Gichohu

Over the past two weeks, my farm has been unusually busy. Three of my cows have each given birth to healthy bull calves. Not to be outdone, two of my Dorper ewes decided to raise the stakes by delivering twins. If farms kept score, I suspect the sheep would currently be leading. There is something deeply satisfying about walking through the shed early in the morning and seeing young calves trying to figure out how their legs work, while little lambs bounce around with an enthusiasm that suggests they have not yet been introduced to gravity. For a brief moment, everything feels abundant. The future looks promising. The investment seems worthwhile. Of course, anyone who has spent time farming knows better than to celebrate too loudly. The same farm that gives you three calves this month may decide that next month is reserved for broken water pipes, stubborn diseases, soaring feed prices, or a borehole pump that chooses the hottest day of the year to stop working. Farming has a remarkable...

Last year, over Thanksgiving, I visited my family in the United States. I spent most of my time in Spokane Valley, a beautiful city on the eastern side of Washington State. It was late autumn. The trees had already turned brilliant shades of gold and crimson, the mornings were crisp, and the evenings invited people indoors to the warmth of family. I stayed with my sister and her family, and it became one of the most memorable parts of my trip. My nephew, Ivo, was only eight months old. At that age, every day is an adventure. He had just begun discovering the world around him, and his curiosity seemed endless. One moment he was smiling, the next he was crawling towards something that had suddenly captured his attention. Keeping up with him was both exhausting and delightful. He had a way of reminding everyone around him that joy is often found in the smallest moments. Thanksgiving was everything I expected and more. Family gathered around the table, friends dropped in throughout the day...

When we talk about role models, we almost always look upwards. We imagine someone much older, someone famous, someone who has climbed to the very top of their profession. We assume wisdom only comes from those who have lived longer than we have. Life has taught me otherwise. The person I have admired most for many years is my younger brother, Anthony. To understand why, you have to go back many years to our childhood in Molo. Those were not easy days. Our family went through difficult seasons that forced all of us to grow up sooner than we expected. While I was away pursuing my education, Anthony remained at home helping to look after our younger siblings. When our mother passed away, he was barely a teenager, yet life handed him responsibilities that most adults would struggle to carry. Looking back now, I sometimes wonder how much those early years shaped the man he would later become. Like many young people, Anthony did not begin with a clear roadmap. He worked wherever opportunity ...

A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting alone in my car outside one of our construction sites. The engine was off. The workers had already left for the day. The site was unusually quiet. A few wheelbarrows lay on their sides. The mixer stood still for the first time in hours. Somewhere in the distance, someone was burning a pile of construction offcuts, and the familiar smell of fresh mortar still lingered in the evening air. I should have gone home. Instead, I just sat there. Not because there was more work to do, but because I was trying to work out numbers in my head. Saturday was approaching. Payroll. Every leader knows that feeling. The workers don't see it. Nor should they. To them, Saturday is simply the day they expect to be paid. They have earned it. They have families waiting at home, school fees to pay, rent due, and children who will probably ask for something special over the weekend. They shouldn't have to worry about whether the money is available. That is my job...

The Kikuyu have a proverb that has always fascinated me: "You do not borrow a door in the year of the hyena." Like many African proverbs, it sounds strange until you stop and imagine the story behind it. Picture a village many years ago. A family sleeps peacefully in a small mud house. Their wooden door is more than just a piece of timber. It is protection from wild animals, thieves, and the cold night air. Then one evening, a hyena begins roaming the village. Suddenly, every door matters. That is not the night to discover yours is broken. And it is certainly not the night to knock on your neighbour's door asking to borrow theirs. After all, if hyenas are roaming outside, your neighbour needs a door just as much as you do. Some lessons only become obvious when it is too late. I have been thinking about that proverb recently. Not because I have seen a hyena wandering through my neighbourhood, although in Kenya one can never completely rule out surprises. Rather, I have not...

There is a unique atmosphere on a construction site when the project has only a few days left before handover. You can almost feel it in the air. The conversations become shorter. The footsteps become quicker. The tea breaks become... well... slightly shorter, although my long-time casual, Murai, would probably argue that a good cup of tea is even more important when everyone is under pressure. Right now, we are in exactly that season. The market project has ten days to hand over. Ten days. On paper, that sounds like plenty of time. On a construction site, it feels like tomorrow morning. If you have never been involved in delivering a construction project, you might imagine that the final days are simply about sweeping floors, polishing windows, and taking photographs for the completion report. I used to think something similar when I was younger. Experience has since educated me. The last ten days are usually when the project decides to reveal everything it has been quietly hiding. A ...

There is a curious structure that appears at almost every serious construction site, yet very few people ever stop to think about it. It is not the foundation. It is not the building. It is not even meant to last. It is the hoarding wall. Over the past few months, I have spent a considerable amount of time supervising the construction of several projects. Before the first trench was dug or the first block was laid, one of the first tasks was putting up the hoarding around the site. To most people, it is little more than a temporary fence. Corrugated iron sheets. Timber posts. A gate that squeaks more than it should. Sometimes a signboard announcing what will eventually stand there. Nothing particularly remarkable. In fact, most people find it rather annoying. It blocks the view. It creates dust. It narrows the road. Drivers complain about it. Pedestrians walk around it. Neighbours become curious about what is happening behind it. Yet every experienced builder knows that the hoarding wa...

