50, 50.1 June 2, 1968: Letters home from Barbara and Frank to their parents

50. June 2, 1968

Dear Mom and Dad, (Line from Barb)

June came in here with the most beautiful day! It was the first time we had seen the sun at 7 in the morning for about two weeks!  It was a welcome sight!  June first is a sort of Independence Day, the day that Kenya began to be a republic, not the official beginning. It’s when they declared themselves a republic. The day England recognized the Republic is in December. So there was a big celebration in Embu. We went down but arrived too late in the afternoon to get in on the festivities. 

We visited the Whites after we discovered that the celebrating was over. They had been downtown earlier and said it was much like Kenyatta Day, with lots of groups singing and dancing. It was a blazing hot day, and both of them got sunburned. It was also market day at Embu, and while there wasn’t  any dancing going on, there must have been a couple thousand people milling around in the marketplace. It was pretty exciting and as far as I could see, we were the only muzumgus (foreigners) in the place. We looked all around and at all the clothes on display. I found a beautiful yellow piece of nylon about four yards long with a gold brocade band sewn to one end for nineteen shillings. I think it is supposed to be used as a sari. The kids have had a lot of fun winding it all around themselves. It will go in the box for souvenirs.

I brought the tape recorder to the house to have another try at getting a tape ready for you. Everyone groaned. After listening to what we already had on the tape, I took the machine back to school. I am disappointed, for I thought it would be fun for you to hear us all, but it has turned into an impossible job, so we’ll call it quits.

Today we went on a drive around Mt. Kenya. This morning when we woke up, it was drizzling a little, and it was such a letdown after the beautiful day yesterday. We decided to go anyway, so packed up our boots, along with a lunch, and took off after breakfast. It was a little wet, but not enough to make the road to Embu too slick to travel. It rained off and on until we were a ways past Nyeri, on the west side of Mt. Kenya.

All along the way there were policemen standing along the road, and there were flags and signs saying, “Welcome our Beloved President”. The president for Zambia is visiting President Kenyatta, and they are taking a tour together through the Nyeri area. We waited almost half an hour once to get into Nairobi, because the President was on his way out of town. I suppose that’s the only way they can protect him.

Around Nyeri the fog was really thick,  and all the people looked so cold. We were feeling gloomier all the time. On past nyeri there is a big long level stretch, the White Highlands, I think, and all of a sudden the fog lifted and there was a brisk wind that sent clouds scudding across the sky, and the sun came out. It was wonderful, and in that particular section, you can look all the way to the horizon and not see a single person! Mt. Kenya shown out bright and clear, and we got some pictures from an angle we’d never seen before. There is a big Hereford ranch up there. We saw the sign and a few of his cows. The sign didn’t give the owner’s name, but we think it could belong to an American who is supposed to have a cattle ranch in that area.

We went on up to Nanyuki and then headed toward Isiolo. The country is real pretty, desert type with some hills and lots of brush, and large flat places with nothing but grass. The road is tarmac and in fairly good condition, so it was a pleasant trip. About fifteen miles from Isiolo we stopped and pulled off the road to eat lunch. It was one of those grassy plains and you would have thought you were out on the Rupert desert, except you could see the snowy peaks of Mt. Kenya sticking up in one place, and we saw two ostriches grazing about a half a mile away.  Way over on the other side through the field glasses, we saw a zebra dozing. Later we saw several herds of animals, but they were too far away to tell what they were.

After lunch we turned off toward Meru and decided to come on home from there instead of retracing our route like we had planned. It had turned out a lot drier than we thought it might. From Meru home, it was the same road home we had taken in the Land Rover, but it was a lot more comfortable, both because of the car and the fact that they had worked on the road with a road grader.

