Central Province Part I

This past weekend, our group took a day trip to a bird sanctuary in the Central Province in Kenya. While on the trip, staring at the spectacular scenery of the highland, mountainous region of the foothills of Mt. Kenya, and the very tall, green trees everywhere, I had a revelation. The landscape in Kenya is as diverse and reminds me a lot of the scenery in the Western part of the United States. It ranges from the desert areas and the canyons and escarpments from the Great Rift Valley, which reminds me of the New Mexico area, to the highlands with the tall green trees and the mountains, which reflect the Wyoming area.

The Central Province has historically been the most blessed region of Kenya. During the colonial period, it was known as the “white highlands”, the area where the British colonialist settled and forced the Kikuyu population that considers this area their homeland as workers on their farms. It is in this area that Kenya’s world famous tea and coffee fields are the most abundant, and it is this region that the most money has been given in Kenya’s history. The reason after this is that post Independence; there have been three Presidents of Kenya. Two of them have been Kikuyu, the first president Jomo Kenyatta, and the current one Mwai Kibaki. This area has a Kikuyu majority, and during the Kenyatta administration Kikuyus were major benefactors and recipients of land and other subsidies. I learned about this in my Politics and Culture of Kenya class, but I was actually seeing this now. The houses were much bigger in the area and made with much nicer materials than the tin shanties that I had seen in much of the rural areas in Kenya. While physically the land did not look that much different than Machakos, in Ukambani area, Western Province (see earlier post), it was very apparent that the central province has had access to much more money.

The trip to the bird sanctuary was lackluster, it was fun to go hiking in the heavily wooded area that we were in, but at the same time it was pretty uneventful. We only saw a couple birds: an owl and some sort of dove, and a peacock as we were leaving the place, but it is interesting to note the difference in economic breakdown of the different areas in Kenya. I was hoping to get to see Mt. Kenya, but we were too far away and it was a hazy day so that was not possible. Stay tuned for Part II after my hopefully pending trip to the town closest to Mt. Kenya in Central Province this coming weekend for more on the area.