Childhood on a Settler Farm: Growing Up in the Shadow of Power

 My childhood began on land that did not belong to us.

It was in Sergoit, on a vast, mechanized farm owned by the Kruger family, Boer settlers who had made Kenya their home decades earlier. By the time I was born, the rhythms of the farm were already established: who owned, who worked, who decided, and who obeyed.

My father was a laborer there. 

We lived in what were called kambis, clusters of workers’ houses spread across the farm: Kabao, Soin, Kambi Ya Juu, and Kaprison. Each had rows of small, closely spaced houses, built not for comfort, but for function. Our first home in Kabao was a single-room brick structure near the school, exposed to the harsh winds that swept down from Sergoit Hill. At night, the wind could tear at the iron sheets, and my father would place stones on the roof to hold it down, an act that felt both ordinary and symbolic of how fragile our place there was.

The farm was not just where we lived. It defined how we lived.

Work, movement, even small freedoms existed within an unspoken order. My father tended cattle in a boma near our house, and I often followed him. At dusk, he would count the animals carefully before handing over to the night guard. The cattle were counted with precision; the workers, less so.

As children, we did not fully understand the system around us but we felt it.

We played in the same spaces where labor unfolded: cattle sheds, sheep pens, open fields. The boma, with its feeding trough, reminded me of the nativity story we heard in church. Yet unlike that sacred image, this was a place of work, discipline, and routine. Even in play, we were within the boundaries of someone else’s world.

In 1978, we moved to Soin. The house was larger but older, grass-thatched and worn. I disliked it immediately. It was far from school—nearly five kilometers—and that distance quietly disrupted my education. Such shifts were not choices we made; they were consequences of a system we had little control over.

Yet within these constraints, life found its own rhythm.

The farm brought together people from different communities. We were the only Marakwet family, yet we lived alongside Luhya, Kalenjin, and others. Out of necessity and proximity grew friendships, shared languages, and mutual respect. In that sense, the farm was both restrictive and strangely unifying.

Still, the boundaries of power were always present.

We knew them when we went hunting, even though it was forbidden. The land was vast and full of life: antelopes, hares, birds...but it was not ours to use. When we defied those rules, the consequences were swift. The farm owner would pursue us in his green Land Cruiser, shouting threats, sometimes firing shots. To us, it was a mix of fear and thrill. Looking back, it was also a clear reminder: even the wild animals were considered his.

Control extended in quieter ways too.

Milk, a staple of daily life, was distributed at a central point near the dairy. Every evening, workers’ families gathered to receive skimmed milk. It was a small but essential provision—one that reinforced both dependence and routine. We waited eagerly, turning the wait into play, climbing trees and kicking balls in the dust. As children, we saw the fun. As adults, we might see the structure behind it.

Even leisure had its boundaries.

There was one shop, Duka Moja, run by a farm manager. One main football field. One system that organized life across the farm. Yet within those limits, people created community: football teams, church gatherings, holiday celebrations. During Christmas, cows were slaughtered for workers, and the farm briefly transformed into a place of shared festivity. It was generosity, but also a reminder of who provided and who received.

For me, what stands out is not just the hardship, but the complexity.

We were not simply victims, nor were we fully free. We lived in between finding joy where we could, building friendships across cultures, creating meaning in small moments. As children, we turned spaces of labor into playgrounds, rules into challenges, and limitations into stories.

But the structure was always there.

It shaped where we lived, how we moved, what we could do, and even what we imagined was possible.

And yet, from within that world, we grew.