Echoes From a Distant Land

by Frank Coates

  He felt quite sure he was not the first or only black Kenyan to have failed to raise finance for a business venture. He wondered what others did when faced with similarly prejudicial treatment.

  He made enquiries in the villages around Nairobi and found dozens of situations where a small loan would make an enormous difference to people’s lives. A farmer might need cash for seeds or farm implements; a pastoralist a loan to buy a good blood-stock ram or bull to improve the quality of his stock. None of the banks were interested, even though the risk could be secured against assets and was covered by the better returns in crops or produce. Even an Indian immigrant who wanted to start a small duka by the roadside could get a loan, but an African villager wanting to do the same could not.

  This brought to mind Ira’s words encouraging him to use his inheritance to improve the life of his fellow Africans. He began to see his failure to secure finance as a sign that he should follow Ira’s advice. But it wouldn’t be a charity. It would be a business based on growth through participation at the village level.

  He began a trial operation in a handful of villages where he knew the chiefs were honest and able to keep accurate records. For those who were not adept at record-keeping, he insisted they employ someone from the village, usually a young man educated at a mission school, to do the job for them.

  It was the beginning of Sam’s bank — a bank with no name, no buildings or offices, no office bearers, and no commission agents except the local chiefs who put forward clients they knew and trusted and who collected the repayments. Word spread. Within a year Sam had hundreds of small loans placed with dozens of villages all over Kikuyuland.

  Occasionally there were defaulters who couldn’t meet the cash repayments and he sometimes found himself the owner of a cow or a dozen goats. This sideline grew into a profitable stock and produce business that he spun off into a subsidiary while he remained focused on the bank.

  When a storm or fire destroyed a crop or other livelihood, the chief would send word to Sam who would visit to arrange a loan. He soon became every small farmer’s hero.

  His reputation spread, and he was soon a successful businessman, unknown in the white business community, but one much admired and loved by his fellow Africans.

  Sam bought a run-down farm in Kiambaa, about ten miles out of Nairobi, surrounded by twenty acres of good pasture and forty acres of forest. He enjoyed the solitude, but was seldom there, spending his time travelling to the various villages that constituted the branches of his bank, now called the Rural Bank of Kenya for legal reasons imposed upon him by the government.

  He retained his small flat in the grounds of the Muthaiga Club although he let his membership lapse. He now found it unpleasant to deal with members of Nairobi’s business world. He had lost money on the coffee scheme, but it was the manner in which he had been treated by the bank and the shallowness of people he had liked and respected that created the lingering distaste. He now preferred to deal with simple African farmers and had no need for the social life and the type of company on offer at the Muthaiga Country Club.

  However, he found the Muthaiga flat convenient when he was in town on business, and kept up the rent. It was also useful on the occasions when he found a woman whose company he could enjoy for a day or so. He managed to avoid any longer term commitments, no matter how charming these women were in his bed, because his busy upcountry schedule kept them at a safe distance.

  The expansion of the bank was restricted as Sam was its only source of capital, but it grew slowly, enabling him to extend his network into other tribal areas. Soon he had at least a small presence in most parts of the country.

  Jomo Kenyatta came out of the New Stanley Hotel as Sam was entering it. Kenyatta had gained a few pounds and now sported a beaded rimless hat and a colobus monkey-fur fly whisk. As far as Sam was concerned, the outfit was all part of Kenyatta’s self-promotion.

  The two men seldom met, but when they did, it usually resulted in a mental joust or a barely restrained slanging match.

  Kenyatta was also sporting an attractive woman on his arm. He’d heard that Kenyatta had married a white woman during his stay in England, but had left her there, choosing instead to find a Kikuyu wife more appropriate to his political aspirations.

  ‘Ah, Wangira,’ Kenyatta said, beaming. ‘You are looking extremely fine this morning.’

  There was no doubt he had the attributes of a successful politician. His smile could be quite disarming.

  ‘Thank you, Jomo,’ Sam replied. ‘Good morning. And good morning to you, ma’am,’ he added, nodding to the woman on Kenyatta’s arm.

