I have just finished reading Jagi Gakunju’s memoir, which he calls ‘Living on the Edge’. I think he couldn’t have chosen a better title. There’s a sub-title, too: ‘Adventures in Business and the Wild’. And there’s the keyword: adventure. It seems his whole life has been full of adventures. And some of them have involved risk.The opening chapter is one of the most startling I have ever read. His grandfather, Gathigi, was speared to death because he was thought to be a wizard. That was in Geitwa Village in what is now Murang’a County – and in a place where, as Jagi writes, dead and terminally ill people were thrown away.Gathigi’s wife and daughter were also put to death in the grimmest of ways, but his 10-year-old son was spared by the elders. That son, Jagi’s father, in 1935 became one of the first Africans in Kenya to be ordained a pastor.Jagi was born just before the Mau Mau uprising. At nine-years-old, he was living with his mother in one of the detention camps – called ‘protection camps’ by the loyalists. Jagi describes this experience in vivid detail. ‘Our heads were shaved clean, but still lice hid in the creases of our clothing. We learned how to squeeze the creases to kill them.Another method we used was boiling our clothing.’ Reflecting on those days, Jagi comments on how the experience of fighting in the Second World War made so many young Kenyans ready to fight for their country’s independence.And he came to recognise how the Mau Mau uprising could split his Kikuyu society and even families. As a devout Christian, his mother was firmly against the freedom fighters, but she also knew that one of her sons was a Mau Mau activist.One main strand of Jagi’s memoir is how, through education – Tambach Secondary School, Kapsabet High School, Strathmore College and University of Nairobi – he was able to build a successful career as a corporate executive. That is his business adventure. His first full-time position was with the international insurance company, Alico. He went on to become the head of AAR. It was a career that involved a good deal of travel – to the UK, USA and, especially, West Africa with Alico and to Tanzania with AAR.He also found time to make a non-business trip to India, Hong Kong and Thailand. For Jagi, travel became a key interest throughout his life. In his book, he writes, ‘I believe that one way of expanding one’s education is travel’.Jagi’s second main theme is adventure in the wild. That was an adventure that began while he was at the Kapsabet High School. He was selected for an Outward-Bound School’s course and a climb of Kilimanjaro. It is an experience that he treasures.‘I learned so much about the outdoors and acquired skills like map reading and team building. The experience also took away my fear of the unknown… It was perhaps the most important 21 days of my life.’Jagi went on to say that after leaving Kapsabet School, he had a ‘burning desire to see the world’. I am reminded of something Ali Mazrui said in his excellent TV series called ‘The Africans’. After showing a famous painting called ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’, where the young Walter Raleigh is seated and listening to an old sailor who is eagerly pointing out across the sea, Mazrui makes a distinction between Europeans and Africans.He says that when a European sees a horizon he wants to find out what is beyond it; whereas an African is likely to stay rooted where his ancestors are buried. This can’t be true of all Europeans and all Africans. Certainly, Mazrui never met the young Jagi Gakunju.Jagi’s first trip, on his own and with borrowed money, was to Uganda to see the source of the Nile at Jinja. At Strathmore, he found companions who enjoyed going on excursions such as climbing Ol Esakut and the Aberdares. He also persuaded a friend to join him on a hitchhike that took them through Kampala, Mwanza, Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Mombasa and back to Nairobi.When he was at the University of Nairobi, he became very active in its Travelling Theatre. He was acting in ‘The Trial of Dedan Kimathi’ by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Micere Mugo, who both accompanied the players when they performed in Lagos. He was also with the Travelling Theatre when they participated in a festival in Sarajevo.In 1983, with a group of conservation-minded friends, many of whom had been members of the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya while at school, he took the lead in founding the Uvumbuzi Club. This made it possible to indulge his love of adventuring. Over the years, they had many trips around Kenya and eastern Africa. But the most challenging and sometimes hilarious adventure was a trip to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, where the rivers running down from Angola dry up in the Kalahari Desert. He had persuaded 16 members of the club to join him. The road journey, by buses, matatus, trains and hitchhiking, took them – somewhat haphazardly – through Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and into Botswana.The Uvumbuzi Club continues to promote conservation through adventure travel. And Jagi himself, as well as supporting a surprising number of conservation organisations, has made a very personal contribution. He has made the home where he grew up into a 20-acre Wazee Nature Park.It is in Mukuruwe-ini in Nyeri County and in the hill country to the west of Sagana. One international travel guide, the Rough Guide to Kenya, calls it a magnet for ornithologists. But it attracts more than ornithologists. It says something about Jagi, too. He is not only a travelling man and a conservationist, but he is also a well-rooted family man. The small house where he grew up is a fascinating museum of photographs of his family, from his grandfather to his grandchildren.‘Living on the Edge’ will be available soon in Bookstop and the Textbook Centre.John Fox is Chairman of iDC Email: johnfox@idc.co.ke
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).