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KERICHO |
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KERICHO , named after the early English tea planter John Kerich, is
Kenya's tea capital , a fact that - with much hype from the tourism
machine embellished by the presence of the Tea Hotel - is not likely to
escape you. Its equable climate and famously reliable, year-round
afternoon rain showers make it the most important tea-growing area in
Africa. While many of the European estates have been divided and
reallocated to small farmers since Independence, the area is still
dominated by giant tea plantations. Compact and orderly, Kericho itself
seems as neat as the serried rows of bushes that surround it. The
central square has shady trees and flowering bushes - a bandstand would
make it complete - and even the matatu park has lawns around it. It's a
gentle, hassle-free place to wander, the people mild-mannered. Clipped,
clean and functional, there's little of the shambolic appearance of most
up-country towns. And, in many ways, it's an oddity. With so many people
earning some sort of salary on the tea plantations or in connection with
them, and so few acres under food or market crops, the patterns of small-town
life are changed here. Most workers live out on the estates, their
families often left behind in the home villages. Kericho is above all an
administrative and shopping centre, and a relay point for the needs of
the estates. The produce market is small and trading limited. Everything
seems to close at 5pm.
In town, there's a substantial Asian population. Many of the streets
have a strikingly oriental feel - single-storey dukas fronted by
colonnaded walkways where the plantation "memsahibs" of forty or fifty
years ago presumably did their shopping. This curious, composite picture
is completed by the grey stone Holy Trinity Church , with its small
assembly of deceased planters in a miniature cemetery. Straight out of
the English shires and entwined with creepers, it tries so hard to be
Norman that it's a pity to point out that it was only built in 1952.
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