Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: RV Pundit on September 19, 2021, 10:54:06 PM
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I was following the funeral of the late Tiren wife - one of tiren grandkid is my friend - and there are few families around Eldoret who grew up in wealth as early as 1940s.The kaburus (Boers) unlike other Wazungu empowered Africans. Tiren and Biwott father owned cars as early as 1945. There are among elite uasin gishu families who owned 3,000 acres plus of farm land.
By that time Jomo and his group were very poor.
Of all the elites - Biwott did not know poverty. By 1952 - Biwott father had been granted permission to keep kikuyu workers - during Mau Mau emergency - then owning many farms.
By 1956 - the Tirens were hosting queen Elizabeth.
Most successful at Tambach were Kite
Tiren and Salim Chepkeitanv. According to Huxley, the former
is described as a successful and efficient farmer and trader.
She avers that:
Arap Tiren is a Samuel Smiles hero, African
style.... Everyone of Arap Tiren's paddocks
is neatly fenced and watered, and he is
building himself a stone dairy and cowshed.
Around a yard are grouped the farm buildings
of which the most important is a store holding
... 700 bags of wheat worth pound 1,700....
He was born on a European farm on the Uasin
Gishu plateau and became a chicken-bov to his
employer, Mr. Wright, whose son Alec was about
the same age.... In due course Alec Wright
inherited the farm and Arap Tiren, with saved
money, decided to start on his own.... Now he
is something of an entrepreneur. He has
several beer shops, little stores dotted about
in most of the townships in Elgeyo, a petrol
station in the nearby village, and a mail
contract between Tambach . . v and various local
chiefs and trading centres/0
It seems from the above that Tiren's entrepreneurial
initiative and capital came from the experiences obtained
while working in the settler farms. Tiren employed his sons
as managers of his businesses and acted a model for other
emerging Keiyo entrepreneurs. He is credited to have been the
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He is credited to have been the
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enterprising Keiyo named Chepkon'ga had by 1928 accumulated
enough funds to purchase a lorry. Oral evidence indicates
that Chepkonga was the first Keiyo to own a lorry.24 His
transport business included ferrying labourers from as far as
Baringo and other parts of Keiyo to settler farms. In
addition, the lorry was used for transporting farm produce
like maize, potatoes, pyrethrum and wheat to train terminals
at Kaptagat, Kipkabus or Eldoret stations.2
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Biwott father
http://www.nicholasbiwott.com/2017/12/11/a-eulogy-to-mzee-joshua-kiprono-cheserem-1908-2009/
First he worked for Johannes Mouton who also employed his elder brother until Independence, then for Rawson Shaw advocates (who was later to become his lawyer), and later for Van de Venter (known as “Chepkilewet”).
Finally he worked with John de Waal a local farmer in Kapsegem now in Uasin Gishu District, first as a gardener and later as a cook.
John de Wall taught him about both farming and market gardening and ultimately encouraged him to start his own market gardening business, a profession in which he was to excel and make a fortune.
Thus it was that in 1939, on the advice of de Wall, that he returned to Keiyo District, now equipped with a good knowledge of farming and started his own market gardening business, one of the first Africans in his area to do so, catering for European settlers, growing and selling carrots, leaks, peas, broad beans, turnips, lettuces, and rhubarb – crops from more temperate climates.
He was thus both an innovator and a man with a good eye for business, and not afraid of trying something new.
He soon gained respect from all those he supplied and traded with – (Nanny Woodley and Rex Kirk, the owners of the ‘Farmers Mart’) – and he traded with Europeans as an equal, perhaps because he could get the best prices and quality.
Gradually he developed his business and began supplying the prosperous Asian stores of the day – Juma Hajee, Hassan Ali and Gurdut Singh.
From there, just after the war, he branched out into supplying some of the leading local hotels, the Kaptagat Arms Hotel, the Lincoln Hotel in Eldoret, the Wagon Wheel Hotel, the Duncan’s Tea Room and the prestigious Soy Club. He became their sole supplier of vegetables and he prospered.
He also supplied horticultural produce and milk to a number of the larger local schools – St Patrick High School, Kessup Girls Secondary School and Singore Girls Secondary School – and to the G.K. Prison at Tambach.
It was through his friendship with the manager of the Kaptagat Arms Hotel, Colonnel Stitt, that my father was encouraged to buy his first car, a Buick. This he found to be expensive and inappropriate for his business so he sold it and bought a three-ton Ford V8 and thereafter launched into the transport business.
His contemporaries in the transport business included, among others, Kite Tiren and Joel Chebor. This was an active generation of go-ahead Kenyans who matched to some extent the local Europeans for business acumen.
The success of my father’s growing businesses spread wealth in his local community and the area flourished.
I began working with him in the 1950’s while I was still at school, learning from him and trading on my account, which he encouraged me to do.
It was at this time that together with other members of the Cooperative Society of Keiyo my father ventured into regional trading – to Uganda (and through Kampala to Port Portal), the eastern Congo and Rwanda – working with prominent local farmers such as William Chir Chir, Kibogy, Maset, Tireito Chemaiyo Sawe, Rubem Katam, Kiratu, Atanas Kande Kibor, and Kurumei among others.
My father’s initial capital had been based on being a big cattle owner and throughout these years he continued to develop substantial herds of cattle, sheep and goats. We grew up herding these flocks in keeping with Kalenjin tradition.
He developed also an active trade in hides and skins with three shops in local trading centres – two in Kaptarakwa Market and one in Iten Town.
His continued and growing success was based on an understanding and knowledge of quality control taught to him by William Spencer, the influential local District Agricultural Officer, a man who encouraged progressive people and with whom my father became good friends.
