The Bahatian

  When broadcast journalist Njoroge Ng’ang’a, (left) also known as Captain, established his radio, little did he know what it takes to break even in own business having tasted success as an employee with different FM radio stations in the country. The idea of replicating same success in his own outfit was to prove elusive at first. But the man who began life as a supermarket attendant shares what he had so far learned in the process.   When you have an idea, don’t let it die   I began hosting breakfast shows in a now defunct radio station known as Touch FM that was broadcasting from Nakuru. It is from here that I honed my skills, or learning the ropes while working, as I had no training background in that field then, but had an innate speaking ability. By the time I was moving to Sauti ya Mwananchi FM radio, also in Nakuru, I had come with a very workable idea that would have seen me launching my own radio station within a short time in the foreseeable futur...

A view of village   Mention a chief, and the mental image you have is that of a village tyrant, or a carryover from the colonial era, whose roles may seem ambiguous at times. Not long ago, a friend of mine was pruning his trees, when two people walked up the path to his home. At first, he mistook them for visitors, until they identified themselves as from the local administration camp. To be specific, the unheralded visitors were an assistant chief and an administration policeman.   As my friend was trying to figure out what brought the pair to his home, he was put on notice that he was breaking the law. What law? He wondered. After a bit of dilly dallying, it was laid to him plainly that one needs a permit to either cut down or prune trees in own compound! In short, he was needed at the chief’s office to explain himself, but the ‘problem’ was solved through a Sh200 bribe that had the unwelcome visitors marching out of his compound.

Wanyororo House They stood as architectural masterpieces for long until new modern buildings began appearing around and eclipsing their worth. Neglect, and leveling down of others, has conspired to make the few standing relics of the colonial past stick out like sore thumbs. Some are on their death knell currently.   Had they been properly maintained, they would fetch the owners a tidy sum in the real estate market. Sadly, most of these buildings are in public land occupied by schools with the school management seeing wisdom in leveling them down to give way for modern classes. In sum, the schools managements seem intent in obliterating the last legacies of the colonial past.   A visit to places like Murunyu, Wanyororo, Danger, Bavuni, Tabuga, amongst a host of other places in Nakuru County, indicates the white settler inhabiting these buildings must have relied on the same Tabuga House architects in coming up with similar looking buildings, though they are...

Dawani River  That Dawani, or aptly put, Wanyororo River, is on a death knell is not in contention. Once upon a time, Dawani River was a mighty one. It meandered through villages filling three dams as its serpentine course took it all the way to Murunyu village and beyond from Wanyororo hills.   Today, this narrative is different. The far the river reaches (as of present) is Wanyororo dam behind the Catholic Church. Residents down the river claim that only when the rains are unrelenting, or at their peak, does the river flow the full course. To them, the river died a natural death not long ago, for what today passes for a river is a dry river bed that turns into a seasonal flow depending on rain patterns.