Muumandu.com
In the spring of 1910 was an important day in the history of the Akamba people of
Muumandu Hill. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America arrived
at Konza railway station shortly
after mid-day on a locomotive train from Mombasa.
The officer in the Caboose gesticulated the train to a halt. He gazed on the open
range of the kapiti (Wapiti) plains covered with endless herds of wild life:
lions,
rhinoceros, elephants, buffalo herds and killer biting-mosquitoes. These are the
meanest and most dangerous of the animal kingdom. Their callousness has claimed
tens of thousands of lives of great hunters, missionaries, explorers, and native
hunters through the centuries, including a famous British game hunter who was commissioned
to search for and kill the famous man-eaters of Tsavo. The President came into fruition
that he had arrived at Kenya’s best hunting ground.
Later that evening from his
tent he wrote, “When I speak of Africa and golden joys, the joy of wondering through
lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness,
the cunning, the
wary and grim.” Teddy Roosevelt.
The President was welcomed by the
Akamba people of Muumandu Hill. In his safari journal (diary) Roosevelt describes
dark-skinned peo
pleople who were like, cattle-owning nomads. He was speaking
about
the Akamba tribe who lived in strings of villages fudging Muumandu Hills. From this
vantage point, the President saw a mountain whose snow cap was dazzling under the
equatorial sun. The
mountain is no other than Mt. Kilimanjaro, mushrooming 19,000
feet above the earth, about 160 Kilometers south. The President asked the (then)
British Trading Company to build water towers on Muumandu Hill and other surrounding
hills in Machakos for the natives to draw clean drinking water for themselves, irrigation
and for their animals. Nothing was done at that time, not during the Colonial rule,
and not even after Kenya received her Independence. The Administrators were not interested
in helping or equipping the Akamba people except to exploit them.
Dr. Solomon Kimuyu
is committed to make that dream come true with the help of his American friends and
to put to rest the forgotten story. Somewhere in these suspicious hills water tower
tanks, Health Clinics and the Leadership Center will be built at Muumandu Hill. Insert
from
“Leadership” ©Solomon kimuyu2008
