Newsletter #1
Dear Friends,
Welcome to our first newsletter!
We have been in Kenya for a month and a lot has happened. We spent the first 10 days in Nairobi with Jonah’s family and fixing our car Oyo. Let’s have a look why she is called Oyo. When we bought her, the letters T, T, A were missing. It’s funny, so we left it that way.
The first few days in Nairobi were tough. Jonah got the flu while we were still in Germany. Try packing boxes and moving when you have a high fever and everything hurts! I was fine until the day we arrived, then I got it, too. By day three I was finally able to get out of bed. To be fair, I did not mind so much. Jonah had to go to the garage to fix some bits on Oyo (hence the 10-day stay to get this all sorted), and I listened to the chickens in the back yard of our bed and breakfast. Jonah and his brother Simon also went to see friends who have a biodigester company, as that is something we would like to have on the land. Then they went set up our phones and got a wifi dongle. It’s practical – it is a little device with its own SIM card. You put a data package on it and just carry it with you wherever you are.
I joined them a few days later to visit a borehole company, set up our bank account, and we spent some time with family. We will not be getting a borehole, it is too expensive. Instead, we will connect to mains water and collect as much rainwater as possible.
We also went to Nanyuki for three days. Nanyuki is an interesting town. There are a lot of British people because they have a huge military base there. However, their reputation is anything but favourable – drunken fights in bars, molesting women, destroying the land with all sorts of tests. They ‘accidentally’ burned down a huge area of forest a few years ago and made international news because they killed a woman without anyone having been charged. Only the threat of removing them forever led to them behaving better. We have been told the situation in Nanyuki is better now. Our main reason for a trip there wasn’t to check out the latest shenanigans of the Brits though, we went to meet our business partner Wangari. Wangari has been working for a permaculture centre for a while and will join us to set up our endeavor. We do not yet know where the journey will go, but we are thankful that she is coming along for the ride. We talked for hours and hours about all things we could do with the land.
Heading to Malindi!
Our journey to Malindi was delayed by a day, as the final car repairs took longer than expected. We left on Friday, March 28, early in the morning. Simon came to join us for the first ten days we were there. The drive took around 11.5 hours. Fun times! My bum still hurts thinking about that journey. The funnest part was the police stopping us just before Mariakani. It is a hotspot for traffic police. The way traffic police work in Kenya is interesting. You get stopped, and the officer waves the rulebook in your face, telling you that you crossed a double yellow. You probably did not, but you cannot argue. You either get a fine, which means appearing in court, or you ‘help’ the officer by buying him some lunch or dinner (i.e. cash). Most people opt for the cash option, as appearing in court means even more fees, not to mention the time wasted!
We arrived safe, sound, and a bit lighter in the wallet by around 8pm. We are renting an apartment here in Malindi for the first two months. The person we rent the apartment from met us, and his sister very kindly drove us through an absolute maize to the house. Thankfully, it is right next to Malindi Airport and there is a straight road heading down that way from the main street (Mombasa Road). It just gets flooded whenever it rains. But guess what, we have a big car! Eventually we also figured out that if you continue straight past the airport on the little road, it a) does not flood up there, and b) there are market stands with amazingly fresh veggies and fruits. Every other seller in Malindi is directly on the road, so you eat a bit of veg with your petrol or diesel. No thank you?
Our maiden trip to the land
After a good night’s sleep, we headed to the land the next morning, a Sunday. Simon and Jonah had already been several times, but I had never seen the land. To say I was excited is an understatement. There are two roads to the land, the long one (almost 2 hours) and the short one (1 hour 10 minutes). We took the long one as we went, and the short one as we returned to Malindi. It is just one big loop. On the long road is Hell’s Kitchen. No, not Gordon Ramsay’s show. Hell’s Kitchen, also known as the Marafa Depression, is a sandstone canyon. This is where we borrowed the ‘Canyon’ part of our name from. We have yet to see it (free time is sparse when you set up), but we know you can only go early in the morning or late in the afternoon. During the day it can get up to 50 degrees Celsius in the canyon. I mean, if you are into saunas, I guess you can visit during the day…
We posted a video of our drive from Nairobi to Malindi and on to the land here:
The land is amazing. You get out of the car and immediately feel calm. It is lush, full of flowering trees that smell wonderful, butterflies as far as you can see, birds chirping happily, and the nutrient-rich red earth looks vibrant. Once we clear some of the bushes (we want to leave as many trees as possible) we will also be able to enjoy the view down the valley. The land slopes slightly towards the bottom, so when you are at the top, you get a nice view of the surroundings. I understand now why everyone who has come here fell in love with the place. And this is now ours? Still quite hard to believe!
