falls in the second category whose maintenance falls under the owners, the PCEA.

I understand that the PCEA does not currently have the funds available to complete the rehabilitation project and therefore appeal to well wishers to contribute to the preservation of this national treasure.

The writer is a former banker and motorcycle enthusiast.