  ‘You see, my dear. That’s what an American education can do for you. Good manners, like a true southern gentleman.’

  But Kenyatta didn’t bother to introduce his wife, preferring to go on the attack.

  ‘I hear you are becoming something of a capitalist in the reserve,’ he said.

  ‘You mean the Rural Bank of Kenya? It fills a need, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re missing the point, my friend. You can’t buy the Kikuyu’s allegiance with shillings.’

  ‘What makes you think I need allegiances? I’m a businessman, meeting people’s requirements.’

  Kenyatta studied Sam in silence for a moment. He had the most compelling eyes. Sam had seen him demolish opponents in a debate before he opened his mouth by the sheer power of his presence. Sam was aware of Kenyatta’s tactics and didn’t flinch under his gaze.

  ‘If you’d come along to our meetings, as I’ve suggested on so many occasions,’ Kenyatta said, ‘you’d find out that the most important thing on every Kenyan’s mind — in fact, every African’s mind — is his land.’

  ‘You may be right. But I know he also needs the capital to develop it. Kenya can’t build a nation on subsistence farming. That’s the fate of a colony; and we must make whatever changes needed to make the break.’

  ‘Pah! While you were being indoctrinated into capitalism in America, I was studying agrarian reform in Russia. They know about the importance of land. Every communist is a Kikuyu at heart.’

  ‘But is every Kikuyu a communist at heart?’ Sam countered. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m an African first, a Kenyan and a Kikuyu. Where do you stand?’

  ‘What makes you think I’m not all of those things?’

  ‘Because you are too close to the imperialists. You and your fancy American accent and your British banker’s ways. Be careful, my friend. Be very careful.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there will come a time when you will be asked to state your allegiance. And your very life may depend upon your answer.’

  As Sam was visiting one of his bank’s representatives in the Embu District, four hundred miles away in Abyssinia, a dense cloud darkened the sparse grasslands. It floated over Abyssinia’s southern border with Kenya where the candelabra euphorbia stood like sentinels and the spiky sansevieria blades poked holes in the breeze. Turkana herdsmen tending their goats and camels looked up in awe at the cloud, and Turkana children ran to find hiding places.

  Locusts had not been sighted in East Africa for more than thirty years; and what had now caused this plague of biblical proportions was unknown, but they came from faraway Egypt in such numbers they turned day into night.

  Millions of them died in the wide waters of Lake Rudolph, but countless billions more continued south, into the wooded hills of the Pokots’ land, and onwards to the Mau escarpment where they tumbled into the Great Rift Valley like a black avalanche. There they devoured maize and millet, leaving the fields festooned with broken and bare stems. Beans, barley, lucerne and other forage crops disappeared under their onslaught and, when all the more nutritious vegetation was taken, they consumed even the thin covering of valley grasses — the last vestige of fodder for the herds and flocks.

  The swarm climbed the Kikuyu escarpment and, for a day or so, Sam and the farmers of the fertile hills outside Nairobi held their breath, hopi
ng the prevailing northerly winds would sweep the plague southwards down the Great Rift Valley. But the northerly dropped and the locusts invaded the lush food gardens of Kikuyuland.

  When the plague descended on Kiambaa, Sam watched the sky darken, then dashed outside to rally his staff to pen his small herd of cattle while he lassoed his horse and took it to the stable.

  For the remainder of the day, all he could do was to stand at the window of his Kiambaa farmhouse and watch his twenty acres of pasture disappear. Meanwhile, in Nairobi, no garden, bush or vegetable was spared.

  Within three months, it was obvious to Sam that many of his farming clients would be forced to default on their loans.

  He thought the bank might survive the disaster, but another, even greater calamity was looming much further away. It had nothing to do with drought or pestilence, famine or flood, but it was to prove more devastating than any to Sam’s finances.

  Many thought the Wall Street crash of 1929 would remain a localised phenomenon, but it grew tentacles that eventually reached to all corners of the world.