A few evenings ago, after another long day moving between construction sites, I found myself doing what many of us do when the body is tired but the mind refuses to cooperate. I picked up my phone. One video led to another, and before long I found myself watching a discussion about something called the Mandela Effect. If you have never heard of it, the idea is surprisingly simple. It describes those strange moments when large numbers of people confidently remember something that never actually happened—or at least, not the way they remember it. The name comes from a curious belief shared by many people that Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. Except he didn't. He was released, became President of South Africa, and lived for many years afterward. Apparently, thousands of people remember a funeral that never took place. The more examples I listened to, the more amused I became. Some people insist famous movie lines were spoken one way when recordings prove otherwise. Othe...

Construction has introduced me to every kind of person imaginable. Engineers who could calculate a retaining wall in their heads but couldn't find their tape measure. Fundis who never finished secondary school yet could look at a building and tell you exactly where it would crack five years from now. Labourers who arrived before sunrise every morning without owning a watch. And, every once in a while, a pastor carrying a Bible in one hand and a quotation for painting works in the other. This particular story begins with a recommendation. A longtime acquaintance of mine, someone I have worked with on several projects and whose judgment I generally trust, spoke highly of a subcontractor. As if that wasn't enough, he added another detail. "He is also a pastor." I must confess, that made me relax a little. Perhaps it shouldn't have. Like many people, I quietly assumed that someone who preached every Sunday would surely be dependable from Monday to Saturday. How wrong ...

One of the hardest parts of working in construction has very little to do with concrete, steel, or machinery. It is waiting. Over the past few weeks, our projects have reached a stage where they need constant cash to keep moving. The teams are on site. Materials are required. Suppliers expect payment. Workers have families to feed. Yet, like many contractors working with government projects, we find ourselves waiting. The work has been done. The certificates have been processed. The promises have been made. But the payments have not arrived. If you have never been in business, you might think waiting is simply a matter of patience. It isn't. Waiting has a cost. Every day a payment is delayed, someone somewhere feels the pressure. A supplier postpones stocking materials. A contractor borrows money at a high interest rate. A project slows down. Workers begin asking questions. Plans that looked perfect on paper suddenly become difficult to execute. The interesting thing is that waitin...

I come from Mukinyai , a small village tucked away in Nakuru County. Like many Kenyan villages, it doesn't appear on most people's travel plans. If you blink while driving past the turnoff, you'll probably miss it. Yet for those of us who call it home, it is the centre of a thousand memories. Every time I travel back, I slow down a little. Not because the road demands it—although in some sections it certainly does—but because the village has a way of taking me back to a simpler time. The old paths are still there. A few of the mud houses still stand, quietly resisting the passage of time. Children still chase each other through compounds with the same energy we once had. The hills seem smaller now, though I suspect they haven't changed at all. It is only my perspective that has. One thing, however, has never changed. Villages have remarkable memories. In the city, anonymity is surprisingly easy. You can move into an apartment, greet your neighbours with polite nods for ...

Today was one of those rare days when I woke up with absolutely no ambition to conquer the world. No construction site demanded my attention. No farm crisis required an emergency meeting with a particularly stubborn goat. No long drive beckoned from the driveway. So I did something I seldom do. I stayed home. A cup of coffee, the television, and a slow day seemed like enough adventure. Sometimes we spend so much of our lives chasing tomorrow that we forget to sit quietly with today. As I flipped through the news channels, two stories caught my attention. They were unrelated, yet together they seemed to ask the same uncomfortable question. Many years ago, I remember watching a Mexican soap opera titled The Rich Also Cry. At the time, it sounded almost ironic. Growing up in a modest village, I imagined that wealth was the finish line. Surely, once you crossed it, life became one long holiday interrupted only by deciding where to spend your next vacation. Age has corrected that youthful a...

Construction sites are fascinating places to observe people. Every morning begins almost the same way. The first workers arrive while the dew is still on the ground. Someone lights a small fire to boil tea. Another sweeps yesterday's dust from the slab, even though today's work will create twice as much. Before long, the familiar orchestra begins—hammers tapping, grinders screaming, wheelbarrows complaining under the weight of concrete, and someone, somewhere, insisting they measured it correctly the first time. Spend enough time on a construction site, and you quickly realize that buildings are not the only things under construction. People are too. A few weeks ago, while supervising one of our projects, I found myself reflecting on an old story I first heard many years ago. Whether it is true or not, I cannot say. Like many good stories, its value lies more in the lesson than in its historical accuracy. The story goes that a church was praying fervently for a bar across the r...

I have been thinking a lot about the generation that lived through colonial rule in Kenya. For more than forty years, many communities lived under an administration that controlled almost every aspect of their lives. Land was taken. Movement was restricted. People were forced to work. Punishment was often brutal. In the Mount Kenya region especially, the years surrounding the State of Emergency in the 1950s brought unimaginable suffering. Families were torn apart. Thousands were detained. Others disappeared into the forests to fight for a freedom they had never experienced. But that is not the story I want to tell today. I have been wondering about the day after. What did it feel like when the detention camps finally opened? When men and women who had lived behind barbed wire walked back to their homes? What did it feel like to wake up one morning and realize that someone else no longer dictated every movement of your life? I don't think those of us born into freedom can fully unde...

There is something strangely satisfying about watching a perimeter wall rise from the ground. It begins with little more than a string line, a trench, and a drawing that promises far more than the dusty site in front of you. Day by day, the foundation disappears beneath concrete, the blocks climb steadily skyward, and before long, an empty piece of land begins to feel like someone's future home. I have spent the past few weeks supervising the construction of a perimeter wall around a client's two-acre property. From a distance, it probably looks like a simple project. Dig the trench. Pour the foundation. Lay the blocks. Plaster. Paint. Install the gate. Hand over the keys. If only construction were that polite. One thing I have learned over the years is that construction drawings are eternal optimists. Reality, on the other hand, enjoys adding its own footnotes. A few days ago, we were inspecting a completed section of the wall when something didn't feel right. The workmans...