By this time it was really hot and it was hard to believe that we had left home wearing coats and feeling very chilly. We left at 8 in the morning and got back home at 4:30. It had cleared up here too and was nice and bright. I sure hope that is a good sign, and that the rest of June is going to be nice. Everyone says that the long rains should be over. This last week has had a shower every night with fog lasting to noon every day. I had to cancel a dinner party on Friday because the weather was so unpredictable, that I hated for the people to get stuck coming up from Embu. It really didn’t hurt my feelings too bad, as it was the Wallaces. We owe them and as they are terribly hard to carry on a conversation with, I’m not particularly looking forward to it. He is principal at the Agricultural Training Center at Embu, and they had us to dinner in February. Oh well, it will work out okay finally.

This week I finally got the mending done. I mended up the old sleeping bags and made flannel sheets for them. Now the kids all want to sleep in them. Before it was the “unlucky” ones that had to use them.

The chicks are still living and growing. Looks like they will make fryer size in about nine weeks.

I wish you could have seen Milt. Ellius found a baby swallow and gave it to him.  He fussed over it until we called him Mother Bird. It didn’t bother him one bit! He held the bird in his hand and cheeped to it, and it would open its mouth and he’d stick some chicken feed in and the bird ate it! Then he’d cheep again and drop some water from a straw into its mouth. It was just learning to fly, so he made a little nest in a can turned on its side and put it out on the veranda. It settled right down and he was so pleased. Then he and Amy found that it would eat a little bug they found, so they crawled around hunting bugs for it. Milt said he was glad he didn’t have to “mother” it any more. I was glad it didn’t die! Love Barb.

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50.1 June 2, 1968

Dear Folks, (Cochrane from Frank)

You are probably over at the coast right now. I’ve been wondering what everyone was doing this weekend and if things turned out the way you planned. We had a big celebration here this weekend, or I should say Saturday. Another Independence Day celebration. This one commemorates the day that they actually became self governing. The one in December commemorates the day the British signed the papers making it official. We were going to go to Embu to see some of the dancing, but got there too late.

We had two nice days, Saturday and today, although they started out trying to rain. We had been planning to take a drive over to Nanyuki, on the west side of Mt. Kenya. It was dry enough for us to get to the pavement, but then it started raining harder, and about Nyeri it was foggy and still raining, and we almost gave up. Finally as we got farther north and down to a lower altitude things began to warm up. It is a paved road all the way to Nanyuki, and we got there about 10:30 in the morning. We decided to scout the road further north in prospects for a trip later on to the Samburu Game Reserve. The road got much worse, but we kept going until we were straight north of the Mountain at the Isiolo turnoff. That was about 1 pm and we stopped to eat lunch. It was real nice. We only saw one African all the time we were eating and he was quite a ways away. Now that is unusual to say the least! The country was open grassland, and you could see and see! It was also warm which we really appreciated after the last month of cold rainy weather. We discovered from studying the map that we were very close to Meru, so decided to continue on around the Mountain, as we were closer to home that way, even though there would be nothing but gravel and dirt road for the next 105 miles. It turned out to be a pretty fair road as it had been graded in places, and we made it home in an hour less than retracing our steps The roads were a fright the last 25 miles before we ate lunch, and we discovered then that the front wheels were badly out of alignment. It had been driving like a truck for the last few weeks, but I didn’t pay much attention, because when you drive in the ruts around here you expect poor handling. Anyhow that is the next job to have done. Nairobi will be the nearest place to get it done.

We may try to go to Nakuru to their Agricultural Show next weekend. I may be able to wrangle a day out of school for that trip. That is if I can get the car fixed before then. If not I will stay home and go fishing.

The next few weekends are pretty well taken up. Some friends are coming up the week after next, and we are supposed to go fishing. But since we made those arrangements I found out that I have to go to a Young Farmers’ Field Day and tell them how to judge pigs. The following weekend we are going up to Egoji, near Meru, and then we have to set a date with Dr. Bevan to go to Samburu. At least we are not setting home wasting time, it’s just that school gets in our way sometimes!

We got out the tapes that we recorded for you but decided not to send them; they are that terrible. Guess you will have to wait until we get up the courage to try again. I have to get some letter writing done. Last week I read a book, so I have better get things caught up. All for now. Love, Frank