  From the blistering heat of the Amboseli Plains came a Maasai herder carrying his load of cattle hides to the trading post at Namanga. He dumped the fifty-pound load on the weighing machine at the duka, and waited while the Indian trader weighed them.

  He had no use for cash other than to pay his poll tax; and he made this, his annual pilgrimage, in preparation for the tax collector’s visit.

  The herder couldn’t read or write, nor could he tally the various brass weights being loaded on the other side of the balance, but he knew to within half a pound that his load was the same as the one he’d carried forty miles to Namanga last season.

  The trader scribbled figures on a pad, counted out a few notes and a handful of coins and slid them across the counter to the herder.

  The Maasai’s face fell before he erupted into a tirade in Maa, jabbering about the price offered and accusing the Indian of thievery.

  The Indian understood not a word, but the Maasai wasn’t the first in his store to complain. He returned fire in Parsi, telling the Maasai that it was not his fault that the Mombasa merchants had dropped the price from thirty shillings per frasila to six.

  The Indian trader couldn’t explain the price fall. He knew nothing of the chain of events following the collapse of the New York stock market. He didn’t know that unemployment in Europe had soared and people could no longer afford new shoes. Shoe stores cancelled standing orders. Footwear factories slashed their leather orders and the tanners cut back their demand for hides. Dramatic falls across all the industries were occurring all over Europe.

  The Maasai herder had never heard of Europe and most of Sam’s clients never suspected events on the other side of the world could affect them. They did, and the Rural Bank of Kenya went into bankruptcy.

  Sam paid off the few staff he had, and let them take any of the farmhouse furniture or fittings they wanted. Then he sold the Kiambaa farm for a pittance, and prepared to move his personal effects to the Muthaiga flat.

  The new owner would take the cattle and other livestock. Sam wanted to keep his horse, but couldn’t find a way and regretfully left it too.

  He took the little mare for one last ride over the dirt tracks surrounding Kiambaa. He enjoyed riding and it reminded him of his time as a horse-breaker in the American west. Riding always made it easier for him to think; and he again wrestled with the question of his future. He had very little money. His only asset was Ira’s electrical business and patents, which were virtually worthless in the present financial situation.

  As he unsaddled the mare he knew that if he could somehow find work with horses it might overcome the bitter taste left from the collapse of his business, and the financial ruin of his many clients.

  CHAPTER 18

  1930

  Edward was reading a month-old Times from the latest bundle of newspapers to arrive from London.

  ‘Do we really think this Labour chap, Ramsay MacDonald, can do anything about this wretched Depression?’ He gave the page an irritated flick. ‘The market’s still floundering, for goodness’ sake!’

  Dana picked up the Sunday Express and casually flipped through the articles as she nibbled on a piece of toast. She fingered the lion-fang pendant sitting at her throat on a short silver chain. Faizal’s friend had done an excellent job, setting the base of the fang in a silver clasp with a tiny lion motif engraved on it.

  She knew enough to let her husband have his rant, which he didn’t confine to politics. He fumed about the state of the roads, the weather and anyone who displeased him. In the latter case he could carry a grudge for years; the 10th Earl of Seddon was not a man to forgive and forget.

  After ten years of marriage, they’d arrived at something of an accommodation. Edward would allow her the occasional extravagance, such as her taste for fashionable clothing, and she would not remind him that he had lost most of his family’s inheritance by gambling too heavily on the stock market. The crash of the year before was still recent enough for her to draw down on the reserves of Edward’s guilt in cash for her occasional extra needs. He had, however, recently drawn the line at adding to her small thoroughbred herd, and no prompting of implicit guilt, sexual persuasion, or sulking could alter his decision.

  Jonathan appeared at the end of the veranda. He shuffled his feet to indicate he had something to say.

  ‘Yes, Jonathan?’ she asked.

  ‘There is a man to see you, memsahib.’

  ‘What man, Jonathan?’

  The servant mumbled his reply.

  Edward, scowling over his newspaper, demanded he speak up.