Together they spearheaded the ‘contour system’ of terracing and irrigation, and the planting of trees and Napier grass to stop soil erosion.
They also grew the natural herbicide Pyrethrum and introducing new breeds of cattle and sheep that produced higher yields – Grade cattle, Friesians and Ayreshires, and Marino sheep.
With another English friend, a farmer by the name of Mr Begg, he went to Molo and the Uplands to source apples, plums and peaches and together they developed orchards and a tea plantation on an experimental basis.
His influence on his children was not confined to teaching the importance of education for all, hard work, discipline, honesty and integrity, and good business sense.
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The Tirens, Kibors, Chirchirs, Chemwenos, Katams and amongst other owning 3,000 acres did not wait for British money to acquire farmland like Kenyatta and his corrupt elite. They farmed as good as the Boer and traded as far as congo - got enough money to buy huge land cash.
What helped is that Kaburu=Boer - who settled in Eldoret - had no colonial hangup or overt racism - having lived with africans for centuries - and made friends with Africans - unlike the British farmers like Delmare and Egerton - who were mainly upper class British - who had a dim view of Africans.
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You seem to have extra idle time nowadays. No amount of rewriting history can erase fact that Nkalenjini need to work harder and avoid state handouts. The 2 you mentioned are just a trickle in the sand where kalenjin masses wait for handouts. In brief get off the couch and go work
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Sasa handout imetoka wapi? It's like you're jealous of Kalenjin because soon you'll be our farm hand after you're done working for Njamba.
Moi was last in power 20yrs ago - na bado unalia - ohoo Moi did not help us.
You seem to have extra idle time nowadays. No amount of rewriting history can erase fact that Nkalenjini need to work harder and avoid state handouts. The 2 you mentioned are just a trickle in the sand where kalenjin masses wait for handouts. In brief get off the couch and go work
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Where have I mentioned Moi,Moi left you guys with a legacy and Pundit the problem is you trying too hard to prove nkalenjini are self made but obviously the opposite is true.
Where are those dynasties today? do they still maintain the huge tracts of land or the offsprings blew up the wealth. I would be interested to know what companies that have created employment for hustlers have come out of them,
About farm hands,you have lost y
our lands to farm hands mogusii,okuyu,mbaluja among others that came dirt poor to RV but because you guys were happy go lucky you sold your land to them and now they are your overlords
I bet pundit kisiis own most land in your area.
What is average living standard of a typical native in nkalenjin land Pundit??
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Let me help; Only Nandis sell land to non-kalenjin; the rest of Kalenjin do not. Kipsigis will never sell their land to non-kipsigis; it almost impossible. Keiyos, name it, do not. The other land was kenyattas awarding his friends historically kalenjin land...but that is water under the bridge.And of course large farm holding still exists but mostly Nandis are the ones selling and drinking with the money.
In fact the reason you see Gusii aggresively looking for land in Nairobi and elsewhere is because Kipsigis has never allowed an inch of their land to be sold....to land hungry gusii..so they can only expand outside in Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret and Kisumu towns. But baluhyas are expanding into Nandi/uasin gishu/transzoia.
Kalenjin have done well farming wise - coming from pastoral background - with disdain for manual labour.
Most of you bantus have farmed all your entire centuries of existing - yet you're not excellent farmers now. You havent improved anything.
Where have I mentioned Moi,Moi left you guys with a legacy and Pundit the problem is you trying too hard to prove nkalenjini are self made but obviously the opposite is true.
Where are those dynasties today? do they still maintain the huge tracts of land or the offsprings blew up the wealth. I would be interested to know what companies that have created employment for hustlers have come out of them,
About farm hands,you have lost y
our lands to farm hands mogusii,okuyu,mbaluja among others that came dirt poor to RV but because you guys were happy go lucky you sold your land to them and now they are your overlords
I bet pundit kisiis own most land in your area.
What is average living standard of a typical native in nkalenjin land Pundit??
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They stole land from neighbours who were resisting. Or how comes Koitalel Samoei family is not the biggest land owners but these mzungu in black masks?
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So if Nicholas Biwott was a dynasty, where did his lust for wealth come from? To me he was like a hustler who landed a fortune and did not want to go back to where he came from.
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Biwott knew how to do business; having done business with his father; This skill Moi and many lacked; And that is where he came in..to help Moi with business fronts while Moi's was a vice president. I think it was recommendation from Matiba or Nyachae to Moi...while Biwott worked under one of them.
When you're in enterprenuer like Biwott father - you just want to accumulate and accumulate wealth.
Jaramogi I think also was in business...before joining politics...although like his son...it was cooperative business where he got money from Luos...Luo thrify association or something.
So if Nicholas Biwott was a dynasty, where did his lust for wealth come from? To me he was like a hustler who landed a fortune and did not want to go back to where he came from.
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They didnt own land in native home counties..but in white highlands.
In the native land or reserve....it was almost impossible to own large land size because it was community land and mzungu had left just about enough native reserve for Africans to survive.
So the likes of Kibor or Tiren or Biwott father did business - and were able to buy large pieces of farm. They are maybe 10 such large farms of 3,000 acres and then couple with more than 1,000s. The Koisitany is one such dynasty.
The likes of Kenyattas, Mois, and Nyachae...simply used their position in gov...to allocate themselves land using gov loans. In Eldoret Chesire is one such who got large farm due to political connection. Mark Too acquired EATEC land. And such new purchases like WSR.
The rest of Africans without political connection...had to do with 20 - max 40 acres - given out as loans.
They stole land from neighbours who were resisting. Or how comes Koitalel Samoei family is not the biggest land owners but these mzungu in black masks?