Grevy Danger: An Entertaining Cozy Murder Mystery (A Kenya Kanga Mystery) by Victoria Tait | Character Guest Post

Hello, I’m Hellen Newton and I recently moved from Nairobi to Nanyuki with my family. My husband works in his family’s safari business, Horizon Safaris, and I took a position with Jengo Real Estate to open their Nanyuki office.

It’s difficult buying, selling and renting a property in a new town, especially Nanyuki where the community is tight-knit and most property transactions are via word of mouth, or the proprietors advertise directly in online newsletters. I’m working hard to meet local people and integrate myself into the community.

Land is extremely important to Kenyans and for centuries tribal wars were fought over it. Foreign rule and influence were confined to the coastal region, which was useful for trading purposes. In the seventeenth century the Portuguese were defeated by the Imam of Oman, who ruled his kingdom from what is now Zanzibar Island.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the British and the Germans turned their attention to east Africa and met secretly to discuss their plans to expand into the African continent. They began their colonisation on the coast with the Germans moving into what is now known as Tanzania and Uganda, and the British into Kenya. By 1902 Great Britain declared direct rule over what they termed the East Africa Protectorate, and they established their capital, Nairobi, in 1905.

I am a member of the Kikuyu tribe who have traditionally inhabited land around Mount Kenya. The mountain is sacred as our God ‘Ngai’ descends from the sky with the clouds and sits on the mountain. My family’s tribal lands were in Nyeri, which lies to the south-west of Mount Kenya, and to the north of Nairobi. Our tribal tenure rights were perhaps complex to the colonial power, but they ensured the entire community had access to land. For instance, one family might own an area of grass and forest, but other families would have various rights over it to graze animals, or hunt, forage or collect firewood. Land rights were passed down between generations.

The British did not respect our tenure system or our use of the land which they said was “waste and unoccupied”. They declared it “Crown Land” and took possession of it paying no compensation to our family and others in the Kikuyu tribe. Many Kikuyu, and even more Maasai, which as a tribe had occupied 155,000 square kilometres of land in the Rift Valley, were moved onto tribal reserves.

My great grandfather fared better than most as he continued working for the Ramsey family, who were allocated part of our ancestorial land. The British claimed they needed money to build their railway to Uganda and to rule over us Kenyans.

At the beginning of the 1900s, British and South African settlers who had assets over £1,000 could claim 1,000 acres of Kenyan land for free. Just like that, they were given land in exchange for growing ‘commercial crops’. The Munro family left South Africa and took 3,000 acres in Nyeri, some of which had belonged to my family. But they didn’t understand our land and the relentless African sun. Many of their European cattle died from diseases, but then they heard of a new crop, tea, which Henry Munro planted on part of the estate. It flourished in the rich volcanic soil, high altitude and plentiful rain on the edge of the Aberdare mountains.

My great grandfather was lucky and kept some of his property but he lost it in 1920 when the British distributed more land to soldiers who had fought in World War I. Walter Ramsey was granted my family’s plot, but he was a butcher by trade, not a farmer. My Great Grandfather had to work for him, looking after his cattle, in exchange for living on the land.

After Independence my grandfather thought he would be handed back our family’s land, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was given a small plot near Mogotio in an arid area north of Nakuru in the Rift Valley. Meanwhile, the Munro and Ramsey families merged their land to create a large tea estate which they sold in the 1980s to the Kenya Chai Producers. My family never saw a penny and my grandfather has been moved from one barren plot of earth to another. All he wants now is peace, quiet and his own small piece of Kenya on which to spend his final days.