  ‘It is the matter I told memsahib about many days ago,’ he said, this time louder than necessary.

  ‘Blasted impertinence!’ Edward snorted. ‘Keep a respectful tongue in your head, boy, or I’ll have it knocked out of you.’

  ‘It’s all right, dear. I’ll go see to it.’

  Dana followed Jonathan outside, through the flower garden enclosure, to the stable. It was one of her casual farm labourers, an itinerant, who a month ago had asked Jonathan to pass on the information that he knew someone who had a small horse. Curious, Dana had pressed him for details. The horse was for sale, he’d said, but when Dana questioned him further, he became coy and defensive, as if he had inadvertently admitted to a crime, which Dana thought could quite possibly be the case.

  She dismissed the fellow, not wanting to become involved. If this someone knew someone who had stolen a horse, then it was not a matter for her. She was not about to assume the position of policeman.

  It was not uncommon that a native came to her with a story fabricated to grab her attention. Invariably there was no substance in them. She assumed they liked her to think they knew someone important — important enough to own something like a horse. Or perhaps it was just to gain the kudos for holding the memsahib’s attention for the few moments it took to spin a story.

  She asked the man what he wanted this time and he again repeated his story about his friend and the small horse, but that the small horse was now sick.

  ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ she asked the man sternly. The thought of a sick horse disturbed her, but she was not yet convinced the story was genuine.

  ‘My friend would like to know if the memsahib who also owns a horse would like to buy this beautiful small horse, which is also now very sick, and also maybe will soon die.’

  The man’s candour seemed to suggest he was telling the truth. Perhaps there was indeed a horse for sale, but what convinced her to investigate further was that this horse, small though it may be, might soon die unless someone did something about it.

  She sent a small boy who had been idling near the stable to tell Edward she was on an errand and followed the man to a clearing in the forest about a mile away. It was surrounded by a thorn boma sufficient to keep the predators at bay, but too small for the horse, which, apart from being a runt, was on the brink of starvation. Dana
could immediately see why. The enclosure had not a blade of grass. Whatever it might have had at the outset had long ago been consumed, leaving the packed, dry earth devoid of growth. Strewn around the enclosure were tufts of the near indigestible fibrous stalks of forest grass, of such poor quality as to be impossible to sustain the creature for any length of time. The little filly was not sick, it was starving. It was such a sweet thing, she was prepared to pay the man his price, but she didn’t want to be accused of theft, so she asked how he came to have the horse.

  He said another Kikuyu had given him the horse.

  ‘I have not heard of any Kikuyu who keep horses,’ she said.

  He agreed and said that even he didn’t believe the man was a Kikuyu because he wore mzungu clothes, but spoke Kikuyu fluently.

  Dana had limited knowledge of such matters, but thought the little horse was an Abyssinian, meaning it was probably already at its full height, but the breed was famed for stamina and endurance. It was doubtful the filly had a pedigree unless generations of wild horses, bred within the confines of the towering canyons of Abyssinia, could be considered a case of line breeding.

  She hadn’t thought beyond getting the filly back to health, but as she led her to the farm, she formed an idea — an idea that might require some persuasion before Edward would agree. It was, however, an idea that excited her, and could help overcome the boredom of her isolation out there on the edge of the Aberdare Ranges.

  Dana was emerging into the bright light of morning when she saw Jonathan returning to the yard at the head of his half-dozen men.

  ‘Did you find him, Jonathan?’

  ‘No, memsahib.’

  She’d sent the men to scour the thickets around the farmhouse for her new yearling colt — the young thoroughbred she’d bought just after she rescued the filly from the forest.

  She glanced at the filly in the enclosure beside the stable. In the months following her rescue, she had quickly regained her condition with the help of the nutritious Kipipiri grasses. She was a beautiful little mottled grey, with a snow-white mane and tail and a heart bigger than herself, and Dana had named her Dancer for her spirited high-stepping gait. It was her purchase of Dancer that had given her the idea of starting a breeding program.