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