Getting started on building our house
We wasted no time with starting the house build. John, the son of the person who sold us the land, met us as we arrived on the land. He walked us around and explained what happened since Jonah last saw it in November. We have herders in the area who took down some of our fencing to let the animals graze on our land. It does have some juicy bushes! That will have to be one of the first things we tackle after the house build – ensuring we have a good fence and get to know the herders. We might be able to grow edible plants around the border, that way they can still feed their animals, but they don’t destroy our fence and whatever we will be planting in the future.
If you would like to take a virtual tour of the land all around the border, you can watch the video here:
John already had a location for the house in mind. A clearing about 50 metres from the road has enough space for a 10 by 8 metre house, which is what we planned to build. Some bushes had to be cut, but otherwise it is a clear site. John then called the builder (fundi in Swahili), and we agreed to meet Monday morning on the site to discuss details. We drove back to our apartment in Malindi elated and excited about the next day.
When we arrived Monday morning, John already cleared all the bushes and was waiting for us. We met Patrick, our fundi, and we discussed our plans for the house. He took our drawings with him and came back with a quote the next day. After we all agreed on the details, work began immediately. And when I say immediately, I mean it. Patrick had brought his work crew, who began digging the holes for the posts. Now, I need to explain what kind of house we are building. Traditionally in that area of Kenya, people build with a technique called wattle and daub. You erect straight wooden poles made out of extremely hard wood, and in-between the poles you place smaller wooden poles. You then weave horizontal small branches in-between the vertical poles, so your house basically looks like a giant basket. This is how it looks like at this stage:
You then fill all around this wooden structure with mud until you cannot see the wood anymore. You might want to leave one or two openings for windows! Reed roofs are traditional, but the problem with reed roofs is that you cannot collect water. That is why we decided to go with a corrugated iron sheets roof. It is cheap and gutters can easily be fitted. Water management will be an important aspect of our endeavor and we plan to make use of any and all surfaces to collect as much rainwater as we can. Talking about water, the workers also got the water connection ready. We already have mains water on the land, they dug a trench to the house and all that is left is fitting the plumbing once the house is completed.
We managed to see the progress every other day for the first 9 days. The other days we spent getting some supplies in Mombasa, checking out hardware stores in Malindi, setting up our PO box, and sorting out important paperwork, like applying for my permanent residency here.
A short trip to Nairobi
After ten days in Malindi, we drove to Nairobi. Did I mention my bum still hurt from the last trip? Time to hit the road again! This trip was for a family gathering that had been planned long ago. We were lucky that Jonah’s sister Angie hosted us during our stay. Since we were already going to Nairobi, we also decided to get some supplies there. If you know where you are going, you can get things for much cheaper. Sarah, Simon’s wife, took us to a huge market where you can buy anything under the sun. We got pots, cutlery, and some more basic things we will need. We also got some seeds from Nairobi
I am not a fan of Nairobi. It is too busy for me, people are in a rush, and the contrast between rich and poor is palpable. You drive past a beautiful residential area bordering a slum. The slum is where all the people who clean and cook for the rich people live. We can get into a conversation how it came to this at a later point, but in rural areas you do not have this stark divide between rich and poor. You might have former presidents earning swathes of land as far as the eye can see, but that is again a conversation for another day.
Back in Malindi
We left Nairobi late on Monday and arrived at 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday. After a short nap we itched to see the progress of the house build. The picture above of the construction is the stage we are at right now. The bottom part of the wooden structure is complete, the roofing will follow. While one crew works on the roof, the other will get the clay from a pit next to the house. Our earth is good enough to make the kind of mud that will hold together well. It will be exciting to see it come together!
And that concludes the very first newsletter. The next newsletter will not be nearly as long as this one. I hope to write one every week from now on. Thank you very much for reading, until next time,
Caroline
We caught a rather gorgeous sunset on our way to Nairobi